Abiding... a paper for elevate

John 15:1-11

1 “I am the (A)true vine, and my Father is (B)the vinedresser. 2 (C)Every branch in me that does not bear fruit (D)he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, (E)that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already (F)you are clean (G)because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 (H)Abide (I)in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; (J)you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that (K)bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me (L)he is thrown away like a branch and withers; (M)and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If (N)you abide in me, and my words abide in you, (O)ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 (P)By this my Father is glorified, that you (Q)bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 (R)As the Father has loved me, (S)so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 (T)If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as (U)I have kept (V)my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, (W)that my joy may be in you, and that (X)your joy may be full (Biblegateway.com).

           

            This passage is basically saying to remain or abide in Jesus. Outside of Jesus there is no life, no ability to glorify God, and only death by fire. Jesus is says first that he abides in the father, and the father loves him as he loves us. Therefore we should abide in Jesus as he abides in the father. Then he goes on to say that out side of the branch there is no fruit produced. The branch is the life source to the vine and the vine the life source to the fruit. Without the life source there cannot be life. Jesus also states that if the vine does not produce fruit the vinedresser or God will cut it off or prune it. So basically the only way to live is to live by abiding in Jesus because he abides in God, and the only way to produce fruit is through the branch (Jesus). Without the branch there is no life, no fruit, and only a withered death.

            The first part of this text it makes me feel like I need to go “do” something for God. After further analysis of the text it is quite the opposite. It means to abide – it asks us to abide. So that begs the question what does abide mean? According to Steve Hawthorne the Greek root word for abide literally means to rest. In order to produce something you must “rest” in Jesus, who in turn rests in the father. By abiding in Jesus we are bringing glory to the father and we will produce much fruit. Outside of Jesus it is all a waste – nothing can happen out side or apart from the branch. The vine cannot live with out its life source. In fact if we live apart from Jesus the Bible says we will burn! We will either be cut off and burn a fiery death.

            How do I abide? What does it look like to rest in Jesus. This is a complex answer for me, and I often find my self in a whirlwind striving to make this happen, which is actually the exact opposite. To rest in Jesus means to trust him. To let him be God and me be child. It reminds me that am loved and his beloved, and I am not running for acceptance, but running from acceptance. So when I make decisions I am not making them based on my own understanding or abilities – just hoping God approves – but I am making them with him. The word “abide” reminds me to remember. He is with me, the Bible God says “I will never leave you nor forsake you”. I so often forget that he will never leave me, not for a second. What happens is I turn and face another direction and attempt to do it myself, and realize I cannot do it on my own. I simply do not have enough, nor do I have anything to pour out without God. Everything I have comes from him – the branch – so how could I possibly live apart from him? Or even better why would I want to? It seems so often that I hit a wall, get tired and fed up, and then I remember … “Oh yeah...I’m not here to do it on my own…”. I was never made to make it on my own. That’s why Jesus gave this example. It makes so much sense when you look at it like this. If I were a vine I would die within hours if I were cut off from the branch. I would not be able to get food, water, or any of the nutrients I would need to live.

            The next part of the verse that also so often causes me to “strive” is producing fruit. It is so tempting for me to switch gears into performance mode, and just think about goals and objectives. Can I just say, what a miserable life, always trying to please people who sometimes will never be satisfied and will constantly find fault. Can I also say, what a miserable life always trying to please God. Before you read that wrong let me explain. The truth (according to the Bible) is that he DELIGHTS in us. We are the apple of his eye. We are so loved by God. Why would God say over and over that he is delighted in us if he was dissatisfied? Or wanted a better effort? You see we are already loved and accepted by God – so life is not about trying to please a distant ethereal god in heaven. It’s about first being loved and then over flowing and longing to love Him back. For example, sharing the gospel. So many people think this is a terrible idea…but if you are first loved by God and you truly believe it why on earth would you not want to glorify your father? Why on earth would you not want someone else to know how great he is? I don’t know about you but I love God more than I am worried about inconveniencing someone at the grocery store. It’s all about a heart of worship. I am so loved by God that I LONG and DESIRE to love him. And by loving him I am obeying him, and his word. I’m pretty sure I could go on and on about this topic because it is one that I just didn’t understand for so long. Now that I have this understanding my whole lens has shifted, how I feel loved by God, how I serve him, how I receive love from others. Last example, think of your children – would you be heart broken if they spent their whole lives trying desperately to please you and even though you told them everyday you delighted in them – they worked themselves sick. That happens more times than not with people who are trying to serve God. I would say worship Him, because you were first loved.

