Okay, I confess: I’m totally stealing this idea from my friend Traci.

She had a recipe swap at her house last week, and it was so much fun – and so simple. If you like to cook and would love a fun night with “the girls,” this is perfect.

Here’s what she did.

She invited 12 people, and each person brought five recipes (with copies of each for everyone). Some people copied their recipe cards, some people typed all five recipes on one sheet of paper, some people printed each recipe on a separate sheet of paper (in other words, the format of the recipe is up to you) – and then Traci provided us with folders so we’d have a way to keep all the recipes organized until we got home.

But before we swapped recipes, we had dinner. We each made one of our recipes beforehand, took it to Traci’s, and shared it with the group – which means we had 12 wonderful dishes to sample. Traci set up three tables – with china and crystal and placemats and flowers and everything – and the 12 of us fixed our plates, sat down, ate wonderful food, and TALKED WITHOUT BEING INTERRUPTED BY CHILDREN.

Maybe you didn’t catch that last part: WE TALKED WITHOUT BEING INTERRUPTED BY CHILDREN. That alone was a little slice of heaven.

And in addition to some relaxing time with friends, I came home with fifty-five new recipes. FIFTY-FIVE!

That most definitely works for me.

For more great WFMW ideas, go see Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer.

Really interesting post at The Big Trade-Off about the tendency to get a little preoccupied with what the Joneses are doing. Loved it.

Link via Heth.

And while you’re clicking around, check out another great post at Mississippi Girl’s. Today is the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and Jennifer, who lives on the MS Gulf Coast, has written a beautiful tribute to my beloved home state.

Link via Big Mama.

Enjoy the bloggity goodness.

A. woke up from his nap yesterday in such a foul mood that eventually it just got comical.

Well, to me, at least.

And I felt it my duty to take pictures.

By the way, I believe that taking photos while your child is crying makes you a finalist for Mother of the Year.

Check the rules! It’s true!

(Does anyone else think that his post-nap hair looks like the lead singer from A Flock of Seagulls? I think it’s a striking resemblance.)

Anyway, since hugs and kisses couldn’t soothe the sleepy beast, I figured I might as well capture the misery for posterity.

And in case you’re keeping score at home? That last sentence? About capturing my child’s misery?

TOTALLY sealed the Mother of the Year 2006 title. Totally.

I’ll just be putting on my crown and sash now….

One day last week I was emailing with a friend who’s on the worship staff at our church, and she mentioned, sort of off-handedly, that the praise team wouldn’t be singing in church Sunday because we were having a “spoken word” service.

“Spoken word” service?

I’m sorry?

Um, NO MUSIC?

Because I know I’ve only mentioned it, like, 74 times, but I’m a person who totally worships through music. It gets to me, way down deep, in the places that words alone have a hard time reaching.

So while I should probably be embarrassed to tell you this, I’ll just go ahead and confess: I wasn’t looking forward to church yesterday. I was dreading not being able to sing. I was concerned that our time in “big church,” which typically runs about an hour and a half, was going to creeeeeeep by. That I would look down at my watch, convinced that we’d been there for two hours, and find that it had been more like fifteen minutes.

I was apprehensive, is what I’m sayin’.

When church started at nine, there was a bit of instrumental music. No singing. I’m pretty sure that I was jiggling my leg out of sheer discomfort. Two people walked out on the stage, and they took turns reciting – from memory – a passage from Pslams. They were followed by three more people. Who were followed by three more people. The Speakers ranged in age from about eight to about eighty – and while it took me a little while to get past being nervous for them as they recited Scripture and occasionally struggled with a word or phrase, I eventually started to soak up the Message instead of being worried for the messengers.

But I was still a little squirmy – couldn’t we sing, you know, just a little bit? Just a smidge?

About that time, eight people walked down the steps at the front of the stage, and they began to recite a passage from Proverbs – only not in English. We heard part of the passage in Spanish, part in German, then Russian, French, Filipino, Swahili, Hebrew and Thai. And while I would love to be able to explain what happened in my heart during those three or four minutes – I just can’t do it. Words fail me. It was an unbelievably moving reminder of the power of God’s Word.

Color me surprised. :-)

Because here’s the deal. I do a pretty good job of keeping God’s Word hidden in my heart. I think, over the last six or seven years, I’ve developed an understanding of why that’s so essential. I believe Him, I trust Him, I love Him, and I need His Word – all the time.

But sometimes, in worship, I get it backwards. Sometimes, in worship, I get it all wrong. Maybe it’s because I find myself more interested in what we’re singing than what God’s saying. Maybe it’s because I respond more to my emotion than I do to His Truth. Maybe it’s because, in a way, I worship a god I’ve created instead of The God who created the universe, The God who created me.

But I’ll tell you: listening to God’s Word for an hour and a half has a way of snapping all that stuff right back into perspective.

So while my mouth didn’t get to do any singing yesterday, my spirit did. And next week, when we sing again, I pray my focus won’t be on how we worship – I pray it’ll be on Who we worship. I pray that when I start to fall back into my “OH I LOVE THIS SONG” tendency, that the Holy Spirit would prick my heart and remind me that without the One who first loved us, there would be no song to sing.

And I missed the music yesterday. I really did.

But, in this particular instance, taking away the music enabled me to hear the message – and The Message – loud and clear.

This post of Toni’s sent me straight into the ugly cry.

It’s a reminder of the beauty in sacrifice and surrender.

It’s The Great Commission in action.

And now I’m going to go read it again.

See you there.

Did I ever tell y’all the story about the time I ran into Kevin, one of the ministers at my church, at the park?

And how we’d never met before, but the previous weekend he’d preached a sermon that blew D. and me away?

And how, when we met at the park, we talked for about an hour while our kids played?

And how I thought The Meeting In The Park was a total God thing because I had been praying about starting a food ministry at our church, and I told Kevin all about it that morning?

And how Kevin and D. became great friends?

And how his wife Traci and I became great friends?

And how their son and Alex squeal with glee when they’re together?

And how they’re some of our favorite people in the whole wide world?

And how the food ministry has been great and all, but God was actually setting the wheels in motion for something else that morning? Something way bigger?

And how, about a year and a half after I met Kevin in the park, Emma Kate and Brad, along with some folks from their small group that had been praying about a church plant in Tupelo, visited our church to meet with some of the founding members (see item number four on this post) because they felt like they needed to seek some wise counsel?

And how Kevin – whom EK had never met though she had heard me talk about him a bunch since he and Traci are our, you know, friends – said a prayer at the end of the service that touched EK so deeply that when she told me about it, she cried?

And how EK and Brad and company went home and could not get Kevin off of their hearts?

And how, when I wrote this post, Kevin and Traci were the “other friends” who were coming to supper because EK and Brad were TOTALLY convicted that they were supposed to talk to them about the burden God had put on their hearts for a new church in their town?

And how, back in May, I wrote this?

“[EK and Brad] truly believe that for this [church plant] to come to fruition, they must first have God’s man. They have the resources to attract someone of the highest caliber, but obviously God has to turn that man’s heart toward Tupelo.”

And how God has in fact given them His man?

And how Kevin and Traci and their children are moving to Tupelo?

Because Kevin is going to be the pastor for The Church at Trace Crossing, which is the church that God had just begun to birth in EK’s and Brad’s hearts that Saturday when Kevin and I just “happened” to run into each other at the park?

Yeah.

That’s a good story.

And there’s a whole lot more of it to tell.