Just catching up...

Oh, it's been a fun (albeit crazy) week! Tomorrow night is the annual Sweetheart Banquet which is sponsored by our youth each February. This banquet for adult couples is always one of the highlights of the year. It serves as an outreach event, so it's always great to host so many guests!

The theme changes each year, and this year the theme is "Bella Notte"...a beautiful Italian evening! The couples will have their pictures taken against a beautiful Venetian mural that was painted by one of our senior girls. It's just so incredible! Not only that, but some of our youth staff created a gondola for the couples to sit in while getting their picture taken...complete with a gondolier!

I love cooking for this event! It's something that God has wired me to do, and it always invigorates me. The menu for the night includes Italian Spinach Dip and Pesto-Roasted Red Pepper Spread with crackers, Italian sodas, fresh spinach salad with cranberries and pecans, crusty bread with garlic butter, lasagna, Italian green beans, raspberry-chocolate cake, and coffee.

Entertainment for the night features our jr. and sr. high youth singing old songs such as "My Guy," "My Girl," and "I Got You, Babe." Dramatic pieces about marriage are woven throughout, and then at the conclusion, my husband will give a devotional/challenge regarding marriage. Our kids will conclude by singing "I Will Be Here."

Needless to say, the week has been filled with final preparations, decorating, shopping, rehearsing, and racing from one thing to the next. However, I'm so overjoyed that God has placed such peace in my heart regarding this year's banquet. In the past, I'd been so prone to work myself into a tizzy and fret about all that needed to be done. But I think perhaps I'm learning to turn my worry into prayer.

We've planned and prepared for this event for so long. But now I'm hearing God whisper to me, "Is your heart prepared, dear one?" After all these years, I think I'm finally learning what it means to exchange my inadequacies for His strength. And He is faithful to fill me with exactly what I need.

Praise God for His strength in my weakness.