Hello friends it’s good to be back, although I’m not sure for how long. I wanted to make this post and give an update since I haven’t been posting for a while.
Last year I was diagnosed with cancer that spread to my lymph nodes. The cancer was aggressive and feeding off the estrogen my body was producing. This year I’ve gone through chemotherapy, surgery, 6 weeks of daily radiation and now more chemotherapy. Some of the first chemos put me into menopause to stop the estrogen being created. I have another year of chemo ahead of me. Resting is about all I’ve been able to do. It takes energy to sit up, or even talk. Lifting my head, turning my body, I took all these things for granted.
My son flew in from California because he wanted to take care of us. He cooked, cleaned, did our laundry and made sure I ate. He was a huge help especially for my husband. My husband worked all day then would come home and care for me. The housework was a lot for him. Our son was a blessing.
I am still regaining my strength.
I was able to germinate seeds and plant veggies with my son, early on when my treatment began and I had some strength. I will try to post an update of how the garden turned out with so much neglect.
Hint: it turned out better than last years.
Thank you all for your patience and understanding.
Hey guys! Thanks for stopping by. Let me start off by saying I did not grow my basil from seed. I purchased a beautiful organic living plant from my grocery store. Thanks to Giant Food Store for the beautiful photo above. This is exactly what my plant looked like. (See below) around April 19 before I trimmed it.
Some people purchase this plant to cut all the leaves off and cook/use it immediately. Others want to grow more to eat from the plant for a longer period of time. If you want to use your plant over time for several meals as herbs, seasoning or pesto sauce it is best to re-pot your plant. The reason is because the soil in the pot your plant came in is temporary and the nutrients are by now almost depleted. For this reason re-pot your plant, feed it and reap the benefits.
The pot doesn’t need to be large but you may need several depending on how much you want to grow. Purchase a small bag of potting soil. The best one for basil will be rich in nitrogen. Nitrogen promotes growth in foliage, and leaves. There are also mixes that are rich in phosphorus and promote fruit growth and if you are growing veggies and herbs you can find potting mixes that are a rich source of nitrogen and phosphorous without being overly abundant.
After repotting I chose to trim my plant so that I may propagate it, meaning to reproduce the plant by trimming the stems and placing them in water to grow roots. Then planting the stem in a new pot of potting mix. Here is how I did it.
Find a tall stem that has at least 2 lower sections of leaves. The ones that branch out, I call them “arms”. Look in the photo below. It has several sections of leaves, the one closest to the soil at the very bottom being the smallest does not have any arms, so you wouldn’t trim it there. The one above it is still growing and has one arm soon to have another. The third section from the bottom has two arms and a new set of tiny leaves soon to become arms. (Circled below) The red line is where you want to cut. This way, each of the arms below the cut will produce 2 more arms. The section you cut off may be short, but that is okay it will grow just fine.
Place the cutting in a glass of distilled water. Try not to let the leaves sit in the water, keep them nice and dry and only the stem in the water. Place it in a sunny spot. You can cut many stems like I did below.
The photo above shows a 4 ounce class jar with trimmings. After3 to 4 days you will start to see little roots popping out. If on the 4th or 5th day you still don’t see any roots don’t be discouraged, empty the water and wipe out the jar and replenish it. You should change the water at least once per week. Once I didn’t have roots after 5 days so I changed the water and placed the jar back in a sunny spot. I almost forgot my little guy. After a few days I checked on it and it had a ton of roots. This clipping was also tall. (see photo below) The jar I put it in was an old spice jar. You can tell it out grew his home and was ready for a more permanent one.
After you have some roots, your plant will need more nutrients to continue to grow and produce like you want. This is when you plant it in the potting soil. You can plant several in one pot.
And simply continue to nurture your plants. Don’t let the soil be constantly wet. You can let it dry out a bit but remember to water it 2 to 3 times a week as needed. I used my own photos for this post. .
In the 4 photos below you can see the growth. In photo #1 this is my repotted basil on April 19 right before I trimmed it . I trimmed the basil on April 23 and placed them in a small jar of water. On the 27th they began to show roots and by April 30th the roots were strong enough (photo #2) to plant them in a pot. You can see how sparse my mature plant looks in photo #3 from being trimmed. By May 20th my basil was growing well and I felt the need to trim the longer stem (photo #4 below) so my plant would grow bushy instead of tall and thin. So I trimmed it and continued to propagate.
