I spent an hour and a half this morning, completely cleaning the refrigerator. The fact that it took that long shows just how filthy it was. I just couldn’t believe the things I found in there. It was hard work!
All done now…..and the bottom three drawers are almost empty! (except for the 2 dozen eggs).
I threw everything away that made me hesitate (just how old is this?).
I combined four jars of pickles into two.
I gathered all the sandwich meat and cheese onto a plastic plate.
Kept the groups of mayo and mustard together, sauces, salad dressings, block cheeses, and jelly together.
I also determined: to make the family actually eat the leftovers, label the date on half empties (like spaghetti sauce), wipe and clean the shelves more often, and try not to over crowd the fridge ever, ever again.
I finished another article of clothing last night, for baby Sarah.
Mushroom dress with orange trim (size 9-12 months):
As I cleaned the fridge this morning, I was able to listen to part of a sermon on my IPOD. May I recommend to you the preacher; Albert N. Martin. I listened to a sermon entitled, “How NOT to foul up Parenting”, and even though I only was able to hear 15 minutes, it was a deep blessing to me. I hope to listen to the rest later on. Please give him a try, I think you will be as spiritually blessed as I was, and as many of his other listeners have been, as well. His are the sort of sermons that make your heart beat faster and your hands grab for your Bible, and the nearest pen and paper, to take notes.
Yesterday, my husband gave me a quick call in the middle of the day to let me know that he had a physical done and that he is in excellent health. His heart rate, his blood pressure, his weight, according to the doctor, are “perfect”. When he told me these things, I was overwhelmed with gratitude to my heavenly Father. I feel at times that His goodness is too good, I think about his abundant mercy and feel so humbled and totally unworthy. I thought, “I want to DO SOMETHING, I wish I could give God something back, to show how thankful I am, but what could I possibly do?”
Then, the Holy Spirit reminded me of a verse that I had read in the past, that contained this phrase, “OFFER THE SACRIFICE OF PRAISE.”
So I prayed throughout the day, and as I fell asleep last night, just telling God how wonderful He was, how much I praise and thank Him, with everything within me. Halleluia, praise and glory, awesome, and mighty!
The words of my prayers seemed so inadequate, but how amazing it is to know that even the wordless sighs and feelings of our innermost heart and soul, the happiest of tears and smiles, are translated by God as sincere communication to Him.
“By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.” Hebrews 13:15
I remembered that I had a book by the wonderful Charles H. Spurgeon, in which he writes so beautifully about The Practice of Praise. So, I got the book off the shelf and began to read it again. If you are looking for a blessing, a delight of a book, you might want to try reading it for yourself.
Some quotes:
“You cannot always be speaking His praise, but you can always be living His praise. The heart once set on praising God will, like the stream which slips down the mountain’s side, continue still to flow in its chosen course.”
“A soul saturated with divine gratitude will continue to give forth the sacred aroma of praise.”
“When we see His works, when we read His Word, when we taste His grace, when we mark His providence, when we think upon His name, our spirits bow in the lowliest reverence before Him and magnify Him as the glorious Lord. Let us abide continually in the spirit of adoration, for this is praise in its purest form.”
“Praise is heart-trust and heart-content with God.”
“Praise is heart-enjoyment, the indulgence of gratitude and wonder.”
“We should praise as much as we pray. ‘I have no voice!’ says one. Cultivate it until you have. ‘But mine is a cracked voice!’ Ah, well! It may be cracked to human ears and yet be melodious to God. To Him the music lies in the heart, not in the sound.”
“Remember, every misery averted is a mercy bestowed. Every sin forgiven is a favor granted. Every duty performed is also a grace received. The people of God have an inexhaustible treasury of good things provided for them by the infinite God. For all we should overflow with praise for Him. Let your praises be like the waters of fountains which are abundantly supplied.”
~Charles H. Spurgeon, The Practice of Praise
Good to be Home 
Praise Him, Praise Him. I read a Psalm this morning,Ps.18, and it began with `”I will love You, O LORD, my strength.” MY notes said this was a special word for love that means tender intimacy to express very strong devotion. I asked, do I have that kind of love, and show it? You have given a great example Shanda of what the Lord desires from us. A great focus for my day today!The little mushroom dress is delightful! Like a cute little storybook page in a dress. How fun. Great job on the frig. I need to do so too…maybe next week when we take an Easter break! Hugs to you! Jenny
What a lovely, lovely post…I love the mushroom dress and recently cleaned out my fridge as well. It took nearly two hours, (and there are only four of us) make you feel better?? LOL LOVE the Spurgeon quotes đ Have a Fabulous day
Love the dress..I can already see her in it! Can you believe this time next year she will be wearing it?(And you will be blogging how she is almost ONE!)
