After my first full day in my special diet, I have to say that it was a successful day. I didn’t deviate from it and I even got to make chicken stock from scratch for the first time in my life! WOW! What an experience that was!? It is not the fact that making chicken stock is difficult, rather it is the fact that it reminded me how much I take things for granted. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s I cannot count the number of chicken stock cans I have bought at the store. So many of the holiday recipes involve this item so I never gave it a thought…I just went to the supermarket and picked them up by the bundle! During these two weeks, I can’t do that. If the recipe calls for broth…I have to make it from scratch!
That was an eye-opener, I tell you.
While chopping the onions, figuring out what fresh basil really looked like, browning the chicken, simmering, discarding the “solids”, cooling and finding containers to store it, I kept thinking of how much of what God has given to me I really appreciate and how much I totally neglect. It was convicting. Hence, the “chicken soup” series, huh? Waiting for the flavors to blend while simmering is definitively a great time to contemplate about your life.
Today, I found a verse in Ecclesiastes 7:14 that made me smile. I really never use the Message Bible, but its version really fits my state of mind, so that’s the one I’m quoting here:
On a good day, enjoy yourself;
On a bad day, examine your conscience.
God arranges for both kinds of days
So that we won’t take anything for granted. Ecclesiastes 7: 14 (Message)
Between the fact that I am locked in the house due to the currently insane low temperatures outside and the meals from scratch, The Lord is sure arranging for me to be able to examine my conscience…so, at least, the next time I grab for a can of chicken stock, I won't take it for granted.
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