Tonight, as we celebrated the Passover meal withThe Gathering Place, I was prompted to remember how matzah bread symbolizes our Messiah Yeshua . It was a nice reminder, and I would like to share it...
The piercings in the matzah = Yeshua was pierced for our transgressions 5 times while on the cross. 1 time for each limb and then lastly with a spear to make sure He had died.
The rows (stripes) on the matzah = by His stripes we are healed. These stripes are from when the roman soldiers dug into His flesh using whips to beat Him.
The brown braised bumps on the matzah = He was bruised for our sin. Yeshua was beaten so badly that His blood pooled underneath the skin, leaving the outward brownish colored bruise marks.
The Unleavened feature = His body has no sin. During the Passover Feast, leaven represents sin in our lives. Just as a little yeast will leaven the whole lump, a little sin will get bigger and bigger until you can no longer control it.
Check out my wife's recipe for matzah bread, if you like!
Bible verse on my heart: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (NASB)
"Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as your are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice or wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
Jeremy and I have really been anticipating Passover this year! Mostly because this is our first year involved with our congregation "The Gathering Place". This will be our 3rd Passover meal as a couple. As we prepare for this biblical holy day, we try to “make things right” in our life. For Jeremy, he looks forward to this meal with a body of believers who acknowledge that this is the meal Yeshua ate with his disciples just before he was crucified. This is important to him because he grew up in a church that adamantly opposed this idea. Every year, the pastor would stand up and say ‘the meal we eat is NOT Passover’.
Passover is also a day to prepare for the Feast of Unleavened Bread; a time that we will search each nook and cranny of our home for any crumb of bread, or leaven, and throw it out. This is an edifying time, as the leaven represents sin, and how sin can hide so deeply in our lives, that we forget it is there. Just like yeast, a sin will expand into a bigger and bigger sin until you rid of it completely! We search and search our pantry, checking each label carefully for a leavening agent so that we can clean it out, just as we are to clean out the sin from our lives.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread:
The 7 day long Feast of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:6, Exodus 12:15-17) is a time in which no leaven can be eaten, as it symbolizes sin. We do this in an effort to separate ourselves from sin and become a holy, set-apart people. We like to call this feast our internal spring cleaning!
The first and last day of this feast is a high sabbath (an extra sabbath besides the weekly sabbath). No work can be done on these days with the exception of preparing food (Exodus 12:16). We bake and eat matzah bread, which in many ways resembles Jesus' sinless body.
This feast was declared a memorial to be kept forever. “And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread… therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever” Exodus 12:17.
_____
We also want to share with you, some gluten-free Passover recipes we have found, that we plan to make this year! We are anxious to try these out, as this is our first year celebrating with these dietary restrictions.
Gluten-Free Matzah Bread:
Ingredients: 1/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup almond meal
1 Tbsp. flaxseed meal 1 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. coconut oil
3 Tbsp. warm water
1/4 tsp. salt (or to taste)
Preheat oven to 450 F. In a medium bowl, combine potato starch, almond meal, flaxseed meal, and salt. Next, mix coconut oil into the dry ingredients using your hands. Add water in small amounts until the dough makes a ball and isn't too sticky. Knead dough well enough to be sure there are no chunks of coconut oil. If the dough is sticky, add a bit more potato starch. Take golf ball sized pieces of dough and flatten until thin on a foil-covered baking sheet. Use a fork to poke holes into the dough. Bake for about 10 minutes, but watch closely to make sure they don't get overdone. Be careful not to overbake! Remove from oven as soon as the edges become slightly brown - The top should still be white. Makes 4 servings.
Gluten-Free Dumplings (Matzoballs):
Ingredients: 2 medium russet potatoes, peeled
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup (plus 1 Tbsp.) potato starch
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground white pepper
1 Tbsp. fresh dill, minced
Cut potatoes into large chunks and boil in water until soft. Drain and allow to cool. Once cool, mash with oil, eggs, salt, pepper and dill. Stir in potato starch until thoroughly combined, and refrigerate the mixture for 1 hour. Bring soup or a pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Use your hands to gently form rough ball shapes from one tablespoon of batter at a time, and submerge dumplings in the soup or water. If you prefer, you may use a soup spoon or ice cream scoop to move free-form spoonfuls of batter into the pot. Boil for approximately 5-6 minutes - The dumplings will float up to the surface quickly but will need several additional minutes to cook all the way through. Serve in soup, or as a side dish with butter or margarine.
Gluten-Free Potato Pancakes:
Ingredients: 2 medium russet potatoes, peeled 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 - 1/3 cup potato starch
salt (to taste)
2 Tbsp. coconut oil for frying
Cut potatoes into large chunks and boil in water until soft. Drain and allow to cool. Once cool, mash with 2 Tbsp. of oil, both eggs, and salt. Stir in potato starch until thoroughly combined, and refrigerate the mixture for 1 hour. Heat oil in a heavy non-stick pan over medium-high heat until shimmering. Place 1/4 cup of batter at a time into the hot oil, using the back of a spatula to press flat until each pancake is no more than 1/4 to 1/3" thick. Cook until golden-brown on each side (2-3 minutes per side), flipping once. Place on a plate lined with paper towel to absorb excess oil. Serve while hot.
Gluten-Free Potato Latkes:
Ingredients:
4 pounds Russet potatoes
1 large onion, peeled
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon ground white pepper
1/3 c. white rice flour
1/3 c. brown rice flour
1/4 c. potato starch
1/8 c. tapioca starch
3 eggs, beaten
Olive oil for frying
Preheat oven to 200 degrees or "warm" setting. Peel potatoes and submerge in cold water. Grate the onion into a large bowl. Grate the potatoes and squeeze handfuls of grated potatoes at a time over kitchen sink to remove all liquid. Add the dry potatoes to the onions and mix as you go. This step should be done as quickly as possible to prevent oxidation of the potatoes.