#1
#2
#3
#4
I picked lots of leaves from my plants and even put them outside in the sun.
harvested basil
As the season came to a close around September my plants began to die of disease, I am not sure what kind, but I kept the basil that was inside my house, and continued to use it. I never allowed my basil to go to seed. When basil goes to seed it will produce pretty flowers on the top which means it is dying and trying to preserve itself by producing flowers to spread it’s seeds. When this happens the basil becomes bitter, so you want to continue to harvest its leaves especially at the top so it won’t go to seed.
Have you ever grew basil? Do you think now it may seem more doable? It is! You can grow your own basil. Try it and let me know how it goes in the comments below.
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As you can see, I chose to grow bell peppers. To be more exact, I grew California Wonder Bell Peppers. They didn’t get too big, but they were very flavorful.
I started them from seed and they sprouted around the 20th of May and grew pretty fast. One plant didn’t germinate. So instead of 3 plants I had 2.
I kept them in the window sill until they were too big for their container. They were getting 8 hours of sun. As the days wore on and the amount of sun lessened to 6 hours I knew it was time to put them in some bigger pots and put them outside to get more sun.
On June 24 I put them in bigger pots and prepared them for the outside.
I started hardening them off on the 24th of June and they were outside overnight for the first time on July 1. These are my plants. The Bell Peppers are in the light blue pots.
There were lots of little blossoms that opened but only two blossoms produced peppers. The other blossoms fell off. I was so disappointed.
But those two grew, and I became very proud of them.
After we ate these peppers in a salsa (with jalapeno, onion, tomatoes salt and fresh squeezed lime juice) I got another bumper crop of peppers. This time I got 8 peppers. I think they would’ve grown larger, but I had to pick them because we were going to be having freezing temperatures. Also I started the seeds way too late, I should’ve started them in February (indoors) but instead I started them at the end of May. That is 3 months too late, I could’ve had another crop of peppers. We ate these peppers on salads and pizzas and let me tell you, they have a strong flavor, not like what you get in a grocery store.
Next year will be 2022 and I will be starting a larger garden. My goal is to grow enough food to not have to buy vegetables in the store. I want to grow tomatoes for salads, pasta sauce, pizza sauce, sandwiches, soups like chili, veggie soup and so much more. We eat pizza every Friday night. EVERY Friday night for the past couple of years and lately I make it during the week as well. I make the dough from scratch, and cook tomatoes for the sauce. I buy my peppers from the Amish food stands in Lancaster County, peppers that I have pickled (banana peppers) jalapenos and Cheyenne peppers. So I will need 25 of the 16 oz glass jars of pizza sauce just to have 1 pizza per week. (One jar is enough for for 2 and a half pizzas.) And I will need to freeze a ton of peppers for the pizza as well.
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you would like to join me on this journey to growing our own food consider subscribing to my page so you will be updated by email whenever I publish another post.
If you plan to grow veggie, herbs or flowers or are already growing these things let me know in the comments section below what you are growing or plan to grow, I’d love to hear from you.
Last week I introduced you to my little avocado that I started back in April of 2021 and shows the progress of that little guy and how fast he grew. If you missed it you can read about it HERE.
Today I want to show you my tomato plants that I started from seeds. Yes seeds. Growing your own tomatoes is very rewarding not to mention they taste better than store bought. They are full of flavor.
I germinated 3 Roma tomato seeds in a small condiment cup. It was the kind of cup you might get when you order takeout and ask for extra ketchup. You can get these cups from Amazon, I believe they are 4oz cups.
I placed a small square of a damp paper towel in the bottom of the cup and placed 3 seeds on the paper towel and sealed it with a lid. They germinated in two days. You can see the tiny seeds in the first picture, but the second picture is a close-up. See the white root sticking out of each seed in the photos below. Cool huh?
I planted the seeds in some moist potting mix and set them in the window where they got full sun for 6-8 hours every day. Two of the tomatoes sprouted within two days the other one came up later.
Later they grew so fast, I placed them in red solo cups. The tomato plants pictured below were taken on June 24.
