Vulnerably Dependent: Simplified

My freshman year of college God dropped these two words into my heart during Breakaway.

Vulnerably Dependent.

You see I needed to break up with this boy and God wanted me to be Vulnerably Dependent on Him.  But I resisted and the consequences were not awesome.

Graciously Jesus still loved me even though I chose not to listen to Him.    Throughout the whole summer, after the break up and after I decided to pursue Jesus with all I had, God constantly kept those two words on my mind and heart.

Over the past 5 or 6 years God has taken lots of experiences in my life and used the term Vulnerably Dependent to help me understand them and help me to realize what he wanted from me.

Vulnerable Dependence on Him in every way of my life.

There is a huge obstacle that can keep you from being vulnerably dependent on Jesus.   Pride.

The scary thing about pride is that God resists the proud.   His spirit literally cannot be around pride.   Pride and God are like two ends of a magnet that repel each other.  The ugly thing about pride is that more often than not pride convinces you that you are in fact not proud.

You see I recently discovered that I had a whole lot of pride in my life.   I mean every single stinking area of my life.    You can see pride in your life if you feel like you have to promote yourself or protect yourself all the time.   We do those things basically because we believe that God is not good enough to do those things for us.  

Chris and I have been listening to these podcasts by Kevin Weaver and last week while I was riding in the car and listening to them I realized how much pride I have in my life.   I realized how this must be grieving God and causing Him to have to resist me in SO many areas of my life.   In a sweet and tender moment I repented and asked for forgiveness.   I submitted all my pride to Jesus.  It was an instant heart change.   My life has totally been different from that incredible moment.

I became Vulnerably Dependent believing God is good and that I can trust Him always.    It did not take some catastrophe or a huge amount of breaking for God to do this.   He gave me the opportunity and my heart responded and I instantly became a changed person while driving in the car.

God simply wants to be first in your life in absolutely every area.   He wants you to know that he is good enough to protect you, promote you, and know what is best for you.

El Yum: MMPs - Mustard Mashed Potatoes

Last night I did something epic.

On a whim and because I did not have any horseradish I put mustard into the mashed potatoes.

I had a craving for steak, so I marinated two big fat juicy new york strips.   I also happened to have some fingerling potatoes and some green beans.   I washed the fingerling potatoes and put them in water and boiled 'em up skin and everything.

For some reason I was craving horseradish yesterday, but there was none in a 15 mile radius around me so I had to come up with something.   Mustard was the something.

I added to my mashed fingerlings:

1 tbls of mustard (the grainy kind)

1/4 cup of sour cream

3-5 tbls of butter

1/3 cup of milk

salt and freshly ground pepper ( a lot)

2 dashes of garlic salt

The freshly ground pepper and the grainy mustard did something together.   Whatever it was, it was good.

The Barn, Chris & Jess, Friends, & Photography

Hi.

I used to take pictures.

At this present moment in my life I do not take pictures.

I would very much like to remedy this situation by doing two things.

1. Getting a camera that works well and takes good pictures.
2. Having one of my photographer friends teach me how to actually use the camera.

You see we have had lots of wonderful people over to the Barn these last few weeks and I have absolutely not one single picture to document the occasions!  Isn't that terrible?

We had Kyle and Jana over to spend the night several weeks ago.     Then the next night we made pizza for Silva and Stephen.    Then Wednesday through Monday Sheridan and Wes stayed with us and we cooked everything imaginable.    Then Saturday morning Kyle and Jana came and stayed with us until Monday.   Friday and Saturday I was also in Angela Mattix's gorgeous and fabulous wedding.   Sunday night Natalie and Jonathan had all six of us (Me, Chris, Sheridan, Wes, Kyle, and Jana) over for 4th July salmon, fireworks, and swimming.

All these amazing wonderful people.  All that amazing and wonderful food.   And not one single picture to document any of it.   SO much sadness.

We need to remedy this :)

What's the deal, man?

The deal, man, is this:  About 4 weeks ago I got a big spider bite on the back my leg, also known as the upper thigh.

This is what happened.   It was a Friday afternoon and I had gotten off work a little early.  Which is extremely typical in the oil business.   We were having Chelsea and Stephen Morris over for dinner and their pointer puppy Reese.   You see their pointer puppy is a 7th generation bird dog who comes from a long line of award winners.    This was a big deal you see because our mutt pointer puppy also wants to be a bird dog and I wanted both dogs to fetch stuffed birds out of the pond.

