When I don’t desire God

If you’re returning, which I doubt anyone is… I found that part of my dry season is due to the lack of my writing.  My writing held me accountable to my reading.  And this entire blog came off of the first page, one paragraph.  Going forward, I’m treating this as more of a journal than an actual blog.  If your reading and enjoying, great… otherwise, it’s a great tool to pull out what’s in my head and communicate with my husband.  I communicate much better though my fingertips and most of the time when you ask me how I feel about something, I won’t be able to tell you, but if I sit down and start writing, it seems as though my feelings seem to pour.  So… on with my thoughts…

It’s been a VERY dry season for me.  I struggle with sustaining in most things.  Ie. Diets, blogging, creating worship videos, making memory albums.  I’m great out of the gate but lose the fire somewhere along the way.  I really kept feeling this happen in my walk with Christ in the last 6 months.  Although I still talked to Him, still worshiped Him, still felt His presence I felt the fire fading and I didn’t fan it.  I take complete responsibility.  And I know He wants me.  I know he hasn’t forgotten about me or left my side… in my minds eye, He’s just standing there waiting for me to ask.  Ask to know Him better.  So I opened our closet door yesterday and this book screamed at me.  When I Don’t Desire GOD How to Fight for Joy. Yeah, I grabbed it immediately.  I’ve had a hunger lately but I didn’t know how to feed it, until now.   

Here’s a true statement that hit me in the Foreword and prayer… “To be satisfied by the beauty of God does not come naturally to sinful people.  By nature we get more pleasure from God’s gifts than from himself.”  Sit in that for a minute.  I read that to say… to be fulfilled by the beauty of God does not come naturally to me… because by definition, we’re all sinful people.  It’s more natural for me to be happy from what he’s given me that just to be happy to know Him.  My One Prayer is to know Him better.

As my husband and I were riding his motorcycle down the long country road staring at the beautiful moonlit trees and night sky… I just started thanking God for the simple things I take for granted… the cottonwood trees, the smell of the night air, the stars, the long never-ending fields…and then it took my A.D.D. mind to what the world looked like before we poured these asphalt roads and strung these electric cables across His land.  I was sitting behind the love of my life taking the biggest deepest breaths I could to take in all that God-made air that was fresher than anything they can put in a fabreeze or tide bottle.  I’d give my amazing partner a squeeze when I got overwhelmed with emotion in thinking about how sweet God was to give him to me.  And I just started imagining with my eyes wide open that we were riding through these moonlit fields in the days of Christ.  Stop and think about that feeling.  It feels like my heart doubles in size when I do.  Like it’s going to pop out of my chest.   No alarm clock to wake up to. No bumper to bumper traffic to sit in.  No cubicle to drag into.  In my mind, I’d wake up at the crack of dawn to feed my husband and children and then tend to the wash and water.  Watch my children play in the fields and with ropes and dirt rather than playstations and DVDs.  Sinful temptations aren’t haunting my home in the fashion of prime time TV.  I’m such a simple minded person, that simple living is so attractive to me.  Anyway, back to the motorcycle ride, I started thanking Him… for the simple things… ‘thank You, for the trees…for the dirt… for the stars… for the fields… for the mountains… for the waters… the things that when I stare at them are so overwhelming to me.  Even the creation of man overwhelms me.  Sometimes I think just how cool it is that there are SO FREAKIN MANY of us in this world and not a one of us the same.  Even identical twins have different personalities and such.  I think how amazing it is that it starts with one little cell that multiplies and those cells know to create an ear or a kidney and what goes on the inside or outside.  I think how incredible it is that our body can heal itself.  Why do our nails and hair continue to grow but our lips don’t… or how do our bodies know not to form knee caps until age 2 or 3?  It’s not magic… it’s God’s design.  Louie Giglio brought truth and light to this fact by introducing to most people the substance Laminin. (here’s a snipit on Youtube)  Now there are some of you that will call what I’m about to show you coincidence or wave it off like everything else in life but the rest of you will delight in it, just as I did.  Let me first tell you the simple definition of Laminin is a protein found in the human body. It has 3 short arms and 1 long one.  Laminin is vital to making sure overall body structures hold together, according to Wikipedia.  Look it up.  Now take a look at it’s shape. 

“VITAL to making sure we hold together.”  That’s no coincidence… That’s God.

