Divine, as defined in yourdictionary.com, means "relating to God or extremely good". All good things come from God and I believe He meant for us to live off the land and provide for our families and those less fortunate. The world today is ate up with artificial everything and we have become so dependent on others for our needs, we have forgotten how to take care of our own. We have forgotten what our grandparents taught us; how to live off the land, be self-sufficient and how to love our neighbor as ourselves. Isn't THAT "relating to God and/or extremely good? Yeah, I thought so too..... Restorative is actually the word that restaurant was taken from, or "to restore" and the first dishes sold were called "restoratives". My first day of culinary school I heard aforementioned "Chef" say the first restaurant was named "The Divine Restorative" and it has been in my head and heart every since. I did my final project on it. We had to design a restaurant from top to bottom with menus, budgets, scale design, theme, everything. I did mine based on a family farm where the barn had been turned into a restaurant and everything sold there was either grown there or within 100 miles. It was a "green" restaurant and I will hold on to those plans for the rest of my life just in case.....
My purpose here is to share knowledge. Knowledge I have through years of living frugally, growing some of my own food, having farm animals, being a decent cook, mom, activist, survivalist, friend, neighbor, nature lover and Christian. Then too, I will be using knowledge I gather through my immense library of books on Mother Earth News, Farmers Almanac, Backwoods Home and Country Wisdom. That, with a sprinkling of my mamaws wisdom (God rest her soul), my Grandmamas Cajun puns (still kickin at 92!), verses from the Bible that ALWAYS seem jump out at just the right moment (God's miracles everyday!) and thoughts shared from friends both near and far that are wise and dear. And I hope you will share things you know. A collection to help us all.
It's a crazy world we live in and it's getting crazier every day. I see moral decay. I see more and more use of artificial things, most of which we are putting inside our bodies for convenience sake. It scares me. I personally am affected, I believe, by this. I have migraine with seizures and they can't determine what causes them. I am guilty of convenience. I am guilty of MSG and GMO usage. I want to stop so I can save myself and hopefully others. It's not going to get better, it's going to get worse. If you are the main shopper for your family, you have noticed a huge increase in food prices this year, some things doubling or tripling in price. There ARE things we can do. We are the caretakers of our bodies, our families and our land. Even if you live in an apartment, you can grow herbs and/or some vegetables and eat healthier by buying locally. We don't get lazy about making sure we have our TV schedules planned so we can see all our favorites shows. If we can do THAT (which I find daunting and overwhelming), then we can control other areas of our lives.
I will leave you today with this....a picture one of my best friends sent me a few weeks after her house burned. She keeps jars of seeds in her kitchen for the following years planting and had had a grease fire and lost almost everything. We had just been talking about my garden and she said "well, I guess on the bright side this year, I won't have to get our there and sweat in the garden, all my seeds burned up". She started crying and said she didn't know how she was going to take anything good out of this, that she was trying but that it was so hard and that she'd rather have her garden and her house. The next morning she found this okra (from her seeds) growing on a burnt piece of wood. She said "You know, burnt wood is great in a garden......." Thank you God!
"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory
of God" - I Corinthians 10:31