How wonderful–your little girl will have some handmade clothing. The little dresses are beautiful. How did you learn to sew? Thank you for the reminder to praise–in all things.:) I am going to listen to Mr. Martin as I fold my clothes this afternoon. Thank you for the recommendation.
Hmm….maybe I should clean out my fridge đ
That dress is so adorable! I’m sewing today too – but I’m not sewing sweet little tidbits – I’m sewing up the knees of several uniform pants for my Nick – who seems to blow the knees out of his school pants every other day! I also need to clean my fridge out – maybe today I’ll get to that! I love a clean fridge! Thank you for the book suggestions – I will definitely look those up at my library. Blessings to you today!
Shanda what you write speaks to my heart. The little dress is beautiful! I can just picture you sitting by your machine a ways off because of your protruding belly, the machine making a racket as you contentedly work a print of mushrooms for your little one kicking your side.
That dress is too precious. Pattern please!!!
@Geidlbots – Hi Amanda! The pattern is the same one pictured in my previous blog post about the long kimono. ~Shan
I like the title- “Practice of Praise”. Keep on doing it, over and over- like playing the piano. Isn’t it amazing what can accumulate in a refrigerator? Great job on the mushroom dress! Isn’t sewing fun???
Love the dress! I ordered that book just because of you. How often we forget to praise the one who loves us so much!! Thanks for the reminder today.
The material looks so so soft! Doesn’t it feel so nice to be sewing? A clean fridge and a new dress, you have accomplished so much!!! Spurgeon is so wonderful, I have not heard that sermon and will need to look it up now that you said it was good!
You did a great job on the fridge! I love the little dress to:)
Oh my refrigerator depserately needs cleaning, maybe you will motivate me đ Where did you find that darling fabric? It is too cute!
Shanda,Thanks for the book recommendation. I’m definitely going to check it out.I’ve been reading your blog for about 18 months now and decided it was finally time to comment.The Lord has used you to speak to me many times over these past months.Thank you!
Hi Shanda At least two or three times a year, I 100% empty out our fridge, removing and washing the shelfs, then washing down the interior, and then washing off every container that is to go back inside it. I let everything air dry, then reassemble. It takes a bit of time, and is it ever a physical work out – but oh how the interior radiates when I’m done I said, “At least two or three times a year”. Much to my chargrin, it’s usually more frequent than that. Like the time somebody just pushed harder to make something fit, ‘unknowingly’ knocking over a large pickle jar, which unlike round Tupperware, is not spill/leak proff when on it’s side. Later I found pickle juice all over one shlf (and everything on it), down the back, pooled under the bottom drawers … STICKY mess. HOT water and Dawn dish soap work together so amazingly!!! (THANK-YOU Lord!!!)Another time it was that somebody had shoved something heavy on top of an oversized styraphome., plastic wrap covered, tray of raw meat. Yeah. Another gross mess EVERYwhere ….The challenge with keeping the interiors of refrigerators clean, is the fact that us mom’s are not the only ones in and out of them. Every two to three weeks we have “Smorgasboard” for dinner. It’s also known as “eat up all of the left overs night” in some homes. I just think that “Smorgasboard” sounds appealing ;-p Pretty much, if after that meal it’s not finished off, then it gets tossed. Some would say that’s wasteful. But in the long run, I have found it far less wastefull than putting it back in to be ignored or forgotten about. (I also make sure I do this the night BEFORE grocery shopping ….)Several different times, like after we have done the food for numerous meal occasions – thus creating a wider variety of leftovers than we usually have, I have made a list of what left overs there are and taped it to the door of the microwave. Then they can look the list over to see what’s actually in there (you know, instead of standing with the door open waiting for something to jump into their arms), and they are ‘suppose’ to cross items off as they use them up.(by the way, your picture just totally wiped out one of my ‘theories’. Geesh!!! [ o;-p ] Many times I’ve tried explaining away certain messes, or ignored containers in our fridge, due to the guys not bothering to bend over and look inside the fridge, or look at the back of the shelves. Our fridge has the freezer on the top. But your having similar problems and your freezer is on the bottom. BOTHER!! ;-b)Like happiness, and oh so many other things, “Thankfullness” is an attitude that we are suppose to decide to adopt. The neat part is that it’s easier to be ‘thankful’ when you’ve also chosen to be ‘happy’, and vise versa. Recently somebody told me, “Well at least your not so sick you can’t laugh. I’ve been that sick before.” I’ve found that if I don’t chose to laugh, and look for reasons to do so, the ‘sickness’, and the headaces, and life itself, just gets to be way too heavy of a burden. And when I’m laughing, I strive hard to thenk the Lord for the reasons behind my laughter.Shanda, I do not at all want to come across as braging or boastful!!! Mercy no! I fail so-o many times! I’m just sharing some lessons I’ve learned/ am learning.Here’s a smile for today :-}Cheryl B.http://thebzhousethatlovebuilt.blogspot.com
I love having a clean frig. However, it doesn’t happen that often. I always makes me feel better when I’m done cleaning. The dress is so cute. Good job!
