A Care Package & A Prayer

Delicious!

Unceremoniously wrapped in wax paper, this is all that's left of the Chocolate Gooey Butter Cake.

Yesterday I delivered a little care package for a friend's son who left for college this morning. Amid a giant container of Twizzlers and some personal care products, was a container of Gooey Butter Cake bars.

(This is not my friend's son.)

And not my son, Avery, but definitely where he was heading beard-wise!

I was going to get him one of these for our cold Florida winters!

This is my son, Avery, 2 weeks ago! Imagine what it looked like this morning!

Avery asked if I were saving any Gooey Cake bars for him. Of course I was! I planned to do that even before he asked.

Avery and me...July 2010...Yay! He looks like this again after surprising me today by shaving his full beard!

This recipe is courtesy of Paula Deen and you can find it here on her website.

I have tried the yellow cake and now the chocolate. I have a spice cake mix and thought about that for our college boy, but Avery thought chocolate was the way to go.

Have you made this recipe? What variations have you tried? Last year I took a hiatus from sugar. (Hiatus! ~ sounds like I am a professional sugar cane grower or something.)

It was so beneficial. After 3 days, it's really easy to just say no to

sugar.

If you want your cake and eat it, too, share most of it with someone else and keep just a small portion for your enjoyment!

When I delivered the cake and the care package, I told my friend's son that he would be in our thoughts and our prayers. And I meant that.

Let's pray for our students whether they are in college, high school, middle school or the elementary grades.

In his book, Beyond Opinion, Ravi Zacharias, writes, "My view of college professors has been summarized well by one atheist writer: 'They will see me as just another liberal professor trying to cajole them out of some of their convictions, and they are dead right about that--that's what I am, and that's exactly what I am trying to do.' "

Based on Ephesians 1:17-19 and The Lord's Prayer:

"Our Father in Heaven, We glorify Your Name. We offer before You ourselves and those for whom we intercede. Standing in the gap for (my children: Audra and Avery), I petition that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to them a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of their heart may be enlightened, so that they may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. Lead my children away from temptation and deliver them from the evil one. Abba, strengthen my will and my heart and convict me to intercede on behalf of those weaker in the faith. May we resolve to have a faith that endures against all temptation, trial and pressure.

In the Name of the Son, Jesus, who fixed our way to Father,

Amen."

Have a beautiful day!