How anyone could deny Christ is beyond me.  My very favorite lyrics to a song are Nichole Nordeman’s “What if”…

What if you’re right?
And he was just another nice guy
What if you’re right?
What if it’s true?
They say the cross will only make a fool of you
And what if it’s true?

What if he takes his place in history
With all the prophets and the kings
Who taught us love and came in peace
But then the story ends
What then?

But what if you’re wrong?

There’s more to the song… but that, in itself, says enough to me.  What if.

I’m proud

This is my side of the family.

This is my older brother Matt and his wife Jen

These are Matty and Jen’s kids… Jackson Eli and Megan Elizabeth

This is my younger brother Ben and his wife Teresa

this is Benny and Teresa’s son… Zachary (he wanted his picture taken on this big rock… it’s a boy thing)

and this is my daddy…

and finally here’s the handsome heart throbs….

like I said.  I’m proud. 

that’s it.

 

Thankfulness is a result of being content with God’s will

Ok, this is the last post on Part 1 of this book (The Help Meet).  I realize most of you don’t like to read the long posts… So I’ll try to throw in some shorter ones.. but not today.  Ha!

The very heart of reverence is extreme appreciation and profound thankfulness that this man, just as he is, has chosen to love me, just as I am.

I sat in that for a few minutes.  She used the word ‘extreme’ (intense… excessive… severe) appreciation.  Not minor… trivial… or inconsequential.  Are you TRULY thankful that you’re husband chose to love you?  That he picked you out of aaaaaaaalllllllll the other women in this world to stand beside for the rest of his life?  I am.  I don’t deserve my husband and I say that with complete confidence and no reservations. I simply don’t deserve him.  But God has blessed me with him.  And it is no exaggeration that I thank God on a daily basis for him.  When is the last time you audibly said, ‘God… thank you for my husband’?  Honestly.  I know I never did with my first husband.  Now, I did not have a personal relationship with Christ then, and maturity and wisdom has changed my mindset 100 fold. 

I believe that Trent and I truly are thankful for each other.  Not the ‘oh yeah, he’s great’ or ‘yeah I could’ve done worse’ but truly thankful.  I’ll be the first to tell you I’m no prize, I’m overweight, moody and have my own quirks… but Trent was in shock that I would be interested in ‘a guy like him.’  I know a lot of you giggled just now but it’s true, he really said that.  And he thinks I’m a catch (still not exactly sure why)… therefore he’s thankful for me.  And I KNOW there were women everywhere that would have loved to been Mrs Trent Austin… and he chose me.  I’m still in shock and we’ve been married over 2 years now.  We are giddy in love because neither one of us have the mindset that ‘he/she is lucky to have me.’  We both feel very undeserving of the other but yet receive God’s gift and appreciate it every day. 

When you stop appreciating what God has given you, you lose the joy. 

I know a lot of you are thinking, yeah keri, that’s great, if my husband was like Trent our marriage would be great too.  I am here to tell you that Trent has flaws.  He’s human.  You all see Trent on stage every weekend… and at home, he IS the same man you see on stage… I am a very blessed woman.  He has a passion for Christ like no other I’ve seen… and it is inspiring.  But don’t think our marriage is all butterflies and rainbows.  The only thing I can tell you is that I enable him to lead our home, I don’t emasculate him, I don’t speak negatively of him to anyone or even myself… he tells me everyday how beautiful I am, weather I’m straight out of bed with crazy hair and cat litter breath or I’ve spent the last hour getting ready.  He encourages me and lifts me up.  He asks my opinion and seeks my advice.  We guard each other.  If our priorities are straight (#1 God, #2 Spouse) everything else just falls into place naturally.  We tell each other all the time, you’re my #2 and that’s where we want each other to be, because that means we are putting God first. 

The thing you have to get past is to not accentuate his flaws.  I have flaws.  You have flaws.  We all do.  If I spent my days telling my husband the things I didn’t like about him, he wouldn’t want to come home.  When you first meet someone and you’re sitting across the table from them you don’t say ‘your nose is big’ or ‘your teeth are crooked’  because you are so overwhelmed with this person and have so much innocent love and attraction for them that those slight flaws don’t matter.  In the beginning you spend all the time in the world making that person feel special and lifting them up and letting them know you think about them non stop.  Is there any better feeling in the world than falling in love?  Yes.  Having that same feeling 2 years down the road.  10 years down the road.  We were so willing to put all this effort into our relationship in the beginning… find that passion.  Don’t just assume that ‘we’ve been married 10 years, he knows I love him.’  Remind him.  You did then.  He knew you liked him a week into the relationship, but you still drove by and left a note on his car with his favorite candy bar while he was at work.    

