Tabasco and Baked Ziti

I’ll take a Sprinkle of Tabasco with my Baked Ziti, please.  Before today, I don’t think that I would ever that phrase. However, our discipleship time ended lasting until dinner time, and the girls had to eat. For lunch, I had made Baked Ziti (my go to, know the recipe by heart meal). Since Chuukese like different types of food then people from the mainland, I warmed the ziti up and allowed everyone to try a bite before giving each of them an entire plate.  Surprisingly, all but one declared they liked it and wanted it for dinner.  When each of them received their plate, they brought out the Tabasco and started drenching the Ziti…So, the next time I make baked ziti, it might just have an extra kick to remind me of my Tabasco-loving Chuukese friends! J

During Backyard Bible Club today, I talked story with several of my discipleship girls from last year. We walked and talked. Over and over from different precious young ladies, I heard about how often they get made fun of for being Micronesian.  Apparently, the non- Micronesians like to call them microwaves and tell them to go home. What do you tell a kid when they are called names?  Do you tell them not to listen? It’s almost impossible not to listen.  Then it occurred to me how important it is to saturate our lives with God’s Word.  So often we buy into lies that the world likes to tell us… you are not good enough, you aren’t beautiful, you are only important if you are successful, you have to do _______ to fit in, you are not complete without a boyfriend or a best friend, you have to buy the name brand clothes, I’ll only like you for what you can do for me, and if I only looked like this, then I’d fit in.  I’m sure we all relate to at least one of these lies that the world screams or whispers to us and tries to get us to believe.  These precious young ladies are no different. Romans 1:25 says They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped  and served created things rather than the Creator- who is forever praised. How often do we buy into these lies instead of believing truth. We need to know what God says about these issues, so that we can stand firm on His promises.  Then we need to constantly renew our minds with scripture…every time the world tells us a lie, look to God’s word and see the truth.  Thinking about this is further confirmation about how important it is to hide God’s word in our hearts.  (Psalm 119:11)   What scripture counteracts the lies we believe? The Lord has laid it on my heart to find scripture about who we are in Christ and how the Lord sees us and teach these scriptures to these precious young ladies, so they can stand firm on God’s promises. The Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God  (Ephesians 6:17) is part of the armor of God.  Yes, it is impossible to completely ignore someone’s hateful and snide comments or remarks, but it is possible to  choose to believe what the Bible says; therefore, taking away the power of the unkind words because we cannot believe both truth and a lie at same time. 

Much love to you all back on the main land.