“The sacrifice of praise”…I like that. I have been trying to instill in my kids an attitude of gratefulness lately, grateful when the plate of food may not be exactly what they wanted, but they can still be grateful that they Have food to eat. And it’s good for me to be reminded too. I really think that a thankful heart goes deeper than we may even realize with our Heavenly Father.
oh, one more thing…that little dress is adorable! and I love the feeling of a clean frig too. Yesterday I emptied out some left over containers that were becoming annoying and in the way, added some tomato juice and chili seasoning, and we had “left over” chili soup.
shanda, you have such a tender heart. i know you lead a busy life, and i so appreciate the time you spend doing your blog. it is such an inspriation to me. thank you.
Oh that dress is precious!!!Ok you should win a medal or something, the mere fact that you could even clean out your fridge while pregnant is simply amazing!! I could not even OPEN my fridge without wanting to throw up. lol
Cute dress :]
Yesterday, one of my aunties asked me how I was able to overcome the dark depression that had dogged me as teenager, and we had such a good chat about the tools that are effective against depression. I told her that God seemed to bring the right things to me at the right times, and a number of those things helped me so much. However, the one thing that had probably the biggest impact on me was that the biggest defense against depression is to develop a grateful heart. I’ve been accused of being “Pollyanna-ish” sometimes because of how often I say, “I’m thankful that —” or “I’m so glad that –” and I suppose it probably does get wearing sometimes to some people, but it has HELPED, and I try to cultivate it every day. Being truly grateful is something that is so attractive in a woman, and it makes us feel so much better, too, when we concentrate on what there is to be glad about.
I have SO MUCH to be thankful for it is UNBELIEVABLE! I am constantly amazed at the faithfulness and goodness of God. Praising and thanking Him is a MUST in the life of the believer. The only warning should be that once you get started, it’s hard to stop!
We have matching fridges! Maytag? Ours is glossy white, we love it! Probably my favorite appliance. The french doors, bottom freezer, extra doors…love it all. The shelves on the door are pretty easy to move too, if you want more space in those middle ones. I haven’t had to do a deep clean yet; I try to wipe it out (when I remember) just before a shopping trip so it’s fairly empty. I bet you are glad for that top fridge so you didn’t have to bend over your growing belly to clean it! The mushroom print dress is very sweet. Very retro, reminds me a little of childhood.:)
We have matching fridges too! LOVE mine – but the butter thingy is on the right. đ
Oh my refrigerator is always one of the last things to be cleaned. Feels so good when it’s done though! I just hate doing it. đ
How beautiful!
Shanda your fridge looks so nice!! Guess what, I have the same fridge in white….love it! Blessings to you and your family. I do enjoy your posts. =)
I loved this post so much that I showed it to Terry the night you wrote it. I asked him to read it so he would understand better why I read your blog (he has never questioned it, I just wanted him to be more familiar with you, since I’ve told him so much about you), and he sat and read this post and about five more prior to this one! I’m so glad you mentioned Albert N. Martin again. I listened to the sermon on womanhood that you recommended by him before, and I can’t wait to hear this one on parenting. You are right about his teaching, it makes you grab a pen and paper to take notes. I don’t hear many preachers like him anymore.I am so happy for you about your refrigerator!!! That is one of the best feelings ever, to have THAT AREA clean and organized, but it does seem to be a time-consuming project, doesn’t it? Each week before our trash is picked up, I try to make sure we have either eaten or thrown out any leftover food, and it is surprising how I must stay on top of this even with just TWO of us being in and out of our fridge. My mom managed it by setting out leftovers from the fridge (whenever they were available) on the counter when we were eating lunch each day. With so many children in the house, SOMEONE wanted to eat them, and we never, ever had a problem with leftovers just sitting in the fridge.