Marriage is work.  Team work.  You both have to work… daily.  It’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference.  A man simply wants to know he’s respected and a woman simply wants to know she’s loved.  You show your man respect and he will show you love.  It’s truly that simple.

Let him lead

Ok… so this picture is posted for two reasons… 1. because it is my all time favorite movie and should be yours too and 2. because he portrayed an amazing leader…

William Wallace, Maximus… there’s a reason why your men love these movies ladies… ponder on that a bit.

Becoming less independent was somewhat of a struggle for me… at first. 

Growing up my mother was very strong and independent, but I still knew my father had the last say so.  In other words, I knew my father was the leader of our home.  So letting the husband lead, by nature, is instinctive for me.  However, I was not fortunate enough to have married well the first time, so I was left to raise a 1-year-old boy on my own for seven years making me the mother and father of the home.  Seven years.  That’s a long time.  A long time for me to make the final decisions… me to call the shots… me to rule our home.  So when I married Trent, my instincts battled my habitual behavior.  I was always quick to answer to make a decision and had to condition myself to defer to my husband.  It was a awkward at first, almost feeling as though I was being stripped of something, but it wasn’t that I was being stripped of anything at all… it was that I was being relieved of something that was never meant to be my role in the first place.  It is my first reaction when being asked if we can have dinner, or make plans, to say, that sounds great, let me see what Trent has planned.  Even with Noah, my response is always, ‘I think that’s ok, let’s ask your dad, or I don’t care, go ask your dad.’  It lets him know that we do EVERYTHING together.  We are truly one, in every sense of the word.

Debi Pearl writes…

God created Adam and commissioned him to take the position of leadership.  Since then, every son of Adam has received the same mandate. Man was created to rule.  It is his nature.  But the only place most men will ever rule is their own little kingdom called home.  At least, every man’s destiny is to be the leader of his household.  To deny him this birthright is contrary to his nature and God’s will.  

 

She goes on to say…

It is NOT God’s will for your husband to reverence you.  It is not God’s plan for you to remain seated at the dinner table or in your lounge chair and expect him to serve himself.  Our modern society has conditioned us to expect him to serve us.  It hurts our feelings if he doesn’t do things that we feel he owes us, but that is not the plan God set into place.  Our failure to know and believe the written words of God has caused us to accept a cultural lie.

This one’s powerful…

Reverence is not just how you act; it is how you feel and how you respond with words and with your body language.  It’s like I said before, you have to believe it before he’ll believe you.  If that’s a struggle for you, just ask God to help you… ask him remind you of the good, of why you married him, and to allow you to focus on those attributes.

To lead his home was a bit of an adjustment for Trent as well… although it was natural for him to want to… for 19 years he wasn’t allowed to.  So having a wife that defers to him and reverences him has made him a whole new person.  He’s more confident, he stands taller, and he’s an amazing leader.  Leading our home doesn’t mean he just goes out and makes decisions without my input.. it does mean that what he decides is the way it’s going to be and I’m ok with that.  I love it… I love it when he takes charge.  I’m telling you, get off your self-righteous, feministic, high horse just for short time and serve and lift up your husband and allow him to lead and you will see a man who stands with his chest out.  You’re whole house will realign the way it should be. God’s design.   

Do you reverence your husband?

Whuuuuuuuuuuuhhh?  I know, I did the same thing… or maybe you’re a bit smarter than I and already knew what that meant. 

Reverence is the act of showing respect…a mingling of fear with a high degree of respect and esteem.

So back in my helpmeet book… she talks about a woman who was in a horrible situation with an abusive, unfaithful, alcoholic husband.  When he would always come home in his drunken rages, she would leave and run to her mothers and threaten to leave and call all her friends and tell them what a loser he was.   But she’d never leave.  Finally one day, Mrs Pearl ran into her at church in a tearful mess and she told her of her plot to murder her husband.  Long story short, Debi told her once and for all she needed to make a decision, either to leave her husband and put the pieces of her life back together or stay with him and begin a campaign of winning his heart and saving their life together.  Debi TOTALLY thought she would leave that night.  But she didn’t.  She did just the opposite.  Debbie counseled her to only speak to her husband in an encouraging uplifting manner and to only speak OF him with her friends in the same manner.  This woman had a learners heart and had ‘grasped an eternal vision about life and believed God could save her marriage.’  The change in her husband was almost immediate.  Within a week she saw change.  He stopped going off with his drunken friends and got a job to help support the family.  Today they are growing their relationship with Christ together. 

