When one is chronically ill, and a friend wishes to help her, the first thing that comes to mind is to bring her a meal. In fact, since the most popular gift to bring is a meal, I wrote the book, Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend to get people to think beyond food.

Having said, that, however, a meal is a gift of comfort. And even though we may be physically able to cook, it takes a burden off of us so that we can use the energy we would have spent cooking doing something else.

I have discovered that many people who cook for the chronically ill are actually ill themselves. Though it is easy to understand new mommies and those who have just had surgery are in need of meals, those who see a chronically ill friend at the bank and picking their daughter up from school, it’s hard to understand why they would need someone to cook for them.

But those who have a chronic illness understand just how much a meal can make a difference. It makes a difference in practical ways, like not having to cook dinner for your family that night. But it also tells someone, “I acknowledge your (invisible) illness. I recognize how hard it can be to just get through the day sometimes. I know how hard you are trying to do it all and not complain. Let me give you this gift.”

So, in that spirit, here at Rest Ministries we are providing some fun printables to use when you give someone a meal. These can be downloaded and then printed out. You can tape it onto the foil covering a meal, print it on label paper you can get at your local office supply store, or punch a hole and attach it with a piece of ribbon. It makes that special meal a true gift and tells the person you are delivering it to that they are very special!

The circles can be added to any little item, condiment, gift bag of something, etc. with a note from you!

Please feel free to share these, “pin them”, print out and distribute them to people in your support group to use, email the link to your women’s ministry leader–whatever you can do to share. Our only stipulation is that you do not repost them as your own creation. Thanks! You can download these free printable meal delivery labels here or click the image below.

And… leave a comment below and we will randomly choose three winners next Monday of my book “Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend, for those who want to go beyond the casseroles!

It needs to be recognized, right up front, that for some of us everyday chores may be impossible. For others, they require cutting back, or taking frequent rest periods. This devotional is intended to encourage you, not make you feel unnecessary guilt.

Earlier this year, after I started coughing up a small amount of blood (and went into panic mode!) this subject came to mind. A few days later a large clot was disgorged, and I made an appointment with my doctor right away. Then I tried to keep my life as normal as possible, and discovered that doing routine tasks was a help. Having to focus on the now, and on familiar things, dampened my feelings of dread.

There’s also the benefit that comes from stretching, and using muscles. It can improve our fitness level and therefore our quality of life. And there’s the satisfaction of having accomplished something worthwhile, contributing not only to meeting our own needs but those of others. Such activities can develop a measure of endurance and self-discipline. But is there a way to make them less like drudgery?

God is helping me to trade my attitude of self-centered resentment for one of gladly serving Him. I have a long way to go, but this is a good motivator. In addition, I can have times of fellowship with Him while doing more automatic chores, by praying, listening to praise music, or mediating on His Word. And it’s possible to make a game of it, or team up with a friend for suggestions and motivation.

How long it takes to do things can be frustrating. But I have found lately that while it’s often hard to begin a task, once I do I’m glad I did.

Prayer: Lord, give us the grace to tackle needful things, even when they give us a measure of pain and frustration. May we be more grateful, as well, for what you enable us to do. Amen.

About the Author:
Beth Cottrill lives in a small town in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, with her retired pastor/teacher husband, Bob, an avid football fan. She finds living with Attention Deficit Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, depression, osteo-arthritis and a stroke of several years ago a challenge, but also training for a ministry to others. She loves nature, animals, music, making cards and, last but not least, being a grandma.

You can now read this on your Kindle. Find out more at http://TodaysDevotionOnKindle.com

Can you give an example of a time when chores (or just one chore) have been a special benefit to you? What do you do to make chores seem less like slave labour?

Matt and Rachel

By Matt Horne

Caring for a chronically ill wife is not what I had envisioned when I was working up the nerve to ask out “that hot girl” who would later become my wife. We were in college and she was on the cross country team. She let me know very early on in the relationship that she had a chronic illness.

Nowadays, it’s just part of life. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if she were well.

There’s a reason I call her “Super Rachel.” On her good days, she can run circles around me–cleaning, getting things checked off her to-do list, and having tons of fun. She’s amazing.

On top of that, she has the greatest attitude and rarely lets her condition get her down. As her dad says, she’s an “overcomer.” Instead of having a “why me?” attitude, she says “what can I do to fix it?” She also has the tendency to volunteer for more than she can handle, but I digress. . .

Here are some tips about the logistics I’d like to pass on to help other couples who are coping with chronic illness:

Career

Super Rachel can’t work sometimes. A couple years ago, she was working part-time, working on her Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology, and working as a Graduate Assistant at the university (to pay for school). She crashed. We worked it out so we don’t need her income and she can stay at home trying to feel better.

Priorities

She was forced to reevaluate her priorities. Rachel used every ounce of her energy to please everyone else and live up to their expectations. Sometimes she was not physically able to drive home at night and I would have to put on my shining armor and drive my mighty steed (Ford Ranger) to pick her up. We had very little free time as a couple. At that time, she decided to put God first and her family (me) second in her life. School, work, and everything else is important, but not that important.

