This past weekend was a busy one! We had activities Friday night through Sunday night, and I think we really needed a weekend to recover from the weekend.
Friday night Cedar Springs had a congregational service as part of the South Eastern Presbytery conference, followed by a reception at the church. So as soon as Nathan got home we headed to church. I expected it to be more of a worship service (there was a bluegrass band, so fun!), but John's sermon really crammed a lot in a short period of time. While I've really been enjoying his taking us through Romans on Sunday mornings, he spoke on Matthew 16 and 17 Friday night and wow... What really stuck out to me was the fact that unlike our traditional view of evangelistic Christianity, Jesus didn't go around telling everyone who He was. He was with the disciples for THREE YEARS before he even asked them who they thought he was. And then when Peter figures it out, Jesus tells them not to tell anyone. John's point throughout the sermon was that Jesus discipled...he didn't evangelize in the way that we think of the traditional Bible-thumping "if you died today do you know where you'd go?" evangelism. And I love that, because that is such a turn-off for me. I've always been so skeptical of the push to get us all to go door-to-door hounding people about Jesus. Even Jesus didn't do that. He lived by example. Anyways, just a little food for thought :) I think I'm probably going to have to listen to the podcast again to process everything...
Saturday started off with a rather interesting field trip to the East Tennessee Crematorium. Yes, I said "Crematorium." For my Elder Law course we had to go and tour the crematorium in Maryville. In theory, it's supposed to help us know how to advise our elderly clients about their end-of-life decisions...in reality, it was just kind of creepy. I had no idea that we would be actually seeing bodies in a furnace. I'll spare you the details, but lets just say that not everything burns up to ashes...
The day got exponentially better, however, around noon. I got to spend the entire afternoon Saturday baking all sorts of yummy goodies at Mom and Daddy's for Jon & Rachel's shower Saturday night. Nathan helped make Congo bars, Mom helped with various dishes, and Ursula came over and helped make the mint brownies. SO yummy! The favorite by far - and my new dangerous obsession - is Martha Stewart's Chocolate Crackles. The first thing I noticed was that these came out looking EXACTLY like the picture in the cookbook (which is a big thing for me...presentation is key). Second, they are like dark chocolate heavenly goodness that melts in your mouth. Enough said. Since a picture's supposedly worth a thousand words, I'll stop gushing and show you (see bottom of picture for recipe).
For the recipe, check out Martha's website!
The final list of goodies ended up being so much fun to make. Brown Butter Toffee Blondies were another hit, along with the Mint Brownies and the Congo Bars. I may have to post some more of the recipes later (and hopefully I can steal some pictures from Rachel's mom since we managed to not take a single photo!). We had over 40 people Saturday night who came out to celebrate Rachel & Jon, and it was so much fun! The bonfire was a big hit, too :)
Since neither of us are used to staying up past oh, 10:00, we ended up crashing at Mom & Daddy's after the party Saturday night around 2:00. We slept through Sunday School first hour and then finally made it to second hour where I fell asleep in John's prayer...next thing I know we're saying "thanks be to God" and everyone's awake. But me. We had SOO much food left over from Saturday day night, so the crew headed over to our place for the Super Bowl Sunday afternoon. I think Lochlin was our only Steeler's fan, but we all crashed on the couch, stuffed our faces, and cheered for Greenbay. Monday morning was rough...and we're still struggling!
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