 

Yes our husbands lead our home. It’s natural. It’s the way God designed it.  But we, as helpmeets, play THE biggest role in our husbands being enabled to be that amazing leader.  They will be what we think of them and tell them.  Put it to the test.  If you’ve been a bit nagging and negative lately, flip it.  Last time I checked, nagging and negative got me nowhere.  Try praising the things he has accomplished…. The smallest things… make a big deal about them.  Then… tell him what a great father and leader of the home he is… but you first need to pray and believe it in your heart.  If you don’t believe it first, he won’t.  You’ll see a change in him.  I promise. 

Trent and I learned this with Noah as well… instead of only speaking when he’s done wrong, we make it a point to tell him when he’s done well.  Even if it’s just ‘Noah, you did so well tonight, you were polite, and quiet’  and we love on him and encourage him.  He likes the attention so he’ll want to do that again. 

And ladies… for the love of all that is good and holy… stop going to work and having the huddles where everyone is talking negatively about their men.  What good is it doing?  None.  You will subconsciously carry that home and have that same negative attitude at home and make it a place where he doesn’t’ want to be.  Start a revolution.  Go to work and brag about what your husband does, yes at first, shock will overcome them all… but I promise, it will catch on.  And if you find yourself in a husband bashing conversation, turn it around.  Be like, ‘oh really?  I’m sorry, but listen to what my man did… and lift him up.’   One of two things will happen.  You’ll either become an encouragement to those women to do the same, or they’ll stop having the man bashing conversations around you.  Either way… You win!  I promise your marriage will thank you.

Stop and think… make a list of the negative things you’ve said to your husband today… now next to it make a list of the negative things you’ve said to others about your husband today… NOW…. Make a list of nice things about your husband and go home and tell him.  Then tell others... create an email to all your friends bragging about your husband.  We CAN make a difference in our husbands… God will smile on you.  “…and the wife see that she reverence her husband” Eph 5:33

transparent

Let me be real transparent here on why I haven’t been blogging.  Besides the fact that I’ve been crazy busy with kids on Spring Break and creating worship videos…My blog started out sharing biblical truths and turned into a journal of sorts.  I love sharing my life and days but I want it to have some meaning as well.  In the move, I misplaced my Created to be His Help Meet book.  Welp… I’ve found it.  I’ll be blogging on that soon.

A good friend of mine emailed me today, crying out for help.  Talk about transparency.  She spent the morning reading Cindy Beall, Mandy, Natalie, Shanna Crawford and my blogs and wants what we all have, JESUS!  This is a quote directly from her.  It was after I read her email, that I thought to myself… it’s so funny how God uses people to reach other people… people they don’t even know they are reaching… and he uses people no matter where they are, in their walk with Him.  I wanted to tell her I haven’t cracked open my bible for a month now.  I still have regular talks with Him but how can I truly get to know Him better and witness if I don’t read and study the Truth.  I worship with him every weekend, but I haven’ t sought Him out in over a month.  I thank him every morning on the way to work for the beautiful things he creates in my every day and ask of his protection over my family yet I won’t take 10 minutes of my beautifully created day to seek Him out.  I want to know Him better.  I want to know His stories.  It was my happiest times… and I’m ready to make the time again.  I miss it.  But all that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.  

I’m spiraling down hill fast into the depths beyond my own knowledge.  Am I scared?  Yes.  Am I scared?  No.  My eyes are open.  I’m watching my life pass me by.  My conscious is vigilant, but it’s as though I’m lost in a comatose state and lack the ability to counter.  That’s the scary part, when will I wake up?  When will I take charge of my own forthcomings?  When is it my time?  When do I say enough?  That’s the part I’m ready for.  The change.  The time where I can sit back in my life and say, this is where I want to be.  I’m not an ignorant person.  Is love that strong that it can influence every aspect of my life?  It manipulates my manner in which I relate to my only son.  It rules my checkbook.  It wakes me up in the morning and tells me everyday, this is going to be a good day, or sorry, not today.  It holds a day long to the very last minute to arrange time for those that have requested time with great notice.  It never lets go until you feel like there is nothing left of you.

