FOOD FOR THOUGHT

You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call on you.--Psalm 86:5

Forgiveness is such a sweet blessing. But God does more than forgive! He cleanses and forgets. His love is not metered out or carefully rationed. He pours it out upon us if we genuinely seek him as our God and Father.

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beliveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Unbelievably Easy Fish Chowder

4 tbsp unsalted butter
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 quart fish stock or clam juice
2 pounds cod, haddock, or halibut, cut into 1-inch chunks.
2 cups milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Paprika, for garnish
Oyster crackers, to serve on the side
1. In a Dutch-oven or pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until they are softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook, stirring, until they are well coated with the butter.
2. Add the fish broth or clam juice to the pot and bring the mixture to a simmer. Simmer, partially covered, for 7 minutes. Add the fish chunks and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot and let the fish cook in barely simmering broth until it is just done to taste, about 5-7 minutes longer. Stir in the salt and pepper.
3. Serve the chowder garnished with a sprinkle of the paprika and the oyster crackers on the side.Serves 6.


For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. --Isaiah 9:6
While Jesus is God's Son and Mary's son, he is also our Son. He is the child given to the world so you and I can become God's child. What greater gift can we have than Jesus, and through Jesus, God as our Father.

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Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. --Ephesians 6:12-13

How often do you forget that we are in a spiritual war? Our enemy is deceptively cunning - take away the immediacy of a threat and the danger appears gone. But he's there, always. But rather than try to guess his plans and counter all of his moves, Paul reminds us to simply take up the tools God has given us and stand up to the evil one.

YOUR POSITION IN CHRIST
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7).
Daisy was one of the first persons I dealt with who was caught in spiritual conflicts and suffered from demonic influences. She was a Christian and a university graduate, but she had severe mental and emotional problems which developed after her father divorced her mother. Within a period of five years, Daisy had been institutionalized three times as a paranoid schizophrenic. After about three weeks of counseling with me, Daisy finally found the nerve to bring up the nighttime visitation of snakes. "What about the snakes?" I asked. "They crawl on me at night when I'm in bed," she confessed. "What do you do when the snakes come?" "I run in to my mother. But they always come back when I'malone." "Why don't you try something different," I continued. "When you're in bed and the snakes come, say out loud, 'In the name of Christ, I command you to leave me.'" "I couldn't do that," Daisy protested. "I'm not mature enough or strong enough." "It's not a matter of your maturity; it's a matter of your position in Christ. You have as much right to resist Satan as I do." Daisy squirmed at the prospect. "Well, I guess I could do that." Daisy sighed, sounding like she had just agreed to take castoroil. The next week when Daisy walked in she said, "The snakes are gone!" If her problem had been strictly a neurological or chemical imbalance, taking authority over the snakes in Jesus' name wouldn't have worked. But in Daisy's case, the problem was spiritual. James wrote: "Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). But if you don't resist him, he doesn't have to go. Or if you just pull the covers over your head in fear and say, "O God, do something about these demonic influences," the evil spirits don't have to leave. Resisting the devil is your responsibility based on the authority you possess in Christ. Neil Anderson

Thoughts to Ponder

1. The only disability in life is a bad attitude.
2. Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the responce to the error that counts.
3. An intimate relationship does not banish loneliness. Only when we are comfortable with who we are and can funtion independently in a healthy way, can we truly funtion within a relationship. Two halves do not make a whole when it comes to a healthy relationship: it takes two wholes.Catholic Digest
4. Success? Don't you know it is all about being able to extend love to people? Not in a big, capital-letter sense, but in everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word.Dotson Rader, Parade
5. Truth has to fall on fertile soil.Paula D'ArcyGift of the Red Bird
6. Cofidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.Peter T. McIntyre
7. Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great thing can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart. Jeanne Marie LaskasWahington Post Magazine
8. It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. Warren Buffett
9. I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather...Not screaming and yelling like the passegers in his car...
10. A man can peddle twenty five thousand miles on a stationary bicycle and never circle the Earth. All he gathers is weariness.
11. I have dicoverd the art of deciving diplomats, I speak the truth and they never belive me.
12. Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But, a few days later, he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. "I've been thinking," he said. "I know how valuable this stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this stone." Sherry M. Keith-Rudd

