What Gifts Do You Bring To Your King?

Please read the below paragraphs, and think about what gifts you bring to your King. "“And on going into the house, they saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him. Then opening their treasure bags, they presented to Him gifts — gold and frankincense and myrrh”

(Matthew 2:11 AMP) Can you imagine what it must have been like for the Wise Men when they saw Jesus? He was just a child in a stable surrounded by animals, but these Wise Men recognized that He was the King of kings and the Lord of lords; the Savior of the world. Immediately, they fell on their faces to worship Him, but notice what they did next — they presented Him gifts as part of their worship. And they didn’t just give any old thing they had; they gave Him their absolute best — costly gold, frankincense and myrrh. When we give Jesus our absolute best — our time, talent and resources, it is truly an act of worship. We are saying with our actions, “God, You mean more to me than anything. Because You are so awesome, I want to give You everything that I am.” It pleases Him when we come to Him with this attitude. When we draw near to Him with an open and humble heart, He draws near to us. Remember, when you give Him your best, He gives you His best in return. A PRAYER FOR TODAY Father in heaven, I humbly come to You, giving You all that I am. I honor You as King of kings and Lord of lords. I bless You today for You alone are worthy of my absolute best. I love You and thank You for sending Your Son Jesus, the perfect gift in Jesus’ name. Amen."

The Effects of Sugar Consumption

We all know that during the holidays most people indulge with sweets or the delicious prepared main courses.  However, most people do not know how bad sugar is for you.  I did not even realize how many negative consequences there are to consuming sugar.

When I was a little girl, my mom was watching the news, and I overheard the news anchor talking about the negative effects of sugar on children--mainly how sugar can make a child hyper.  That segment of the news impacted me so much that I did not want much sugar at such a young age.  Do not get me wrong, though.  I did eat icecream and other sweets on occasion, but it was not a daily occurrence.  To this day, I do not eat much sugar, because I do not crave it, and I did not grow up eating it.

I will say that over the past year I have learned how detrimental sugar can be to your body, and have limited my family's sugar intake.  Being that I do not have a sweet tooth--I like salty foods--we have never really had many sugary foods in our household.  The only sweet treat I ever make are chocolate chip cookies.

An absolute no-no for our daughter is pop/soda.  The high fructose corn syrup in pop/soda is horrible for a child, let alone an adult.  Our daughter is about 3 1/2 years old, and I do not want to set her up for failure by giving her sweet treats and pop, not to mention the fact that diabetes is prominent on my husband's side of the family and mine, too.

So, please read the below article I copied and pasted regarding sugar, and take preventative measures in 2012.

Wishing everyone a healthy New Year!

"76 Additional Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

In addition to throwing off your body's homeostasis and wreaking havoc on your metabolic processes, excess sugar has a number of other significant consequences.

Nancy Appleton, PhD, author of the book Lick the Sugar Habit, contributed an extensive list of the many ways sugar can ruin your health from a vast number of medical journals and other scientific publications.

1. Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease.
2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in your body: causes chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.
3. Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.
4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad cholesterol and a decrease in good cholesterol.
5. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function.
6. Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lung, gallbladder and stomach.
7. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.
8. Sugar can weaken eyesight.
9. Sugar can cause many problems with the gastrointestinal tract including: an acidic digestive tract, indigestion, malabsorption in patients with functional bowel disease, increased risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.
10. Sugar can cause premature aging. In fact, the single most important factor that accelerates aging is insulin, which is triggered by sugar.
11. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.
12. Sugar can cause your saliva to become acidic, tooth decay, and periodontal disease.
13. Sugar contributes to obesity.
14. Sugar can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, and multiple sclerosis.
15. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections).
16. Sugar can cause gallstones.
17. Sugar can cause appendicitis.
18. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.
19. Sugar can cause varicose veins.
20. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.
21. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
22. Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.
23. Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.
24. Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.
25. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.
26. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs),which are sugar molecules that attach to and damage proteins in your body. AGEs speed up the aging of cells, which may contribute to a variety of chronic and fatal diseases.
27. Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.
28. Sugar causes food allergies.
29. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.
30. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.
31. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.
32. Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.
33. Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.
34. Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen.
35. Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness.
36. Sugar can cause emphysema.
37. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body.
38. Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.
39. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson's disease.
40. Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide, and it can increase the amount of fat in your liver, leading to fatty liver disease.
41. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones. Fructose is helping to drive up rates of kidney disease.
42. Sugar can damage your pancreas.
43. Sugar can increase your body's fluid retention.
44. Sugar is enemy #1 of your bowel movement.
45. Sugar can compromise the lining of your capillaries.
46. Sugar can make your tendons more brittle.
47. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.
48. Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect your children's grades and cause learning disorders.
49. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves, which can alter your ability to think clearly.
50. Sugar can cause depression.
51. Sugar can increase your risk of gout.
52. Sugar can increase your risk of Alzheimer's disease. MRI studies show that adults 60 and older who have high uric acid are four to five times more likely to have vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's.
53. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone.
54. Sugar can lead to dizziness.
55. Diets high in sugar will increase free radicals and oxidative stress.
56. A high sucrose diet of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.
57. High sugar consumption by pregnant adolescents can lead to a substantial decrease in gestation duration and is associated with a twofold-increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.
58. Sugar is an addictive substance.
59. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.
60. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.
61. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.
62. Your body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.
63. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.
64. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
65. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.
66. Sugar can impair the function of your adrenal glands.
67. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in normal, healthy individuals, thereby promoting chronic degenerative diseases.
68. Intravenous feedings (IVs) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to your brain.
69. Sugar increases your risk of polio.
70. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.
71. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.
72. In intensive care units, limiting sugar saves lives.
73. Sugar may induce cell death.
74. In juvenile rehabilitation centers, when children were put on low sugar diets, there was a 44 percent drop in antisocial behavior.
75. Sugar dehydrates newborns.
76. Sugar can cause gum disease.