My friend didn’t write this.  I did.  I wrote the above passage in my journal about 3 years ago.  I was in the lowest state of my life.  I knew I was there, and I knew something had to change.  It wasn’t long after that, I gave my life to Christ and let me tell you… I’m sitting back in my life right now looking around, saying ‘this is where I want to be.’  It took my writing it out and seeing that the only one who was going to change the direction my life was heading, was me.  It sounds simple… but it took me quite some time to get there.  When I made the decision, I MADE the decision.  All in.  I’m talking erasing phone numbers from my phone and if the phone rang and a name didn’t pop up, I didn’t answer it.  I would have disconnected the number had I not had a terminally ill mother who had that number on every emergency contact list.  I burned old photo’s of a girl I didn’t want to be anymore.  I turned off the TV.  I started filling up that time with Truth.  I got rid of everything I felt like was eroding my life right in front of my eyes, and that included people who didn’t understand.  I was ok with them not understanding…because…. I did.  I decided, I was going to live for me.  It was the best decision of my life.   

I say all this because I really feel like my friend is where I was…. or in the vicinity.  See, where I had never experienced His forgiveness and His grace, she already knows Christ.  She knows the freedom.  She’s just lost her way.  She’s angry.  Really angry, and hasn’t let go of that anger.  She lost the father of her children in an accident a couple of years ago and I’m not sure she’s ever really worked through it.  She lost it.  She turned to drugs… men… and anything that would take away the pain.  She rebeled against all she had known…all of this while trying to be a mother to two young children.  I believe she wants to change, she just doesn’t know how to get there… and I don’t know if I’m the person to get her there.  I know God brought me into her life, and for that I’ll be forever thankful… I wonder… did he bring me into her life to walk beside her and be her friend along her journey… or to take her by the hand and lead her there.  I guess time will only tell.  Pray for my friend.  Only God can fulfill her and make her love herself as much as He does and He can only do that if she allows Him.  Irony… at it’s finest.  Love is a choice.  Right now, she’s choosing not to love herself.  When she see’s the way Christ loves her, and accepts His love again, it will seep from her own pores.  A glowing countenance.  If you’re reading this.  I love you.  I’m here for you.  Always.        

Here she is!!!!

The home of Mr and Mrs. Austin… Trent Austin

 

4 Bed, 3 Bath, 3 Car Garage on 3/4 acre… Only 9 other houses in the addition

10 ft ceilings, hard wood floors, nice fireplace all in Living room

Breakfast nook looks to the back of our acreage!!

 

Really, the kitchen… need I say more?  

  

Ok, I will, All Stainless Steel Appliances, Fridge stays, Granite Counter Tops

Formal dining has 11ft ceiling

   

There’s me bathtub… and Trent’s shower!

If you wanna see the rest, you’ll just have to come visit us!  Or help us move! 

The day after we signed the contract, the selling realtor told our realtor something that brought tears to my husbands eyes.  She said that when the sellers were having the house built their church came out and wrote scripture all over the walls and floor.  So our house is covered in Scripture.  Obviously it’s since been covered with sheetrock and paint but that’s such a peaceful feeling.  I LOVE OUR NEW HOME!!!  You’re ALL welcome… anytime!  I’ve got a lot of dinner dates to repay! 

whew!  I got em on here, and with 8 minutes to spare!

Chapter 13 The Great Mystery

Continued from Created To Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl

I know that some of you may be thinking, why would I buy the book, you’re telling me everything out of each chapter… but no.  I’m not.  I’m highlighting a few things from each chapter that stick out to me and giving you my nickel of thought (kelly ogle already coined two cents).

here… this one stuck out at me… you are part of eternity when you submit to your husband.  Submission, reverence and honor are virtues God seeks to establish in his son’s bride.  Your marraige to your husband is preparing you for your marraige to Christ.

I didn’t know what reverence meant, she explains…to revere, to be in awe; fear mingled with respect and esteem.