OBSTACLES
For a long time it seemed to methat real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first,some unfinished business; time still to be served,a debt to be paid.Then life would begin. At last it dawned on methat these obstacles were my life. Bette Howland Joke
On my way to visit a sick person in the parish, a little red car sped around my pickup. The driver pointed to my back left wheel. Just at that moment, I realized the tire was going flat. I pulled into a driveway and got out of the truck to look at the tire. All of a sudden, the red car zipped into the driveway. A young man got out. "Sister," he said, "get back in the truck. I'll fix the tire." As he changed the tire, I talked with him. "You remember me," he said. "Mike Sinn. You visited me in the hospital." It occurred to me that this was probably the first time that Grace was saved by Sinn.(By Sister Carol Ann Grace, in Catholic Digest)

Prayers are answered

A woman was getting a ~ pie ready to put into the oven when the phone rang. It was the school nurse: Her son had come down with a high fever and would she come and take him home? The mother calculated how long it would take to drive to school and back, and how long the pie should bake, and concluded there was enough time. Popping the pie in the oven, she left for school. When she arrived, her son's fever was worse and the nurse urged her to take him to the doctor. Seeing her son like that -- his face flushed, his body trembling and dripping with perspiration -- frayed her, and she drove to the clinic as fast as she dared. She was frayed a bit more waiting for the doctor to emerge from the examining room, which he was doing now, walking toward her with a slip of paper in his hand. "Get him to bed," he told her, handing her the prescription, "and start him on this right away." By the time she got the boy home and in bed and headed out again for the shopping mall, she was not only frayed, but frazzled and frantic as well. And she had forgotten about the pie in the oven. At the mall she found a pharmacy, got the prescription filled and rushed back to the car . . . . . . Which was locked. Yes, there were her keys, hanging in the ignition switch, locked inside the car. She ran back into the mall, found a phone and called home. When her son finally answered, she blurted out, "I've locked the keys inside the car!" The boy was barely able to speak. In a hoarse voice he whispered, "Get a wire coat hanger, Mom. You can get in with that." The phone went dead. She began searching the mall for a wire coat hanger -- which turned out not to be easy. Wooden hangers and plastic hangers were there in abundance, but shops didn't use wire hangers anymore. After combing through a dozen stores, she found one that was behind the times just enough to use wire hangers. Hurrying out of the mall, she allowed herself a smile of relief. As she was about to step off the curb, she halted. She stared at the wire coat hanger. "I don't know what to do with this!" Then she remembered the pie in the oven. All the frustrations of the past hour collapsed on her and she began crying. Then she prayed, "Dear Lord, my boy is sick and he needs this medicine and my pie is in the oven and the keys are locked in the car and, Lord, I don't know what to do with this coat hanger. Dear Lord, send somebody who does know what do with it, and I really need that person NOW, Lord. Amen," She was wiping her eyes when a beat-up older car pulled up to the curb and stopped in front of her. A young man, twentyish-looking, in a T-shirt and ragged jeans, got out. The first thing she noticed about him was the long, stringy hair, and then the beard that hid everything south of his nose. He was coming her way. When he drew near she stepped in front of him and held out the wire coat hanger. "Young man," she said, "do you know how to get into a locked car with one of these?" He gaped at her for a moment, then plucked the hanger from her hand. "Where's the car?" Telling the story, she said she had never seen anything like it -- it was simply amazing how easily he got into her car. A quick look at the door and window, a couple of twists of the coat hanger and bam! Just like that, the door was open. When she saw the door open she threw her arms around him. "Oh," she said, "the Lord sent you! You're such a good boy. You must be a Christian," He stepped back and said, "No ma'am, I'm not a Christian, and I'm not a good boy. I just got out of prison yesterday." She jumped at him and she hugged him again fiercely. "Bless God! she cried. "He sent me a professional!"

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