Now that she’s feeling better, she only works 2 days a week and we carpool, so she doesn’t have to drive herself. Working two days a week at the doctor’s office is the peak of her current physical ability, but she has the opportunity to help others with the same chronic condition she has.

Mobility

I searched on craigslist.org for a walker and a go-cart. (Yes, I call it the go-cart. Yes, I know I’m wrong. It is a mobility scooter. No, I won’t change.) I got the walker for $50 ($175 off) and the go-cart for $300 ($1,000 off). The walker helps her get around the house when she’s at her worst health-wise. The go-cart helps us get the shopping done, among other things.

Shopping

I used to get really frustrated when she said she had enough energy to go shopping, but didn’t. Invariably, when we got just about five items down on the list, she would need to quit and go home. I had probably 25 more things to get. It really made me angry sometimes, but it wasn’t her fault. The walker and the scooter dramatically changed things. Now, for the first time in her life, she actually enjoys shopping.

Independence

To help her be more independent on her bad days, I installed a hand-held shower head in the bath tub and bought a shower chair. Now she can clean herself most of the time.

Comfort

We used to sleep on an incline, so there wouldn’t be as much of a change for her when she gets up in the mornings. This is a common treatment for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.

Cooking

It is very important for her to be able to eat when I’m not home, even when she can’t stand up. If you can’t stand for more than a few seconds, you obviously can’t cook on the stove top. We try to get a good number of things pre-cooked and in the freezer for her to re-heat and I’m not talking about “healthy-choice box dinners” either.

We like to do what is called “Once A Month Cooking,” or OAMC. We’re not very good at doing it regularly, but if you do it right, you can have wonderful dinners & lunches for very little cost, and it’s all home made! With OAMC, you create a plan, buy your stuff, cook all day, and then freeze it for later. Sometimes all day Saturday spills over into part of the day on Sunday.

When she’s desperate for some nutrition and doesn’t have the energy to cook, she uses the walker to get to the kitchen, musters what energy she has to get the food from the freezer to the microwave, and then sits down on the seat of the walker (or the floor) while it cooks. After that, she can eat right there in the kitchen. Some days, we use the bar stool in front of the stove or sink so that she can get some work done.

And I almost forgot – I do pick her up and carry her sometimes!

Tomorrow Matt will Share. . .

How a Husband Can Encourage a Chronically Ill Wife – The Spiritual and Emotional Stuff

Matt Horne is the wife of Rachel, who lives with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and fibromyalgia, among other conditions. They have been married since December 2006 and Rachel is currently pregnant with her first child. Matt is the youth pastor at the First Baptist Church Hebron in Carrollton, Texas. You can visit his web site at http://www.matthorne.info .

Super-Naturally Healthy Families Cookbook, written by Certified Biblical Health Coach & TV host Joanna Faillace, is packed with all natural & great tasting smoothies, snacks, “habit-izers”, meals & desserts! Our “fast food” lifestyle is causing obesity & disease at alarming rates in families across the globe! But there is hope! Now you & your family can make delicious & nutritious recipes without all those artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, dangerous chemical pesticides, high fructose corn syrup, chemically engineered feed, growth hormones & antibiotics that have been proven to be linked to all kinds of health problems!

In Super-Naturally Healthy Families, you will also be blessed & inspired by beautifully written devotionals by the gifted writer, L. P. Topazio. Included also, are Super-Naturally Healthy Tips that will help you with meal planning & a comprehensive chart listing Biblical foods & their references. There’s even a helpful guide to healing herbs & spices & special sections for note-taking!

The Bible teaches us that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit in which God lives! Joanna is passionate about helping you & your family to win the daily battle against stress, fatigue, obesity & disease! Isn’t it time for you & your family to get supernaturally healthy?

Here’s what Jordan Rubin, author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Maker’s Diet, has to say about Joanna’s Super-Naturally Healthy Families Cookbook: “Joanna Faillace has compiled an excellent collection of nutritious, creative recipes that emphasize whole foods & organic ingredients. In Super-Naturally Healthy Families, she proves that it’s possible to tempt fussy kids & adults alike with foods that are healthy & delicious. From easy to prepare Caribbean Fruit Kebabs to Turkey Divine, Joanna shows how to raise strong & healthy families with the best foods from God’s bounty.” ~ Jordan Rubin, CEO & Founder, Garden of Life

You can order your signed copy of Super-Naturally Healthy Families Cookbook today & learn how to get you & your family on the road to supernatural health & wellness!

Your children can also learn to eat healthy & have fun at the same time with Chef Joanna’s step by step, easy recipes on her DVD, Super-Naturally Healthy Kids! This DVD features 5 of Chef Joanna’s favorite kids’ recipes that will get your children excited about being in the kitchen creating their own great tasting & healthy foods!

Joanna is happy to donate $5 from the sale of each of her cookbooks & $2 from the sale of each of her DVDs to Rest Ministries! *Please type the words “Rest Ministries” in the “Billing Address Line 2″ at checkout. Thanks for your support!