See… my struggle is not to be submissive to Trent, or to let Trent lead, my struggle is doing so with a joyful heart.  Now that’s obviously never a problem in the happy-everythings great times.  It’s the disagreements where I am submissive but not always with a joyful heart.  It’s hard for me to set my feelings aside.  The action isn’t the hard part, it’s the heart behind it… and Iknow it’s no different to God, me being submissive with an hardened heart and me not being submissive at all.  It’s the same.  I’ve really got to learn how to make this happen.  I want to please God.  I want to please my husband. 

The difference between a good marriage and a lousy one is not found in good husbands and good wives vs bad husbands and bad wives, for all marriages are made up of two sinners with lots of faults.

yeah.

a good marriage is good because one or both of them have learned to overlook the other’s faults, to love the other as he or she is and to not attempt to change the other or bring him or her to repentance.

love. forgiveness.

Her next thought here I’ve witnessed first hand.  She’s talking about a woman who stayed with her husband and lifts him up even when he did not deserve to be.  She had every right to leave.  (you’ll have to read the book to get the full story) but she says Judy got over her “Mad Wife” disease before her son became infected with it.  The little boy honors his dad because his mother honors him.  Someday that little boy will be a man.  As he grows up, he will discover that his dad has faults, and he will forgive them as his mother has done.  When he is grown and can see the whole picture, he will know that his mom is one of the finest ladies on earth.  He will rise up and call her blessed.  Someday her husband may grow out of his foolish, lustful stupidity, and if he does, he too will treasure her.  She will have earned his love and devotion, because she reverenced him when there was little in him to honor.  She loved him because God first loved her. 

I wish with all that I am I could say I’m living this.  Trent’s ex-wife did not afford him the same forgiveness.  Now their sins weren’t of the same nature, Trent was a work-a-holic and had faults, but his ex-wife exposed those faults to the children, rather than guarding them.  I know she thought this made her look better in the childrens eye’s (how good I am vs how bad your dad messed up or I’m here vs he’s not) but the only ones it hurt were the children.  I’m witness to this everyday.  I’m living it.  Trent’s ex-wife does not own her mistakes and feels her wrong choices are at the fault of Trent.  She was a score keeper and the hardest part for me to understand is why the kids were all made aware of his every fault, big or small.  Even at that, Trent still guarded her faults and mistakes.  His relationship with his two oldest daughters suffers a bit from this.

 

And when I read what Debi wrote, I thought to myself… what would Addisun and Kailee be like had they been shielded from their fathers faults.  Instead of thinking their dad sucks, would they see him for who he truly is?  What would they be like if she had lifted him up and shown forgiveness as she was forgiven.  There are a lot of what if’s but this one hit home. 

I have managed to guard Noah from his own dad’s faults.  I never knew it was biblical until I met Trent, I just never could see what good it would do to expose Noah to his own fathers sins.  Trent and I will always guard him and lift him up to his son.  My life was forever changed by my ex-husband but I forgave him long ago (I pray that he has forgiven me for my mistakes) and looking back am thankful for what I did endure; my eyes have been opened. 

Guard your spouse.  Even if they don’t deserve it.  Lift up your spouse.  Even if they don’t deserve it.  Forgive your spouse.  Even if they don’t deserve it.  Love your spouse.  Especially when they don’t deserve it.  None of us deserve it.  None of us.

 

my cindy

most of you that read this, already know my Cee Kay Bee… she’s linked on the side of my page because… well, she’s a wise wise chicky mama!  But in case you don’t, Cindy has recently written about ‘her story’ that if you don’t already know, read.  It will hit you hard.  And there’s likely somebody you know that needs to hear it.  Love you all.

We bought a IMAC!!! Not quite a brownie, but it’ll do.

ooooooooh this one made me think for a minute… 

It was God’s design, before the fall, that the woman’s desire would be to her husband and that he would rule over her.  This relationship was not a punishment, but after the fall it would be a source of suffering for the woman.  God created the woman to be the helper of the man – a sinless man.  Now that she has led him into sin, she is still his helper, her desires are still focused on him and his goals, and he will still rule over her as before - but now he is sinful, selfish and carnal.

Good gracious, Eve!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?  I could see something like this happening over chocolate…. but an apple?  Come on!  I wonder if in the beginning it were Adam and Keri if man would still be sinless… see… the apple is not a great desire of mine.  But… then again after some fig leaves and barley, I’m sure an apple sounds like a caramel, pecan triple chocolate brownie.