My new address is www.carolinacisneroscafe.wordpress.com.
I should be up and running in a couple of weeks. I hope to find you there.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
WE'RE MOVING!
I'm not sure who we is, but I'M MOVING! I am going to now live in WordPress. I appreciate your patience through this transition.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Monday, November 9, 2015
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Tortillas Can Make Anyone Smile
Yesterday, I was having a not so sunshiny day. I needed a good gentle cry. I'm talking about those leave me alone while I wallow in this mess kind of cries. Pajamas and footie socks with rubber on the bottom kind of cries.
Mi esposo stepped out to grab groceries while I submerged myself under the blankets, on our couch, in absolute silence. In my blanketed cocoon I read from Numbers, which is a hard read since everything is so die this and you're gonna die that...death...die... Follow my commands or death unto you. It's really a creepy place to be unless you try to understand the context of it. And I'm thinking, "Why am I even reading this?"
Well, Diosito knows me best because in the midst of reading chapter 6 in Numbers, I started laughing so hard. Some might call me a heathen. Depends on how you look at it, I guess.
Tortillas are in the bible! No joke. Numbers 6:15 "and a basket of bread without yeast." TORTILLAS!
I was laughing, hardly breathing, tears in my ojitos and mocos all wadded up in a servieta. There is a lesson in all the death stuff, but what came into focus was the tortillas.
Reading that was exactly what I needed to crack a smile on my otherwise tear riddled face. A good hard laugh needed to come out so that I could see the world in focus again.
Sometimes we get so serious about needing something profound to jump out at us, when all God wants to do is give us a smile or a good hard laugh. We search for chapters that are familiar because we've memorized them or heard them or seen them on posters. But, that's not what God is trying to show us.
Often, it is just about seeing you smile after a long, hard, hopeless day.
That has to be grace. Gracias a Dios.
Mi esposo stepped out to grab groceries while I submerged myself under the blankets, on our couch, in absolute silence. In my blanketed cocoon I read from Numbers, which is a hard read since everything is so die this and you're gonna die that...death...die... Follow my commands or death unto you. It's really a creepy place to be unless you try to understand the context of it. And I'm thinking, "Why am I even reading this?"
Well, Diosito knows me best because in the midst of reading chapter 6 in Numbers, I started laughing so hard. Some might call me a heathen. Depends on how you look at it, I guess.
Tortillas are in the bible! No joke. Numbers 6:15 "and a basket of bread without yeast." TORTILLAS!
I was laughing, hardly breathing, tears in my ojitos and mocos all wadded up in a servieta. There is a lesson in all the death stuff, but what came into focus was the tortillas.
Reading that was exactly what I needed to crack a smile on my otherwise tear riddled face. A good hard laugh needed to come out so that I could see the world in focus again.
Sometimes we get so serious about needing something profound to jump out at us, when all God wants to do is give us a smile or a good hard laugh. We search for chapters that are familiar because we've memorized them or heard them or seen them on posters. But, that's not what God is trying to show us.
Often, it is just about seeing you smile after a long, hard, hopeless day.
That has to be grace. Gracias a Dios.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
A Su Servicio: At Your Service
I used to want
my service plastered on a billboard. Mira! No me olvidé! Look!
I didn't forget. I'm still serving and I can prove it! I figured if
it was plastered all over Facebook, no one would say that I "fell
off." No one would ask, "I wonder if she's still being
faithful?"
Do you feel the same? Do you feel like you have to constantly blast out to the world that you're still doing good work?
When I try to please others before pleasing God, there's a problem. When I try to prove to others that I'm still Christian, I fail to kneel in humility to the one who deserves it. When I'm held accountable to another human being for my "good work," I lose the entire message of what "good work" is. I still struggle with getting off the stage of my own service.
The truth is, I don't serve like you do porque no somos la misma gente. We are not the same people. No matter the capacity of our service, it never goes unnoticed where it counts.
Some of us serve:
Quietly- Delivering meals to those in need
Loudly- Facebook knows it and there are retratos to prove it!