             I am the first to say I am NOT the best at this. I know it in my head, but I am still understanding it in my heart. Applying this to my life has been an absolute joy. When I do at times live life at 100% peace, just “resting” in Jesus – I feel so secure. My feet are soundly on the rock. I don’t feel anxious, or stressed, because I know I am taken care of. I also don’t feel the need to strive or perform for anyone! Because I am already delighted in. I choose to obey God because I love him – so I still do what his word says, but it’s not from a place of pleasing, but a place of worship. When I do share the gospel with someone or try to encourage someone at work its so easy because I want them so badly to know the love of God. I am the representative here, I am the vine that reaches my sphere of influence, and it is my delight! I have to remain in the branch to live, to understand, and to be able to overflow with the love of God.

           

A Better Baking Experience

This is not an original idea, I saw it on cup cake wars, but I didn't follow a recipe. It is hard for me to have fun and be creative when I have to follow a recipe. Today I made clementine chocolate fudge cupcakes. YUM!! First things first - preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

First I cut the clementines in half and juiced them- Yummmm. I am going to use the juice to make a peach/clementine tea tomorrow for the Superbowl. We have some friends coming over so I thought I would try it. I'm not sure I've ever had it before, but I'll let you know how it goes. I sampled some today and thought it was really good! 

Then I made the cake mix. Again I usually use Duncan Hines out of the box. Its so much faster, and I feel like I have the ability to be creative and create something new. Of course there is no replacing homemade - my mom makes incredible homemade EVERYTHING and I love love love it. But for me I just feel cramped by long, time consuming directions (haha). Saturdays are my cleaning and creative days (when I make stuff for my Etsy store) so to take more than an hour to bake something is not refreshing. Anyways I used a chocolate fudge mix. It was sooo tempting to lick the bowl, but I refrained :).

Next cover a cupcake tin with foil and place your clementine halves in the holes. Spoon in the batter until the clementine shell is a little over half full. Then pop it into the oven for about 20 mins. I checked them every 7 mins. to make sure they weren't burning. 

Clementine infused chocolate fudge cupcakes...yum. The guy that did this on cupcake wars used an orange. The first time I made these I used an orange, but the orange flavor was a little strong and I wanted to make mini cupcakes for the Superbowl - so this time I used clementines. You could use lemon too to make a lemon french vanilla cupcake.

There they are .. so cute! Clementine cupcakes!! I like how they lean to the side because it adds a little character :). These would be super cute for a baby shower or child's birthday party. 

My Favorite Reading Nook

My favorite place in our cozy little apartment is the reading nook. For some reason they created a little cut out next to the kitchen, I'm thinking a washer and dryer used to be there - I kind of wish they still were there. But they aren't, so we created a reading nook. It was really Wes' idea, he wanted to watch me cook and be able to talk to me (so sweet). Anyways we built our corner around the idea of the perfect chair. We found our perfect chair for the perfect price at IKEA. It was about $200.00, but we love it and literally use it everyday. 

Can I just say I LOVE volcano candles. They smell awesome and literally fill our entire apartment with a homey clean  scent- not too heavy and not too light.

This our beloved foot rest. We literally hiked a mile in snow, up hill, with winds of at least 30mph, and were wearing heavy duty onesies (Wes gets mad when I call them that, they were made for hunting). When we found the perfect tree Wes hand sawed the tree down.... I know what a man. Then we proceeded to carry all of it back to the car. It was exhausting! It counted as work out the entire Christmas break.  I designed this months ago and was just waiting for the opportunity to chop down a tree. I didn't think that would ever happen so I just tucked it away, but Wes made it happen :). So when we got home I pulled out my sketches and bought the rope from Lowes. I made it in a way that it would have a little built in give for comfort. I love the raw- natural look and we have a great memory behind it. 

                                                                  

I love these chalk boards because they didn't cost a dime! These are actually the boxes some of my wedding gifts came in (made of cardboard). I just painted them with black chalk board paint, cut off strips of burlap and hot glued them to the back, and then wrote on the boxes with chalk. EASY! They look like wood, and bring personality to the space.

