Homolovi State Park, Winslow, Arizona
Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. ~ Proverbs 23:4
We’re beginning to feel trapped in Arizona.
We’ve had to cancel more reservations and find places to live in the Grand Canyon State and in addition, Blaine’s been keeping his eye on what’s going on in the surrounding states we’re scheduled to visit and taking time to come up with alternate plans if necessary. We very briefly tossed around the idea of going home and trying to finish our trip two years from now, but we can’t go home. Campgrounds aren’t open in Ohio. And besides, many of the states in between aren’t open either. In addition, it’s a 27-hour, 1,850-mile drive, so it would take us about a week of moving every single day. It’s just not feasible, nor practical. And so, we’ll continue to try to stay in Arizona State Parks. Sigh . . . .
But there are certainly worse situations we could be in, so we’re grateful!
Today’s Daily Guideposts devotional was extremely apropos to our situation. It was written by young law student, Logan Eliasen.
Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. ~ Jeremiah 17:7
The store employee squinted as she surveyed the wall of laptop charges. I drummed my fingers on my jeans. The final paper for my labor law class was due tomorrow, and I hadn’t anticipated replacing a fried computer charger. I had already wasted an hour.
That’s when the storm sirens started – loud and mournful. They were accompanied by an announcement over the loudspeaker.
“Attention, customers. A tornado warning has been issued. The store is now closed. Please seek shelter in the back of the store.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said. The employee shook her head.
I followed a line of customers to a break room. The sirens continued their death knell to any plans of finishing my paper.
As I sat with the crowd of people, I couldn’t stop thinking about the paper. My heart beat faster, seeming to match the pace of the rain on the roof. The woman next to me stared at her phone. The weather radar on her screen blipped as she twisted and untwisted a lock of hair. She was also nervous, but her fear was focused on the weather.
The weather didn’t bother me. I trusted that I’d come out safely.
Why could I be so sure of God’s power over a tornado but unwilling to trust that He would help me complete a paper? I was comfortable relinquishing my physical safety to God, but not my GPA. But the God Who calmed storms also cared about the intimate details of my life. I needed to learn to entrust those details to Him.
“Good news,” the store manager said. “The tornado is passing, and the store will be reopening soon.”
I was glad to be free to leave, finally. But there was even greater freedom in remembering to trust God.
Lord, help me to entrust all areas of my life to You. ~ Logan Eliasen
Blaine took me out to his petroglyph discovery this morning. It was only 9:30am, but it was already hot. My weather channel app said it was currently 82! But it’s a dry heat . . .
I don’t care. It’s still hot!
Caught him before he tugged his shirt down. : )
Blaine slipped on a long sleeve shirt to keep the sun off his arms.
We’re going up through that split rock to the top of the hill.
Pretty!
We took a few minutes and just sat on top of the hill. There was not a sound other than the chatter of a few birds, the occasional fly buzzing by, and the wind whooshing past our ears. Even the cows and donkeys were silent, saving their energy in the midst of the heat.
And then, we explored around the top for a few minutes.
For those of you who may not know what those are, they’re kinda mini hawks.
It’s so dry here, we didn’t expect to see anything like this, but it was plentiful.
And then we thought we saw babies, so we got out the binoculars.
Looking through the binoculars! How cool is that! Two donkeys and their foals!
Are you impressed we were able to take a picture through the binocular lens? We were!
We were out about an hour, before we headed home where we cranked up the air conditioning and worked on various projects. Part of mine was baking and cooking dinner. Both were delicious, so here’s the recipes for the banana muffins and the meatloaf. The meatloaf is different from what I usually make. It’s a recipe from our former church – Springfield Baptist Church – and actually both recipes were submitted by the same family; the Claytors. 😊
BANANA CRUMB MUFFINS
1 ½ C. flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
½ t. salt
3 large ripe bananas, mashed
¾ C. sugar
1 egg
1/3 C. butter, melted
TOPPING:
1/3 C. packed brown sugar
1 T. flour
1/8 t. cinnamon
1 T. butter
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl combine dry ingredients for muffins. Combine bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Mix well. Stir into dry ingredients until just moistened. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups ¾ full. Combine brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Work in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over the muffin batter in the cups. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Cool 10 minutes.
Makes 12
HINT: You can also make this into bread by using a loaf pan and baking 45 minutes to 1 hour. To get ripe bananas, I always use thawed leftover bananas I’ve put in the freezer. It’s kinda gross when they thaw, but they make great muffins/bread!
FYI – Don’t use butter to grease the pan. It will burn.
SCRUMPTIOUS MEATLOAF
1 ½ # hamburger
2 eggs
¾ C. milk
2/3 C. (approx. ½ pkg.) Ritz crackers, finely crushed
½ C. onion, chopped
1 t. salt
½ t. sage
Dash pepper
1 C. ketchup
½ C. brown sugar
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add milk, crackers, onion, salt, sage and pepper and mix well. Add the hamburger and mix well. Shape into loaf and place in an ungreased loaf pan. Combine ketchup, sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Spread over the meat.
Bake for 60-65 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.
Serves 6-8
That’s the extent of our excitement for today. But just wait until Saturday when we plan on spending the day spring cleaning!! 😊