Spatchcock Turkey by Joyosity – Flikr.com Nov. 27, 2014

The Lord is consistently teaching me of His goodness through the events of my life.  This Thanksgiving was no different.  The day started as a normal Thanksgiving.  The girls came in early and jumped on our bed asking if they could get up.  Grandma was visiting and the girls couldn’t wait to jump into her bed and start their day beside her.  Knowing Grandma was already up viewing her phone-we consented.  Slowly we emerged from the bed knowing that in a few hours my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and nephew would be here.  My getting ready routine consists of Bible time, primping and cleaning the house.  William made his way towards the kitchen to prep the turkey and I turned on the oven to make cinnamon rolls for the girls.  Anyone with children knows how important eating is for kids.  If you do not feed them on time, attitudes come out that are hard to handle!  Anyway, as the oven preheated I noticed what appeared to be a flame in the bottom of the oven.  I alerted my husband to what I was seeing so he could check it out.  As he opened the oven door, we watched as the coil on the bottom burned.  This is not something you wish to see on Thanksgiving of all days.  On top of it, this was the first year we were going to have a full house.  Since moving to Tulsa, Thanksgiving was typically a quiet day with just William, myself and the girls.   This year we invited family and I wanted everything to be perfect!  In that moment, I had a decision to make.  Get upset or rest in the Lord!  Praise God William and I have trained ourselves to rest.  This came as we took time to spend with God.  Knowing His faithfulness to you—brings rest.  Immediately, William turned off the oven.  Being in an apartment, we called the emergency maintenance line.  Although this was not listed under “emergency”- we called anyway.   After leaving a message, William and I prayed according to Philippians 4:6-7, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”  As we prayed, we displayed to the Lord our confidence in His faithfulness to us and asked that the coil be replaced within the hour.  Once we prayed, we just went about cleaning up and doing the things we could to prepare for company.  About 45 minutes went by and the pressure to worry was increasing.  We had not gotten a phone call back from the complex and time was ticking away.  As I made our bed, I felt pressure.  In my heart the Holy Spirit reminded me of 1^st Corinthians 10:13, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”  I committed to rest and before I finished my prayer- there was a knock at the door.  I jumped up and down as I just knew it was the answer to our prayers!  Sure enough, it was Bill the maintenance man.  He had gotten our message and even though it was not an “emergency”—since it was Thanksgiving— he rushed over.  Within ten minutes, the oven was fixed.  This alone was a great answered prayer, but as I reflected on the events the real miracle took place months before.   I love to Pinterest.  To me it is the fun of reading magazines without having the clutter of magazines around your house.  In my pinning fun one night,  I came across a method for cooking a whole chicken called “Spatchcocked Chicken”.  It was a method of removing the backbone of the chicken and laying it flat on a baking sheet to cook.  Some call it a “Splayed Chicken.”  This type of preparation allowed the bird to be cooked in less than half the time with crispy, juicy results.  Upon reading this recipe, I went to work to test it out.  Three times I made the recipe and became so comfortable with this approach that I “thought to myself”—  I think I can do this with a Turkey.   It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized the Holy Spirit had led me all along for that very day.  He knew the trouble we were going to run into.  Nothing surprises our Lord! If I had made our Turkey the traditional way, this setback would have put our dinner much later and caused us undo stress.  In His goodness, He prepared us for the event.  As I relayed what God had done for us to my daughters, this scripture came to my mind, “You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.” (Psalm 23:5) You see the Lord had already prepared us for the trouble we were going to experience.  Through spending time with Him, we had cultivated an ability to hear, know and obey His voice.  God tells us in John 16:33 that we will have trials and troubles, but He has delivered us from them all.  This is a simple testimony of His goodness but to me and my family on Thanksgiving Day— it was a mighty victory of His faithfulness in our lives.  This is just another example of why I am so in love with my Lord!