Monkey Bread... yummmm

New feat today.... Monkey Bread!  Family fellowship is on Tuesday and I had to think of something I could make in advance and freeze (we don't have an oven/stove in our apartment yet).  My husband works at Teen Challenge of the Midlands.  It is similar to a treatment facility but more of a year long mentoring program for men (teens and women are at other facilities) who have any addiction be it drugs, alcohol, gambling, work... anything that takes God's place as number on in your life.

Anyway... Tuesday, family fellowship... the staff each host a group of students in their homes and serve some snacks, get to know each other more, hang out and fellowship.  So, my mother "supervised" me in making homemade monkey break from her cinnamon roll recipe for the first time.

 The only problem... we might have put a few too many rolls in the bunt pan

I think they turned out all right, just a few edges that had spilled over.  We even had left overs and made some cinnamon bread to share with the rest of the family.

I even learned how to make butter cream frosting which I will make Tuesday to drizzle over the Monkey Bread.

Glorious

You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
And I am Yours
What does that make me?"

-- David Crowder, Everything Glorious 

My husband and I were listening to this song on the way home from my parents Christmas eve and I had a new revelation.  God is perfect, he makes no mistakes, and everything his makes is beautiful.  Satan wants us to believe that we are worthless, evil, and never good enough.  

Do you ever feel like this?  I do.  Satan is pretty good at sneaking thoughts and lies into our minds without us even realizing it.  He wants us to believe that we can't do anything right and will always fail.  But it isn't true.  No matter what it is we have or haven't done God loves us.  He made us, he created us, and loves us despite who we've been.

For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be. 

 --Psalm 139: 13-16 

We can't believe the lies that Satan whispers to us.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.."

 --John 10:10 

My father informed me of a new favorite artist.  JJ Heller.  If you haven't heard of her before you need to look her up.  My husband and I are doing worship for my parents church on January 2nd.  We are practicing one of her songs to sing.... It is hard not to cry every time I hear it, much less sing it!  It just reiterates and shows me HOW MUCH God really loves me... no matter what. 

He cries in the corner where nobody sees
He's the kid with the story no one would believe
He prays every night, "Dear God won't you please...
Could you send someone here who will love me?"

Who will love me for me
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me
'Cause nobody has shown me what love
What love really means

Her office is shrinking a little each day
She's the woman whose husband has run away
She'll go to the gym after working today
Maybe if she was thinner
Then he would've stayed
And she says...

Who will love me for me?
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me?
'Cause nobody has shown me what love, what love really means

He's waiting to die as he sits all alone
He's a man in a cell who regrets what he's done
He utters a cry from the depths of his soul
"Oh Lord, forgive me, I want to go home"

Then he heard a voice somewhere deep inside
And it said
"I know you've murdered and I know you've lied
I have watched you suffer all of your life
And now that you'll listen, I'll tell you that I..."

I will love you for you
Not for what you have done or what you will become
I will love you for you
I will give you the love
The love that you never knew

 

-- JJ Heller, "What Love Really Means"