Still here, guys! Still reading. Still writing. Still working through a few things. More to come on that. In the meantime…cookie bars.
The Recipe
Photo styling: Sara Bartus at Pheasant and Hare
I’ve never met a cookie bar that I didn’t like eat and these 5-Ingredient Butterfinger™ Cookie Bars were no exception. If you aren’t persuaded by the fact that they only require five ingredients to make, the fact that the recipe calls for four (or five, in my case) giant Butterfinger™ bars should seal the deal for you. Crushed Butterfinger candy bars get mixed with chocolate chip cookie dough which is pretty much the equivalent of everything that’s good in life—if you’re into that candy bar meets cookie bar kind of thing.
Click here for the recipe and while you’re there, sign up for Tablespoon’s newsletter, follow Tablespoon on Facebook and Instagram. I can’t promise it will change your life, but there will be cookies.
The Book
The latest book I read was Love Does by Bob Goff. If you’ve never heard of Bob Goff, a quick Google search will tell you everything you need to know. He looks like the old man from the movie “Up” and he goes around the world telling people how to put love into action. I struggled with this book a bit in the beginning. The writing is simplistic and straightforward and I tend to connect best with metaphorical, deep, insightful writing that knots words with feelings. But maybe that’s the thing about love. At its best, it’s simple. At it’s worst, it can be simple too. In the words of the author, “we make loving people a lot more complicated than Jesus did.” The message of the book is that love has to be intentional and actionable for it to be love at all. Love must have action, momentum and intent to work. Love gets interesting when we put it into motion and this entire book holds little moments and simple stories that make a strong case for just “going out and loving everybody.”
Quotes I Loved
“I think God’s hope and plan for us is pretty simple to figure out. For those who resonate with formulas, here it is: add your whole life, your loves, your passions, and your interests together with what God said He wants us to be about, and that’s your answer.”
“We need to make our faith our very own love story.”
“But I’ve always wondered if, when we want to do something that we know is right and good, God places that desire deep in out hearts because He wants it for us and it honors Him. Maybe there are times when we think a door has been closed and, instead of misinterpreting the circumstances, God wants us to kick it down. Or perhaps just sit outside of it long enough until somebody tells us we can some in.”
“God asks what it is He’s made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, ‘Let’s go do that together.”
“You weren’t just an incredible idea that God never got around to making. The next step happened for the world when God dropped you on the planet.”
“God uses all kinds of events to point us toward Him. It’s up to us to lean in or back away.”
“God doesn’t spell everything out for us, but He does tell us how we can write our lives better.”