In Which God Changes My Heart

I learned a new prayer since moving to the country and have had to pray it more times than I can count. It goes something like this:

Lord, make me OK with this. I am outside my comfort zone and I need you to change my heart.

Let me tell you that God answers prayer! He changes my heart to be able to handle the situation or condition in question and to do it with joy and thankfulness. And sometimes, after a time, He even takes it away altogether. For example, when we first moved into the house the well water was the color of tea. I considered it undrinkable and dear husband bought me gallons of water from the store for drinking and cooking. However, we still had to bathe and wash laundry with it. This was the first time I prayed that prayer while filling up the tub. Lord, make me OK with tea colored water for bathing. Please change my heart. He not only changed my heart, but after nearly 6 months He fixed the problem altogether and now we have potable water that is clear and doesn't stain all our whites yellow!

My next prayer was that He make me OK with handling, preparing and eating different types of meat. If my husband is going to raise animals, hunt, and butcher them "in house" then I'd have to have a major heart change in order to take on this challenge with a happy heart. I confess that after a year I'm still not fond of venison, but I've watched (from a distance) as my husband butchered both rabbit and pig and I've enjoyed the product of both. Last week we butchered our second pig and the result was wonderful (better than the first attempt!).

It took a truck to hoist her up for butchering, she was large! I know this is hard to look at but then imagine having to eat it the next day! So you don't have to ask, her name was "Second Breakfast."

Since I'll forget later I'll post my notes on prep here: We injected the loin with marinade and let it soak in the extra overnight then cooked it over charcoal and hickory chips for 5 hours at low temps (225). When the inside temperature reached 160 we wrapped the loin in foil and packed it in a cooler with newspaper to rest for an hour (next time I'll take it off at an internal temp of 140ish because I learned that it continues to cook while "resting"). Finally we pulled the pork along the grain and mixed in a bit of BBQ sauce.

Rub (for 8 lbs of meat):
1/4 cup ground black pepper
1/4 cup paprika
1/4 cup raw sugar
2 tbs. salt
2 tsp. dry ground mustard
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Marinade
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 cup apple juice cider
1/4 cup water
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp. of rub recipe
2 tbs corn syrup