Taadaa.. the whole space all together. The weird cream rectangular thing on the wall is the leaf to our kitchen table... yep. As I mentioned in an earlier post we literally have not storage space at all. Sooo I hung it on the wall tied a piece of burlap around it and tucked some lavender in it. It looks a little odd but it works. I hung it over the electrical panel so it covered that ugly eye-sore. Something else that I like is the blanket over the chair. I like that it makes the space look lived in and even more comfortable by creating more texture, and the best part is that it covers the white chair (just incase). The floor lamp is from Pottery Barn - we had gift cards from our wedding, but another great place to find lamps like this is Tuesday Morning or another re-sale store. I actually found a bedside lamp for Wes' night stand that is the mini version from Tuesday Morning.




The last thing to note about this corner is how much we put into one corner and by creating height on both sides it feels balanced. We really maximized the limited amount of space of our kitchen by utilizing this corner. The corner now has a purpose instead of just a piece of furniture, or just being a corner. It's almost like we added a room to our house. When looking at the corner the table leaf on the wall would really stick out like a sore thumb if I didn't balance it with the cake stand and giant mason jar on top of the book shelves. Lastly, the white makes it the perfect reading corner and gives off a peaceful vibe. 

So I tried to make a cake...

Well.. happy birthday Jon, I made you a red, hot pink, and blue cake. It started well, baking the actual cake went really well! I made him a red velvet cake. I just used the box because my schedule is pretty full and I only had 1 hour to make the cake. I always use Duncan Hines cake mix because they seem to come out more moist (just my personal experience). I baked it in two 9" pans for 30 mins. and it came out perfect! Hurray - this is a victory for me :). Then after it cooled I began icing it (mistake #1 - you should rub off crumbs lightly before you begin icing - advice from my mom an expert) my white cream cheese base color quickly became red mixed with cake crumbs. At this point I got pretty frustrated because it ruined my endeavors to make a perfect birthday cake. But then it got even worse when I put the food coloring into the icing and realized i didn't buy red... I bought pink! Yikes..no guy wants a pink cake! So I kept adding more hoping it would get darker, but instead it just turned hot pink. Bummer. Oh well other than the funky colors and the crumby icing I'm sure it will taste good, and my writing on the cake came out pretty decent!


 - Things I wish I did: 1) rub the crumbs off the cake. 2) Checked the food dye before I put it in the icing.
 - Things I wish I DIDN'T do: 1) Buy hot pick food dye. 2) Sprinkle the top of the cake with red sprinkles - it came out uneven and it makes the cake look messy and a little too busy.


Anyways here are the pictures! Enjoy laughing at my hot pink icing. My mom and I took a cake decorating class at Central Market last summer so my lettering and edge designs are a little rusty, but it was sooo fun! I highly recommend it.

Estate sales, antique stores, & re-sale stores

My husband and I live in a charming, TINY apartment. I love the character of the older apartment complex but have serious issues with the electrical bill and the limited space. I don't have any ideas on helping out with the electric bill, but being a maximizer and an adapter I do have some ideas on how to cope with the limited space. Being a designer I have a high standard for the way it looks and being a newly wed I am picky about how much it costs. So for starters I get everything from estate sales, antique stores, flee markets, and re-sale stores. The goal is to buy the "skeleton" not the prettiest piece of furniture in the store. Then once you get it home just clean it off if it's dusty and buy a $3.00 can of spray paint and you are good to go! You can also sand down the furniture depending on the finish and re- stain it. It's so affordable and then you have an awesome piece of furniture made of solid wood and great quality for a great price. I have found that at the same price if you go to places like IKEA and target for furniture you will end up with laminate finishes (or fake wood) and poor structure.  Don't get me wrong there are some things I love at IKEA that you would have a hard time finding at estate sales - for example a clean, unused, white over sized chair.  We bought one not too long ago which we really enjoy, and we got it for a great price. After studying textiles I have a hard time buying used furniture unless I know I am going to re-cover it, and then at that point its getting expensive again. So long story short you can have a pottery barn looking piece of furniture for an incredible price. Our entertainment center was $30.00 from an estate sale we spray painted it black (2 cans @ $3.00) and distressed it (free). For $36.00 we have a functional entertainment center that has all the space we need and looks great.