Grocery Store Tips

By Brooke Parker

The best way to implement your healthy New Year nutrition goals is to start at the grocery store with a plan.  I often tell my clients, “If you don’t buy it, you won’t eat it.”  This saying applies to produce, fiber-rich foods, dairy foods and even lean meats.  Without prior thought and planning these types of food, which actually constitute the bulk of a healthy diet, will be left out.  If the grocery store or meal planning seems overwhelming to you, don’t sweat it.  The following tips will allow you to conquer the aisles without breaking the bank.

Prepare before entering the store:

• Create a list full of nutrient-dense foods.
• Determine general food needs for breakfast, lunch and snacks.
• List four to five dinner ideas for the week and include ingredients you will need.
• Read ads for store specials and bring coupons if applicable.
• Do NOT shop when hungry. Impulse buying will get you every time.
• Include fun foods in moderation.  Depriving yourself of ALL “treats” does not work.

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From Promiscuity To Purity

By Keisha Bass

Not your usual order of things, but at any rate, it can be done. Many of us have fallen to temptation and have lived with the guilt of our actions for quite awhile. Did you know that you can repent, turn from those ways, and start anew? God doesn’t remember every mistake that we make. He chooses to wipe our slates clean. Thank goodness. It can be hard to believe, but it’s true.

Growing up with a lot of freedom in high school, I began heading the wrong direction looking for a meaningful relationship. Then in college, I mistakenly thought sex meant love. I knew pre-marital sex was wrong, but longed for a male’s attention. And wanted that instant gratification as well as live my own life and do what I wanted to do, no matter the consequences. Little did I know that it would hurt me in the long run. I jumped from relationship to relationship and fell into many other temptations by following those I “loved” in the things they did.

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A Labor Of Love

By Rachael Sales

As the mother of eight children, six of which I naturally birthed, I am always interested in hearing the testimonies from the birthing room experience. As an avid supporter and participant of supernatural childbirthing, it never ceases to amaze me how God births life in and through the very creation that He birthed and that He paid the price on Calvary for it to be a glorious experience. There is nothing more beautiful (after experiencing new birth in Christ) than watching a child take its first breath on this side of it all. For this reason, I count it a privilege and a joy to gather the stories of wives and mothers, and provide a platform for them to be heard. Amidst the piles of laundry, the late night feedings and the little bumps and bruises, their voices cry out declaring that God is both able and willing to keep. Consider the following snippet of the labor room experience from wife and mother Kimberly Van Johnson:

When it actually came time to birth, our daughter came two weeks early. I started out contracting at home and later that evening went to the doctor. They sent me back home saying that I had dilated four to five centimeters. The contractions continued to come once I was home. One of the most beautiful things about that time was that my mother and mother-in- law were both there with me. I slept between both of them. Between contractions I’d just turn over and rest between them. One was on each side of me and my husband was kind of over all of us.

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Can I Start Over…Again…In 2010?

By Laurette Willis

“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness.” Isaiah 43:18

A new year and a new start. Perhaps you’ve talked yourself into believing this month will be like last month, or this year will be like last year. Maybe you have heard whispers in your ear that the mistakes you’ve made before will be repeated again. Someone may have told you, as was once said to me, “a leopard never changes its spots.” Did you know that’s in the Bible? It’s from Jeremiah 13:23.

Before I came to the Lord in 1987, I was that leopard who could never change her spots. I had so many “spots” on me that only the Lord Himself could see something salvageable beyond the spots and stains caused by a life of sin.

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The Hair Cut

By George Dalton

Have you ever seen one of those things that you just knew you could do? That almost cost you something important…like your marriage? Walking through a Wal-Mart recently I passed a display of electric hair cutting machines. I remember thinking, now how hard can that be? The economy is tight; we need to cut corners where we can.

Twenty minutes later I proudly marched through the back door from the garage. My wife turned and looked at me and asked, “What is that thing?”

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