By that time I had to pot them up and put them in larger containers and start hardening them off. Hardening off a plant or plants means to get them used to outside temperatures. On the first day, put them outside for an hour. Somewhere where they will get the required amount of sunshine. After that hour, bring them back in the house, or where they were prior. On the 2nd day they need to be outside for 2 hours. If you are in an area where it is abnormally hot, you may only leave them outside for a couple of hours each day for a week. Otherwise increase it by an hour each day. After my plants were out for 5 hours, I just left them outside all night from then on. They need the sunshine and the heat to help produce fruit. Below are all three in their new pot-homes. Photo was taken on June 24 and that was when I started setting them outside to get use to the heat. They needed support so I found some sturdy branches in the yard and just loosely tied cotton yarn around them to hold them up. Poor babies are used to the air conditioning.
Once I put them outside to harden off, they got stronger and stronger each day. Below, is the first day the plants were left out overnight. The red square pot is basil, the large green one next to it is a tomato. The two light blue pots are bell peppers, and the last two are tomatoes.
After about two weeks, the second last tomato plant was getting larger and stronger. See below, the first picture was taken on July 14 and on the 16th (second & third pictures) you can see it already had blossoms and they are opening. I believe these blossoms came out so fast because I finally put the plant in the sun. Also I should’ve started the seeds in February instead of April.
By August 5 the plants were huge and we had baby tomatoes all over the place.
The tomatoes have continued to grow. Below is August 19, and I have counted 18 tomatoes on 3 plants.
It takes a long time for tomatoes to ripen, the first 2 pictures were taken on September 7 and the 3rd picture was taken on Sept 14.
The pictures below were taken on Oct 22 so I picked a few and made salsa. By the way, just pick them when they are the color you want. If they are still pink or orange, they will ripen in a window sill.
My last harvest was on November 1 because Nov 2 was going to be cloudy all day and I knew they wouldn’t get any sun. Nov 3 would get down to 32 degrees and that would kill my plants. So I picked everything on the vines and we have been eating the tomatoes on sandwiches and salads and salsas, anything so we don’t have to cook them and we can taste the full flavor. If I had a huge garden I wouldn’t mind cooking them to make sauce and such but since we only grew about 40 tomatoes we ate them raw so we could taste them.
Have you ever planted tomatoes? Will you try it? What varieties do you like and what will you try to grow next year? Let me know in the comments below.
In my last post we talked about how to decide what to grow and as you can tell by the pictures in this post, I used whatever I could get my hands on to plant in. I used sour cream cups, see-through containers from the deli department at the grocery store and condiment cups. When planting and using potting mix, it is important to make sure there are enough holes in the bottom of the container to allow for drainage. In this post I will tell you about the avocado seed I have grown into a beautiful plant that thrives on water. I use purified or distilled water, both are safe to drink and I prefer them to tap water which contains chlorine. That will change in the future when we get well water. I started this avocado from an organic avocado I got from the grocery store. We had guacamole and I remembered the avocado I grew into a plant when I lived in southeastern North Carolina and decided to do it again. The first thing I did was to wash the seed and set it up to dry. I just placed it on the countertop. After a few days the seed began to wrinkle. No alarm there, it was just the skin of the avocado drying so I just peeled it off. If you skip this step and decide not to peel it off, just know it will grow mold and the water will be murky and gray and a bit slimy on the roots when they begin to grow. You can then place the seed in a damp napkin in a zip lock bag and put it away. I tossed mine in the hallway closet for a few weeks. When I remembered it, it had a large crack down the side. Again, no alarm, it usually does that to start the root. I then placed the avocado on the lid of a glass. The seed was so small it fell in, so I cut out a space in a condiment cap and it held the seed, allowing the bottom of the avocado to sit in the water. I checked my calendar and from the time I put the avocado in the zip lock bag to the time I put it in water it was a month.
The first picture is when I decided to put the little guy in a vase of water. The 2nd picture was taken April 19, 2021 and as you can see there is a large crack down the side. The 3rd picture was taken June 10, 2021 when I noticed a stem protruding out of the seed and little roots coming out of the bottom. The 4th 5th and 6th pictures were taken between July and August and shows the over all growth of the beautiful plant. I keep the glass totally full and touching the bottom of the seed. Avocados love water. I will continue to update as long as my avocado is growing and thriving. Stay tuned for more growth.
Have you ever grown an avocado? Did you eventually plant it in soil? Let me know in the comments below.
One goal I want to make into a reality is to have a garden. For right now I don’t have a lot of space, so nothing too big, just enough for my husband and I. I don’t want to be overwhelmed and I want to make sure I can do it, I have beginners doubt. Not knowing where to start, I just knew I had to get organized, but what does it mean to get organized in gardening?
