Free Plain Wisdom by Cindy Woodsmall Page B

or two each morning and each evening in dry weather, moving the sprinkler to different parts of the garden as needed. I enjoy working in the garden by myself, but if I get behind in weeding, the children help me. Even Daniel and the older boys pitch in on occasion.
    The potato plants are dead by mid-August, but the potatoes themselves can stay in the ground and be harvested as needed until mid-September. Most of my garden items—corn, carrots, green beans—stop producing by the end of August, but I’ll usually have fresh tomatoes and peppers until the frost hits in late October or early November.
    Although I devote a lot of time to the garden, I know that even the best-cared-for gardens would produce nothing without God’s blessings ofsunshine and rain. That’s another reminder of how helpless we are and how dependent on Him.
    When there is an overabundance of a vegetable from my garden, that’s a great time to pull out veggie-friendly recipes. This one is a family favorite.

    Z UCCHINI P IZZA C ASSEROLE
    3 cups grated zucchini
    1 cup Bisquick
    ½ cup oil
    ½ teaspoon garlic powder
    1 teaspoon salt
    4 eggs
    1 medium onion, chopped
    ¼ teaspoon baking powder
    2 cups grated cheese, divided
    1 pint pizza sauce
    meat of your choice—ham, hamburger, sausage, or bacon (cooked and drained)
    Mix together all ingredients except 1 cup of the grated cheese, the pizza sauce, and the meat. Spread in a greased 9″ × 13″ pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 30–35 minutes. Remove from the oven, and top with pizza sauce, the remaining cup of grated cheese, and the meat. Bake at 350 degrees for another 15 minutes or until heated throughout.

T HE F LIP S IDE
    And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you.
    — 1 T HESSALONIANS 3:12
From Cindy
    I’d been married a little more than a year when Tommy did something that absolutely infuriated me. I stood in my kitchen dumping biscuit ingredients into a bowl while he sat in the living room reading the newspaper. It was all I could do to keep from throwing the bowl full of flour and buttermilk across the room—preferably at his head! Instead, I plunged my hands into the dough and mixed with indignation.
    I managed to maintain outward restraint, but inwardly I rehashed how wrong he was. My list of grievances grew longer and longer until I thought I was going to explode.
    How could he just sit in the next room, enjoying his newspaper, ignoring how wrong he was? He’d made some halfhearted apology without even trying to understand the scope of what he’d done wrong. I slung the dough over, tossed a little fresh flour on it, and pounded my fists into it again.
Can’t he see how wrong he is?
I fumed.
    A voice of reason said,
Everybody’s wrong at one time or another. You were wrong just a few weeks ago
.
    I wasn’t
this
wrong! And it’d make my life a whole lot easier if he was never wrong
.
    If he were always right, you’d be the only one in this relationship who was ever wrong
.
    I stopped kneading the dough and mulled that over. If he were never wrong, he’d be like a god. And I’d be at fault way too often.
    Anger drained from me. I dumped the overworked dough into the trash, rinsed the bowl, and started fresh—this time thinking how awful it would be to live a lifetime with a person who was always right, making me the only one who was ever wrong.
    Thanks to that revelation, I’ve never become as angry as I was that day.
    The funny thing is, within a year or two, I couldn’t even remember what he’d done that had made me so furious. I only remember the lesson—that we are both imperfect, both in need of correction, grace, and forgiveness from each other.
    Over the years I’ve had seasons of needing more grace and forgiveness than he did. At other times he’s needed more than I have. But neither of us has had to grant more forgiveness than God grants to each of us every day.
    Below is an Amish biscuit