At Home - Transforming our familias from the inside out
In Church - Ministering to those who made it in today
On the Streets - Taking hope where some have not yet seen it
I am by no means saying that you should not share your service with others. There is a definite motivation factor in sharing. Ajúa! I'm saying that when you share your service because you feel you need to prove yourself to someone else, it becomes convoluted.
God doesn't keep a chart on when and where you serve. Serve where you are called with your whole heart. That is where you are most effective with your blessing.
Are you feeling less than because your service isn't plastered on a billboard? Estas en la unica cartelera que importa. You're on the only billboard that matters.
Do you feel the same? Do you feel like you have to constantly blast out to the world that you're still doing good work?
When I try to please others before pleasing God, there's a problem. When I try to prove to others that I'm still Christian, I fail to kneel in humility to the one who deserves it. When I'm held accountable to another human being for my "good work," I lose the entire message of what "good work" is. I still struggle with getting off the stage of my own service.
The truth is, I don't serve like you do porque no somos la misma gente. We are not the same people. No matter the capacity of our service, it never goes unnoticed where it counts.
Some of us serve:
Quietly- Delivering meals to those in need
Loudly- Facebook knows it and there are retratos to prove it!
At Home - Transforming our familias from the inside out
In Church - Ministering to those who made it in today
On the Streets - Taking hope where some have not yet seen it
I am by no means saying that you should not share your service with others. There is a definite motivation factor in sharing. Ajúa! I'm saying that when you share your service because you feel you need to prove yourself to someone else, it becomes convoluted.
God doesn't keep a chart on when and where you serve. Serve where you are called with your whole heart. That is where you are most effective with your blessing.
Are you feeling less than because your service isn't plastered on a billboard? Estas en la unica cartelera que importa. You're on the only billboard that matters.
 |
| Un(wo)manned service counter, Cupcake Shop, San Diego, CA - Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros, 2015 |
Celebrating in the Desert
Well, what else can go wrong?
Erasmo and I have been married for a little over 4 months and have had our share of trials: Our water heater broke, our house got broken into (twice), Erasmo lost his job, and and and.
Through all of this, I am grateful that God gave me Erasmo to spend the rest of my life with. These trials have brought us closer together and have forced us to keep our line of communication open. I know these trials are part of a larger picture. I don't plan on being the master of marriages, only the master of my own.
When everything is going wrong, how can I celebrate? I don't feel much like celebrating when I'm thrown off track by yet another ripple in the plan. The thing is I can make plans all day, but if it's not in line with what God has planned it's simply not going to work.
When
I experience a drought in my spiritual life because of life's spontaneous behavior, I fill up with the promise
of who I was created to be and for whom I was created. What surrounds
me may be dry and barren, but what's inside of me comes from above. This
is where I am rooted and from there is where I should grow.
The broken water heater doesn't define my marriage, it defines at what time we should take showers. What we lost after the burglaries doesn't define our marriage, it solidifies what we didn't lose-each other. When Erasmo lost his job, it didn't mean we would be left without, it meant that he was needed elsewhere.
What is your perspective in the dry situations? Is your desert a cause for celebration? Let's choose to celebrate.
Erasmo and I have been married for a little over 4 months and have had our share of trials: Our water heater broke, our house got broken into (twice), Erasmo lost his job, and and and.
Through all of this, I am grateful that God gave me Erasmo to spend the rest of my life with. These trials have brought us closer together and have forced us to keep our line of communication open. I know these trials are part of a larger picture. I don't plan on being the master of marriages, only the master of my own.
When everything is going wrong, how can I celebrate? I don't feel much like celebrating when I'm thrown off track by yet another ripple in the plan. The thing is I can make plans all day, but if it's not in line with what God has planned it's simply not going to work.
 | |||
| Palm Desert, Our California Trip. Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros, 2015 |
The broken water heater doesn't define my marriage, it defines at what time we should take showers. What we lost after the burglaries doesn't define our marriage, it solidifies what we didn't lose-each other. When Erasmo lost his job, it didn't mean we would be left without, it meant that he was needed elsewhere.
What is your perspective in the dry situations? Is your desert a cause for celebration? Let's choose to celebrate.
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