When I was growing up in Southeastern North Carolina, my grandpa had a garden next to our house. He grew cucumbers every year to take to the market and us kids would pick them for extra money. He also grew massive sunflowers, and corn. My mom had a garden behind our house with 2 peach trees, okra (gross), peas, tomatoes, potatoes and peppers. When I was a kid we hated vegetables. My mom, being raised on a farm, ate just about anything that grew from the earth. I always helped my mom in the kitchen and although she usually tended the garden, sometimes she would send me out to get vegetables for dinner. I always hated it, mainly because the vegetable she had me pick was the okra. They were prickly, they hurt and they were slimy when you cook them, so of course I hated them, and couldn’t eat them because they triggered my gag reflux. It wasn’t until my mom had me digging up potatoes for dinner one evening that I realized she wanted me to pick them so we could eat them, and not to punish me. I guess I associated getting pricked by okra, with being punished because I didn’t eat any of the vegetables I picked until it was time for potatoes. I did eat potatoes. So remember to plant what you like, not what everyone else is growing. If you are thinking about growing your own food like I am, here is how to get organized and assess your situation.
1. How Much Room Do You Need?
This is important because you may eat lots of vegetables but you live in a small apartment without a balcony and get very little sun. This will limit you but not if you are determined. Whether you are planning on a sidewalk garden like mine, or just growing a few pots of herbs in a window sill, or if you are planning on a larger garden because you have a good space to grow, this post can get you started. You can start small with 1 vegetable you really like. Not having adequate sun means you can start with vegetables that do well in shade. You don’t have to go out and buy pots most vegetables that do well in the shade don’t have a very long root system so you can start the seeds in yogurt cups, or paper pots, or even toilet paper rolls. Just make sure there is adequate drainage like a few holes in the bottom. As the plants get bigger you can transplant them into larger containers like a clean, small bathroom trash can, and old cloth grocery bag, 8-10 inch pots, there are lots of things you can use. Make a list of the small food containers you have or make a note to save a few. A rotisserie container is great as well for starting seeds and aiding in germination.
2. What vegetables do you eat most often?
For my husband and I we eat lots of tomatoes. It has become a tradition for us to have pizza on Friday’s. Every Friday I work up some dough, shred some cheese and cook a 28 ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes for the sauce. I don’t use the entire can on the pizza, we use the rest as a dipping sauce for the crust. That is at least 40-52 cans of tomatoes per year. We also eat green beans, bell peppers, long hots, jalapenos, collards, onions and garlic every week. I ferment cabbage to make sauerkraut, we eat cucumbers every week in salads and I make pickles. Occasional vegetables are squash, zucchini, and pumpkin and lots of herbs. Make a list of the vegetables or fruits you eat most often.
3. How Much Sun Can You Provide?
Some people start seedlings in a window sill or on a table next to a window. Most vegetables need full sun, this means at least 6-8 hours of the sun shining on the seedling or vegetable every day. Check your window or exterior doors and any outside areas you have access to. Some people notice the sun shining on the floor at some part of the day either through a window or an open glass door. Check the time when the sun starts shining through and just keep an eye on it. This will let you know how much sun you can provide. The basil in the window below gets exactly 6 hours. If you don’t get any sun you can use grow lights. If you only get a few hours decide whether you would consider using grow lights. Research the cost. They don’t have to be the expensive “grow lights” . If you don’t want to use grow lights, list the vegetables that will grow in the amount of sun your situation can provide. If you are open to grow lights, list the vegetables you are interested in growing.
You can also use a background with aluminum foil to reflect light.
4. How Much Room Will The Vegetable Need To Grow and Ripen?
The small containers you choose to germinate, or transplant seedlings to give a bit more room are all fine, but what do you do when they outgrow the yogurt container or rotisserie container? That is why it is important to consider how much room you need. Collards can get very big. Here are 4 heads of collards I got from the garden when I lived in North Carolina. They really need some cooler weather because they are more tender after the first frost so outdoors would be best but can be grown in 5 gallon buckets.
