My grandmother once told me a lesson that pertained to both cooking and life:

“All you need is a little water, a little butter, and a little salt.”

That quote has become a family favorite for some time now, because it’s so simple and so true. The cooking application is easy—with those three ingredients you can enjoy most vegetables and many cuts of meat. The life part is a bit less obvious, but equally important.

A little water
Water is a powerful, life-altering phenomenon that affects so many different aspects of the world we live in; yet in its simplicity we find complexity. The same water that can nurse a small plant into health can cause devastation and destruction in the form of natural disasters. Too little, and things will wither away; too much and they will drown. There is an amazing equilibrium and tension even that comes into play with water. One of the few molecules that expands when it freezes, water is a truly exceptional thing.

A little water, to me, represents the right amount of water needed to sustain our lives. What is essential to our lives, I believe, is the water that comes in baptismal rebirth, the cleansing power of tears, the healing process of purifying past wounds, and learning from the unstoppable tide that rolls in and out—ebbing and flowing and teaching us about the seasons of life, love, and loss.

A little butter
Butter is produced out of a process of churning—a flavorful substance that comes out of much toil and work to better the taste of the current meal or saved with the foresight of meals to come; however, there is a shelf-life on butter. It’s a continual cycle of working, producing, enjoying, saving, using, and repeating. Out of an uncomfortable and undesirable process comes something worth savoring—there’s a life lesson in that.

A little butter means knowing the difference between a flavorful addition to a meal and fatal amounts of an otherwise good thing. It represents knowing the difference between work that produces something worth savoring and empty work.

We need a little butter in our lives. We need to recognize the long-term benefit of purpose-filled work that produces a seemingly small supplement to a seemingly bigger thing. We need to take pause—to stop long enough to enjoy the short-term rest and sabbath that can come in small packages. We need to appreciate the cyclical nature of sowing and reaping that may continue throughout life because it is good to work with perseverance and good to relish things with true value.

A little salt
Jesus says that “salt is good for seasoning” and we are the “salt of the earth” (Luke 14:34a; Matthew 5:13a). Salt is one of the oldest, most basic, and plentiful elements on the earth and is distinctive among other spices. Like water and butter, salt is essential for animal life in small quantities, but is harmful to life in excess. Salt helps in preserving things; it makes food last longer. Salting involves looking into the future and perhaps forfeiting the short-term for the long-term satisfaction.

To me, a little salt means making the most of some things now, remaining faithful and distinctive as a follower of Christ, and having the foresight to preserve or protect some things meant only for future enjoyment.

There is so much wisdom in my Grandmother’s simple little saying. I hope to internalize what she meant to impart to me and remember to add “a little water, a little butter, and a little salt” to all the areas of my life.

A blog that many of us follow and have for years is that of Ree Drummond, aka the Pioneer Woman. She has written several books–a cookbook, a children’s book, and most recently a love story based on her real-life romance!–but she claims she wrote them “by accident” meaning she blogged them first and happened to collect the pieces along the way!

She lives on a ranch in Oklahoma (“Okalhoma, OK!”… anyone… Bueller…?) with her honey (aka “Marlboro Man”) and her 4 lovely children–2 boys and 2 girls. She’s really funny and very insightful and writes about everything… seriously… everything. If you’re new to the blogging world, you’ll definitely want to check her out. She is a mainstay of bloggy goodness.

She is coming to Atlanta tonight! as part of her book tour and I will get an autograph and hopefully a pic with her. She’s ultra-cute and has deep red hair that I adore. She seems great on her blog, so it will be fun to meet her in person.

Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend!

Mint.com is my new favorite website. It tracks EVERYTHING – every online account you have, 401k, investments, payments, debt, etc… All in one place. This is great for us especially right now, because we have half of our accounts switched over to Wells Fargo, and several still through Wachovia.

Mint’s amazing. You can track spending trends, set goals, and figure out a budget that works. It has pie charts and graphs and transaction ledgers – you can view them all together or separate by account, type, category of expense… Me oh my! The list goes on.

One of my favorite features is the “split” feature. It allows you to view a transaction… like “Walmart $106.29” and split it up by category according to amount: $10.12 groceries; $24.57 home goods; $14.00 meds/pharmacy; and $57.60 electronics… Amazing.

I always used to get mad at budgeting (even though I know how important it is). I would still dread doing it because, a) it was time consuming and, b) I never could get all those categories to accurately represent how we really spent.

No longer!

Mint.com is my new best friend and is really helping us get extra-set for traveling to the UK in May.

!!!!!

I’m reading Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow right now and I’m loving it! She hooks you from the very beginning, quoting a missionary who made a vow not to complain (even about the weather)… powerful stuff.

I had a pretty sucky day – you name it and it all came at me at once today – but in keeping with all that I’m learning from this book, I decided not to list my complaints, but instead list my confessions. When was the last time we actually confessed our sins? Other than Catholics, I don’t know many who do this. We might admit to a past sin; now that we’re all saved and fire-proofed, we can mention it without pause. But what about the sin we’re walking around in right now?

I had quite a list – selfish, disrespectful, impatient, slow to forgive and quick to get angry, unloving – this is the abridged version; the real one is 4+ pages long.

So what’s the point? to wallow in some sin and shame and guilt? ABSOLUTELY NOT. It’s to remind myself a) of the importance and place that confession has (a discipline God tells us to do for our own benefit), and b) to never believe the lie that I’m “kinda doing ok” with sin – like I can “manage” it somehow without actually having to confess or own up to it. That’s the worst. You know who that characterizes in the Bible? The Pharasees. I do not want to look in the mirror and see a Pharasee.

The whole point of confessing is fully owning up to it so that the next step – a crucial one to the process – repentance can be fully embraced. If you never quite admit that you did something wrong, it’s hard to fully turn from what you didn’t exactly claim to have done. It’s a healthy part of the whole spiritual wellness thing if we truly move from confession to repentance and walk fully in the forgiveness that we know we’ve had since Christ said, “It is finished,” over 2000 years ago.

It was done then and it is done now. We are forgiven. Period. Someone once said that living in sorrowful guilt (which is NOT what God intended as part of the process of maturation) is like hanging Jesus back on the cross every time you sin, and then begging for the forgiveness He’s already given you. He was crucified once. He was buried once. He is resurrected. He is risen. And if we believe, our old selves are crucified with Christ and it is not us who live, but Christ in us, living and accomplishing His will for our lives.

All that to say, it was a really great exercise: instead of listing my complaints to God, I confessed my many sins and shortcoming before God. He already knew. They’re already forgiven. I’m fully accepted. I’m loved unconditionally.

It turned around my sucky day and I feel better and a wee bit more mature in my faith. It moved me from a “I’m mad because the world owes me and things should be better than all this” list to a “I’m grateful that You love me and give freely of Your life and love and grace” list – a vast improvement.

Me: What are you most looking forward to about London?

Grant: Dancing on roof tops with brooms.

Me: …

Grant: Watching nannies come in and out with the changing wind.

I love my husband so much. He gets me.