It should now be crystal clear just how damaging sugar is. You simply cannot achieve your highest degree of health and vitality if you are consuming a significant amount of it.

Fortunately, your body has an amazing ability to heal itself when given the basic nutrition it needs, and your liver has an incredible ability to regenerate. If you start making changes today, your health WILL begin to improve, returning you to the state of vitality that nature intended."

O Holy Night!

Please take a few minutes to watch this video of David Phelps singing "O Holy Night."

The World Was Impacted By One Baby...

Jesus Is The Reason For The Season!



May you and your family have a very Merry Christmas!

A Prayer

"My Prayer

And shall I pray Thee change Thy will my Father,
Until it be according unto mine?
But no, Lord, no, that shall never be, rather
I pray Thee blend my human will with Thine.

I pray Thee hush the hurrying eager longing
I pray Thee soothe the pangs of keen desire.
See in my quiet places wishes thronging,
Forbid them, Lord, purge, though it be with fire.

And work in me to will and do Thy pleasure.
Let all within me, peaceful, reconciled,
Tarry content my Wellbeloved's leisure,
At last, at last, even as a weaned child."

- Amy Carmichael

Faith In God

"These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold; though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world." – 1 Peter 1:7

Do not let your trials get the best of you!

How To Get The Most Nutritional Value Out of Your Vegetables

Have you ever wondered if you should cook or steam your vegetables, or eat them raw?  Well, I have.  So, in case you are wondering, or if I peaked your interest, please read the article below.

"Getting the most out of your vegetables

Vegetables are healthy foods bursting with vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates, and they should be on everyone's plate every day.

Each type of vegetable offers its own nutritive substances and people can cover their nutritional needs by eating a variety of them, said Silke Restemeyer of the German nutrition organization. Thus, an A (as in aubergine) to Z (as in zucchini) approach is best for getting the most out of the wide variety of vegetables.

Nutritionists warn, however, that vegetables can lose a lot of their nutritional value when they are cooked. They agree that steaming is the best way to prepare them, but they also note that of the recommended five portions of vegetables and fruits a person should eat, at least one should be raw or in a salad.

"Basically, uncooked vegetables are the richest in vital substances," said Restemeyer.

But of course, people can eat whatever tastes best to them. For some that means lightly steamed, while others would rather have them stewed, braised, grilled or roasted. And while one person likes them well-seasoned, another prefers them in a cream sauce.

Heat is what causes vegetables to lose their nutrients, but there is a big difference between the extent to which they are lost depending on the cooking method used.

"Among the most nutrient-preserving ways to cook vegetables are steaming, cooking them in their own juices or with just a little bit of water, wine or broth," said Margret Morlo of an association in Germany devoted to nutrition and diet.

The reason is not solely that many vitamins, including C and B1, as well as all minerals are water-soluble and because these methods use little water the vitamins and minerals remain in the food. Usually, they are steamed at a low temperature and only until the vegetables are al dente. Steaming them at a high heat for too long destroys their nutritional content.

Vegetables such as carrots retain a similar amount of their nutrients when they are cooked in water. This can be done in a steamer or in a regular pot with a vegetable sieve. Another way to preserve nutrients is to cook the vegetables in hot oil in a skillet or wok until the vegetables are al dente.

Yet another alternative is to marinate the vegetables and then grill them or roast them in the oven for 30 minutes, said Carsten Voigt of an association for cooks in Germany. "These methods are equally as protective of the nutrients and you obtain a delicious roasted flavour," he said.

The cooking methods that cause the greatest loss of nutrients are slow cooking in a lot of liquid at high temperatures - 75 to 95 degrees Celsius - and classic simmering. Shorter cooking times mean fewer vitamins are lost compared with longer cooking times, said Voigt. In addition, cooking experts recommend using as little liquid as possible because the more liquid in the pot, the greater amount of minerals lost.

For the same reason vegetables shouldn't be cut in small pieces or peeled before being prepared. "Removing the peel is a shame because it contains the highest vitamin content and the most flavour," said Voigt.

There are a few other tricks that can minimize the loss of nutrients. "The lid should be tightly closed and seldom opened when cooking vegetables so that as little of the nutrients as possible can evaporate," said Morlo. The water remaining in the pot, along with any nutrients that it has absorbed, can be used in a sauce or broth poured over the vegetables.

Cooks also should be aware that not every way to cook vegetables is appropriate for every type of vegetable. Firm vegetables such as beetroot are best suited for cooking, while soft vegetables such as broccoli should be steamed. The question of whether to cook a vegetable or eat it raw also depends on the type.

Some vegetables such as cabbage become more digestible when cooked. Raw green beans, for example, must be cooked for 10 minutes at 100 degrees Celsius to neutralise a protein that can be toxic if consumed by humans. In addition there are nutrients in plants that the body can make better use of when cooked. These include secondary nutrients such as lycopene in tomatoes.

Ripeness is another factor in ensuring that vegetables have as many nutrients as possible. They are at their peak in terms of nutrition when they are ripe and fresh. Finally, vegetables should be stored in a cool, dry and dark place."