 I went to petsmart and bought two stuffed chickens suitable for water fetching.  I also bought some mosquito fogger at HEB because it is like the swamp land out in Magnolia right now and I knew if we wanted to spend anytime outside I needed to fog for mosquitoes.

Picture me in a purple sundress with a dish towel wrapped around my face fogging for mosquitoes around the pond.     I had full make up on and curled hair.    While I was fogging I was also picking up a few dog toys out in the front yard.   I picked up G's A&M Frisbee and found about 10 brown spiders underneath.   Normal people would be afraid and run away, but apparently I am not normal.    I absolutely HATE snakes, frogs, and lizards.    Spiders and bugs don't bother me too much, so I just sprayed them with the bug killer and stepped on a few with my Steve Madden sandal and moved on.

Apparently I messed with the wrong spiders because they decided to mess with me.     The scary thing about spiders is you do not know when they bite you.    When I got undressed for bed that night I noticed this huge whelp on the back of my leg, and I thought to myself man those mosquitoes are getting bigger by the year.    Thankfully I rubbed some tea tree oil on the back of my leg which I really think helped it from not taking over my entire leg.

The next morning Chris and I got up about 7:45 in the morning because I wanted to run.    I put on my running clothes and went down stairs to find Chris drinking coffee and having his quiet time.   By this time the back of my leg was hurting pretty badly and I had about a 5 inch by 3 inch bright red hard whelp which was surround by a massive pink circle that encompassed the entire back of my leg.

STILL I was unfazed.    I showed Chris, "Look, honey, at the back of my leg.   Don't you think that is cool?   Ok, I am going to go running now."

Chris:"What do you think happened, dear? "

Jess: "Well, it must be a spider bite.   I saw some brown spiders yesterday and I stepped on a couple and sprayed them with mosquito fogger.   I am going to go running now."

Chris: "Please go get in the car we are going to the emergency room."

Jess: "I really don't think that is necessary.  I will just rub some benadryl on it, and it will be fine.   I am going to go running now."

Chris: "Do you know what a brown recluse looks like?"

Jess: "No, I have never heard of one.  I am going to go running now".

Chris: "GET IN THE CAR."

Jess: "I have not had any coffee yet, we cannot go to the emergency room."

Chris calls his Dad and my Mom and determines that he is going to take me to my Dad's doctor in Tomball who happens to take walk-ins on Saturday morning.   Chris puts me in the car with my pink Nike mug full of coffee.

Jess:  "I am just going to go running real quick and then you can take me to all the emergency rooms you want to."

Chris's Dad had just sent him an email about brown recluses, so Chris was majorly concerned that I had got bitten by a big bad spider.   But he would not tell me what brown recluses did to you so I was completely clueless and was unconcerned.

We get to the doctor in Tomball and they take one look at my leg, which is throbbing and hurting really bad by this time, and send me straight back to see the doctor.

The doctor comes in and takes a good look at my upper thigh and says ....

Doctor: "If you had waited until Monday I would have had to put you in the hospital."

Jess: Blank Stare

Doctor: "You do not need surgery.   You do not need to get anything cut out.  You do not need to get anything drained.  But it looks at though you have a massive infection on the back of your leg.   We will never know what kind of spider bit you, although it does not look like a brown recluse because you still have the flesh on that back on your leg."

Jess: "Brown recluses take the flesh of your leg?"

Chris:  breathing deep sighs of relief and texting all family members and friends who are worried.

Doctor: "So I am going to give you two massive antibiotics, hydrocodine, and two ointments.  If your leg is still red on Monday then I will have to admit you to the hospital to put you on a drip."

Jess: "I hate antibiotics.  Is it absolutely necessary for me to take those?"

Doctor: "Well spiders tend to have nasty things in their mouth which apparently this spider transferred to you.    You are either fighting strep or staff, so it is really important that we kill the infection."

At this point I realized that this spider bite was a big deal and conceded that I would take the antibiotics.

Chris sweetly takes me to CVS and gets my prescriptions, then he takes me to the organic farmers market in Tomball, and then gets me Chick Fil A.  

I go home and take the antibiotics.   The antibiotics make me feel SO bad that all I can do is lay on the couch.    I could not work the first 3 days of that week and could only work half days the last two days of the week.   It was SUPER terrible.    But the antibiotics worked and the back of my leg is totally fine.


Needless to say the spider bite threw me off my game and blogging became the last thing that needed to be done.    So please forgive me.   I promise to catch y'all up on everything we have been doing these last few weeks.