To order Super-Naturally Healthy Families Cookbook & Super-Naturally Healthy Kids with Chef Joanna DVDs, go to:

At just 5 calories & one sugar gram per 1/4 of a teaspoon (which nicely coats a bowl of popcorn), you can treat those cravings– without the calories! It’s not sticky, but it’s a light seasoning that does have that kettle corn flavor.

So far, we’ve only located this flavor at our local Blockbuster video store. It is a .9 ounce bottle & is just $.99.

Other flavors have spotted at places like Target & the grocery store, including butter & nacho cheese.

Any flavor can also be ordered at the Kernel Seasons web site for $3.99 for a 3 ounce bottle. The website offers special discounts for bulk orders as well as a listing of all the stores that carry the product near you.

HealthDay News reported, “Their study of 42 people with type 1 diabetes found that nearly half had immune system T-cells that overreacted to wheat. The researchers also identified genes associated with this abnormal immune response. ‘The immune system has to find the perfect balance to defend the body against foreign invaders without hurting itself or overreacting to the environment, & this can be particularly challenging in the gut, where there is an abundance of food & bacteria,’ study author Dr. Fraser Scott, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute & professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, said in a hospital news release.”

“Our research suggests that people with certain genes may be more likely to develop an overreaction to wheat & possibly other foods in the gut, & this may tip the balance with the immune system & make the body more likely to develop other immune problems, such as type 1 diabetes,” he explained.

The study appeared in the August 2009 issue of Diabetes. “These observations add to the accumulating evidence that the gut is an active player in the diabetes disease process,” Dr. Mikael Knip of Finl& wrote in an accompanying editorial.

Fore More information see The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases has more about diabetes.

I love it! Here are a few things to consider:

• it’s not a cappuccino maker & you don’t use individual coffee flavors like some of them. This is basically just a regular coffee pot, but the coffee goes into a pot/container inside the machine, not a pot outside.
• it doesn’t come with travel mugs as some other versions or br& names do.
• you can set the pot to make the coffee a certain temperature. Now when I dump my sugar free cream in from the fridge the coffee stays hot.
• no heavy pots to lift!
• I do have some mugs that have a wide rim & these aren’t able to line up right with the push button & spout so coffee spills. If I want to use one of these mugs, I do have to get the coffee out in another container or something first. I’ve learned to live with it, but this could have been made better.
• You can pull out the entire container of coffee, so if you had a lot of people you could serve it this way which would be faster, or transfer it to a carafe.
• My husb& says it cleans easily (I love that he cleans it for me)

I recommend this, especially if you have any h& issues with lifting coffee pots!

-Lisa C.

Whether you have a family to feed or live alone & are trying to find the energy to make a nutritious meal for one, it takes some intentional effort. When you are exhausted, it’s easy to find yourself staring into the cupboard or freezer & feeling completely uninspired.

Just go to SuperCook.com & enter in whatever ingredients you have. It can be as simple as entering “ground beef” or you can start adding in items as you shop to have a full listing. Then hit “add” & bingo!

It gives you dinner ideas. It will also ask you, “do you have…?” & you can add the items you know you have on h&.

Your family may miss those beans & wiener days, but hey, it’s an easy way to get healthy.

Do you have any tools to share about meal preparation? Questions about how to prepare meals when you are exhausted? Write them in the comments below to share with others!

• 90% of U.S. physicians had no college education; Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press & by the government as subst&ard.
• 14% of the homes had a bathtub
• Average life expectancy was 47
• The five leading causes of death in the US were:

1. Pneumonia & influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

• Most women only washed their hair once a month—with borax or egg yolks
• Crossword puzzles, canned beer, & iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
• Only 14 percent of the homes in the US had a bathtub.
• Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
• One in ten US adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Here is a web site that can be helpful: StillTasty.com

Not only can it tell you how long you should keep certain leftovers, it can help you plan ahead for those times when you don’t feel like cooking by making sure your meal or dessert will still be safe (& yummy!) to eat. For example, an unbaked peach pie can go in the freezer up to 2-4 month. But a baked pie can be in the freezer 6-8 months. I would have thought it would be better to have it unbaked. Who knew?

If you pull out that pasta leftover from a few days ago & your way of testing is to smell it, you should check out StillTasty.

They also provide information on the best way to store food & how to actually interpret expiration dates.

Search by product name or browse site by food type like fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, fish, etc. They have an excellent Q/A section & you can submit your own questions too.

For example:

• Can You Safely Reuse Marinade?
• Can You Safely Eat Chicken That’s Been Frozen for Two Years?
• I Forgot to Refrigerate Food — Will Reheating Make it Safe?
• If Raw Beef Gets Dark is it Still Safe?
• Is Canned Tuna Still Safe After the “Best By” Date?
  

Here’s to safer eating!

-ljc

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• Use a Leftovers Log to Safeguard Your Stomach (lifehacker.com)

“The Lord heard you when you wailed, ’If only we had meat to eat!’ Now the Lord will give you meat. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, or ten or twenty days, but for a month—until you loathe it.”
The woman paused, looked up & said, “Hey, isn’t that the Atkin’s diet?” (author unknown, via internet)