Tomatoes are great and can also be grown in doors, but they will also need space. There are thousands of varieties out there just choose the right variety if you have limited space. If you only want tomatoes for salads you could grow cherry tomatoes. Chose a tomato that is “determinate” this means it has a determinate height and will only grow within a certain height. Indeterminate tomatoes will grow very tall. Some people set up a sturdy trellis so the tomato vine will have adequate support. Indeterminate tomatoes will continue to produce tomatoes and will continue to grow longer/taller until it gets too cold or is killed by disease. Some grow up to 22 feet. If you are determined to grow a certain variety and they are a vine that will grow up to 22 feet, you can cut the tops when they reach the top of the trellis. This will make the plant focus on ripening the fruit that is already there instead of growing longer to produce more fruit. Now that you have an idea of what you would like to grow look over your list. Do you have a window sill to start? Will you be using grow lights or buckets outdoors? How much space can you provide for your plant to mature? It is great if you have a balcony or even a small corner of a sunny room. Vertical gardening is a thing. Figure out how much fruit one plant will produce and decide if this is enough for you, if not think about caring for 2 plants. Or maybe you just want enough fruit for sometimes. It really is up to you. If you produce too much you can always offer some to friends, or look up some recipes you haven’t tried before or try preserving them in a brine. I want to grow so many things, but since I don’t have a balcony or a yard yet I do have a window sill that I can utilize and a sidewalk with a hand rail to support veggies. I already have basil growing and have had it for several months now but I want to grow tomatoes. Do you have a list ready? Or maybe just one or two items to make sure you can grow something? If you know the variety of the plant you want there are lots of places that sell seeds. Walmart being one. Walmart sells lots of seeds from Burpee and also True Leaf Market and they may sell others these are just 2 that I know of. There are lots of seed websites out there like Johnny Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed ExchangeOrganic Heirloom Seeds but also Amazon and Walmart.com so do your research. If you have chosen the variety of your vegetables, light source and where you will grow them, Congratulations! You have assessed your situation and you are getting organized!
Are you thinking about what you can grow? What do you want to grow? Food? Flowers? Herbs? Let me know in the comments below.
When someone asks you to pray for them, do you actually do it? I think sometimes we say we will pray for people and we think that is enough just to say it, as though God heard us mention we will do it and that’s it. In reality, it isn’t. We need to pray for each other. If it is appropriate, we can pray with them in that moment. If you are on the phone, ask them if they have 2 minutes to pray now, and pray for them. Sit in your car, slip away to another room, or walk to a corner of a room. If they have time and so do you, take the time to pray with your friend.
When having your daily prayer, it’s not enough to just mention the person and keep going. For example: “and dear God I pray for Suzie and her situation, and God bless Anita and her family,” and so on. I think sometimes we just don’t know what to say so we simply mention them and keep going. What is important to know is that you don’t need to know what that person is going through to be able to adequately pray for them and maybe it isn’t your business to know. What is our business is standing in the gap for a friend, helping them by taking their problems before the Almighty King. If someone is asking for prayer they are saying, ~I can’t do this alone. They are asking for help and they are asking you.
You may not know if they are having financial difficulty, problems with their kids, maybe they are trying to get a better job, maybe there is tension with their spouse or they received news about a medical situation that isn’t going well. These are things that you cannot fix but these are things that you can pray for. I find that praying for wisdom for my friend usually starts the ball rolling in my prayers. If you don’t know what to say in your prayers, start by asking God to give your friend wisdom. This may seem like a simple prayer and it is, but it is powerful. The Bible tells us in
James 1:5 if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (NIV)
God gives generously, isn’t that wonderful! Pray for God to give your friend wisdom to know how to handle and get through their situation whatever it may be. Pray for them to have a godly response to things that are happening in their life. Ask God to show them what they need to do, to lead them down the right path and above all pray for God’s will to be done in their life.
Now if you know a little about the situation then pray on a deeper level. If you know she is having money problems, pray God will give your friend wisdom and that she will be open to creating a budget, pray for mindfulness and self-control.
If your friend is having a problem with their children/child/teenager pray for the child’s heart, pray for love and understanding for discipline and by all means pray for your friend as a parent. Pray for God’s guidance with their child. Just because we are adults doesn’t mean we are always right. Pray for wisdom and even a renewed relationship between parent and child, and above all pray for God’s will to be done.
I love it when people ask me to pray for them. I used to be afraid because I didn’t want to ask, “what do I pray for?” I didn’t want to seem noisy, but it occurred to me that they just needed prayer and it helped me to develop this system. I knew what type of work they did, if they had children or a parent living with them that needed care so right there I had a lot to pray for. If I didn’t know specifically what to pray for, I prayed for everything, and when I finished I prayed for God’s will to be done in their life.
