I haven’t been posting much lately. I have some sort of intestinal issue going on for months. I see a specialist in a few weeks. Hoping for answers.

As that was going on my feet (I’ve had five surgeries), started flaring up after a good six months of freedom from pain.

MIght I say I was getting a little discouraged?

BUT, it was also good. On the second day of having a lot of pain and feeling pretty awful, I thought about life in general. I realized that instead of fighting it, why not just admit that this was my normal for right now.

I don’t like it but what good does it do to fight it? It also doesn’t do any good to let it engulf me. Right?

I decided to simply trust God through the pain and keep on moving forward as best I could.

Pain is no fun for sure but God is with us in our pain….He understands our pain. I don’t believe He likes it any more than we do.

I don’t get all hung-up as to whether God sent it, “allowed” it, or any such other quick and easy answer. I think we do that way too often. I just make sure that I’m not doing anything to make either condition worse. If I’m not, then I can rest in God and let Him wade through this way with me.

I truly believe I am learning some valuable lessons and that is good.

But even with all that, I’ve had a good week because God’s presence has been especially strong.

The other night, I was on day two of the intestinal thing, I was feeling a bit better and really felt I should cook dinner. I hadn’t for a couple of days. My husband is wonderful and has no problem when illness prevents me from cooking. But I just wanted to, to feel like I was accomplishing something. You know what I mean?

I am not the least bit confident with my cooking skills. I can follow a recipe just fine, but throwing something together at the last minute is definitely not my thing. But by golly, I did it. I have no recipe to actually give you but I can walk you through what I did.

First of all, I used a 9 x 12 cake pan. Oven at 350. I placed a layer of chicken tenders on the bottom. I think I had about 8-10 pieces.

I cut up three potatoes into chunks and scattered them on and around the chicken, some on top, some on the side.

Then I had a can of French Onion soup which I layered over top of all that. I added salt and pepper, garlic powder and baked until done about thirty minutes.

But when the chicken and potatoes were done, everything was a little too white to suit me. I hate white-looking chicken. With everything still in the pan, I tilted the pan so the juices would run to one end. (It was on a burner at this point on low.) I couldn’t see getting out a saucepan.

I made a roux of some of the juices and added it back into the pan and stirred till smooth and thick. It was still too light so I brilliantly added some browning.

Bingo! It looked great. I spooned the sauce over the chicken and everything tasted great as well.

But here’s the even better part. We didn’t eat all of it so I said to my husband, “Couldn’t I just add more soup, some carrots and make it a version of like a stew”?

“Well, that would really be alike a chicken-pot-pie, woudn’t it?”

Bingo, again!

So that’s what I did. I added a can of Cream of Mushroom soup and a bay leaf.

The next night I fixed biscuits and served it on top of chicken mixture and voila’, a really great looking and great tasting meal.

I gotta’ say, this was a winner.

Sometimes, when you don’t overthink something, that’s when you have a big success. I think it looks great, too.

Don’t you?

God bless and have a great day.