When someone asks you to pray for them, do it. We shouldn’t be praying once a day. The Bible tells us in I Thessalonians 5:17 to pray continually (NIV) or, pray without ceasing (KJV). So at some point during your day pray for your friend specifically. In the morning during your Bible time, maybe you pray for your family and success for their day and specific prayers for each of them. As your day goes on maybe during your car ride to work you pray for your coworkers or your friend specifically. There are times during the day when we are alone, even walking to the bathroom, or walking to another building, or another part of the building. What about on a lunch break or on your ride home and even while you cook and with your children before bed. There are plenty of times when you can pray for your friend. If you say you will pray for them, don’t be mediocre like I used to be and simply call out their name. Really pray for them. You don’t know what they may be going through inside. Talking to God about your friend is a wonderful way to stand in the gap for their needs.
Did you find this at all helpful? Please let me know in the comments below how you pray for others, especially when they ask.
When I read this for my Bible time I began by thinking, Whatever I read today I will apply it to my life. As I began to read through, I wasn’t sure what God was trying to tell me but it soon became very clear. Let’s read, you’ll see what I mean.
A Call to Build the House of the Lord (NIV)
1 In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak,[a] the high priest:
2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’”
3 Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. 9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. 10 Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. 11 I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.
13 Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people: “I am with you,” declares the Lord. 14 So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month.
God knew the people’s hearts, he knew they were all thinking, and saying “It’s not time to rebuild the house of the Lord.” They were talking about the temple. The temple had been neglected and it was in poor condition. The Bible says it was in “ruin” (V. 4)
God spoke through Haggai to the people and asked, “So it’s ok for you, the people, to live in paneled houses while God’s temple remains in ruin” (summarized) He goes on to tell them, that they do the things they are supposed to do, like earn wages, eat, drink, but they are not satisfied, and their needs are never met.
Why do you think this is? I believe the answer lies in Matthew 6:25-34. It tells us that if we put God first all of our needs will be met. We will not have to worry, struggle, or be hungry, God will take care of us.
We see that in Haggai 1 the people were struggling, their needs were not being met. The would eat, but they were still hungry, they earn wages but the money didn’t stretch far enough. It’s because they were not putting God first. Back then, they had to start with God’s temple. This was a time before Jesus where God dwelt in the temple. He tells them to rebuild it so he can take pleasure in it and be honored.
Now to the question at hand.
How can you put God first? Answer: By rebuilding God’s temple, so he can take pleasure in it and be honored.
Question 2: What is God’s temple? Wasn’t that like 2,000 years ago? Answer: YOU are God’s temple
Is that starting to make sense? So let’s ask the question again. How can you rebuild God’s temple? Answer: If your body is a temple, you need to rebuild it by taking better care of it.
Are you having daily Bible times with God for your heart, soul, and mind? Are they meaningful Bible times? Do you have your Bible time before you start your day? That is, putting on your armour before battle? Or do you have your Bible time after your day has already begun? You can’t put your armour on in the middle of battle. That means you are not protecting yourself.
Also, are you looking your best, and steering clear from debauchery? This can come in many forms. Debauchery can be food, alcohol, grooming, anything that you are doing in excess. Are you treating your body like the temple of God? You should be because that is what it is.
Are you getting enough sleep? Are you eating properly? Are you getting exercise and drinking enough water? I know this sounds like a fitness pitch, and I don’t care, God put this on my heart to share and I love every one of you and want you to be on the right path and taking care of yourselves. Last year I found out I was about 30 pounds overweight for my age. I honestly thought I was only about 5 pounds over and was shocked to know I was overweight. At the same time, an author named Gabriel Jackson reached out to me and offered me a free copy of his book on Intermittent Fasting in exchange for an honest review. (You can read that review HERE my other website) It turns out that when you fast, your body starts to eat all the damaged cells like the ones that cause cancer. It’s called autophagy. It is Greek for “eat thyself”. Autophagy can prevent cancer, diabetes, heart disease, muscle loss, and much more. You can find more information Here
You don’t have to fast, but please I implore you to take care of yourself, let’s rebuild God’s temple so he will be pleased and honored.
What have you been doing especially during the pandemic to take care of yourself? Are you taking care of yourself? Let me know some of the things you have been doing to rebuild God’s temple in the comments below.
Stepping Into The Life 