Heat 1/4 inch of olive oil in a large, heavy skillet, over medium-high heat. Add remaining ingredients to the batter, and stir until fully combined. Place a small handful of batter (approximately 1/4 cup) in the hot oil at a time, gently pressing each latke with the back of the spatula so that it is no more than 1/3" thick. Do not press too hard, as the latkes will be more crispy if the batter is not densely packed (leave space in between the pieces of potato). Fry until completely golden-brown on the bottom and crispy around the outside corners. Flip and brown on the second side. Transfer latkes to a plate lined with paper towels. Allow paper to absorb excess oil. Makes 6-8 servings.
About 2 months ago, Jeremy and I had a pretty substantial scare with our daughter. As we drove the 30 minutes to the Lutheran Children's Hospital, we each wracked our brains as to why our innocent baby started having seizures! They just came out of nowhere and we were trying to think of anything out of the ordinary that could have any merit in causing them. When we arrived at the hospital, we quickly realized how far away from our comfy cozy home we were. We could no longer live under our rules, we had to live under the doctors rules. Don’t get me wrong, doctors have a lot of knowledge and we respect their opinions, however most of them don’t believe natural treatments are a legitimate course of action. Simply put, it is not what they were taught in school, so it can't possibly hold any merit in the medical community. Since Jeremy and I have been married, we have always tried natural treatment FIRST. Yahweh, our God out plants on this earth for more reasons than we have discovered, but treating ailments with herbs definitely goes back to bible times. Its not that we avoid medicine at all cost, we just don't go their first. This said, the very thought of having to give our Makenna anti-epileptic medicine several times a day for many years to come, was enough to put us to tears! Now of course, we more than anyone wanted to see these come to an end, we just didn’t think medicine would do the trick. We both had that instinct, you know the one that only a parent can have for their child, that this was something different! Well, after over a week in the hospital, her grand-maul seizures were more frequent (30+/day), lasting longer (2-2.5 minutes), and getting harder and harder! It was clear the medicine (that we obviously agreed to give her, at least until they were under control) seemed to be making matters worse.
Finally Jeremy and I decided to throw in some of our own ideas. We wondered about a possible food allergy causing the seizures. Gluten was the first to come to mind, with dairy not far behind. So we had a major decision on our hands “should we put Makenna on a GFDF formula to see if they improve” at least until these elements were completely rid of my system!? We had NEVER though anything would pull her away from only getting “mommy’s milk” as quickly as this did, but we felt it was worth a try! We also found out that a possible subluxation in her neck could cause non-stop seizures until fixed. My brother convinced us to try a chiropractor, so after a short (and very subtle) adjustment, we were feeling less anxious, being proactive really helped. Lastly, we caught word of a couple from Columbia City, a pastor and his wife, that had experienced several miraculous events from intense prayer and the laying on of hands. We felt that Yahweh’s gift of healing could definitely apply to our situation. While the couple was visiting, the most amazing thing happened, Makenna started to go into a seizure 2 separate times, both while being held by the pastors wife, but they NEVER PROGRESSED into seizures, instead her little muscles just relaxed in her arms! It was so encouraging, we knew Yahweh was with us! Finally, over the next 24 hrs we saw huge improvement! She went from having 30+ per day to only 8, then the next day just 1! At this point, we were sure our alternative ideas made the difference! We were finally going back to our comfy cozy home after 10 days in the hospital!
Life at home was much more comfortable! We were still giving her the medicine, and agreed to make monthly appointments to the chiropractor. On top of this, we went on a gluten free dairy free diet so I could start nursing Makenna again! Through this whole experience we discovered that Yahweh has a way of leading us to the answers we seek.
UPDATE: It has been almost a year since Makenna started having seizures and was put on anti-epileptic medicine to stop them. After we got out of the hospital, things were clear for a while. On top of a GFDF diet and some digestive enzymes to break down the lactose naturally occuring in "my milk", we were also giving her medicine every 8 hours, medicine that even the doctors said should not be given to anyone under 2 years old. After a couple months, Makenna had some seizures again, and they continued to happen after that about once every week or two. After much prayer, we decided to take a leap of faith and ween her very carefully off of the medicine. No doctor would back us, so we went to a naturopath for instruction. It was June 10th, my husbands birthday and we were in Fort Wayne for dinner; we had begun the weening process that morning by lowering her dose...when suddenly she went into a seizure :( we were so crushed, and confused! Still, we continued the weening process, believing that it was right for her. THAT was her last seizure! Over 6 months ago! We had decided that if we truly believed that her seizures were caused by a food allergy, that they were only a side effect and not a disease in themselves. She didn't have epilepsy so it wasn't good for her to be on an anti-epileptic drug. We believe now, that her original seizures were from the dairy, and that the seizures she had after months of being out of the hospital were a build up of the medicine she was on. We had learned that an anti-epileptic drug can actually cause seizures to happen when the person is not rightly diagnosed as having had epilepsy. That is our story! Still praying daily that we make the right choices for our daughter and that she remains a healthy little girl!
Bible verse on our hearts: Philippians 4:6
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” (NLT)
1. We ask that as you visit this blog, you show (through your comments) the same respect as you would show if you were visiting someone elses home.
2. Simply put, your comments can either build up or tear down. They are (in a sense) a permanent record of who you are and what you stand for – so please take care to be uplifting.
3. Be constructive with any 'opposing view' comments. If you don't agree with a topic we post on, or think we are in error, you can let us know! We are not claiming perfection, only desiring Biblical truth. We keep our hearts soft and moldable to the Word of God.
4. While we encourage commenting, we appreciate your comments to be relevant to the topic of the blog.
5. We are aware that many of our views are not mainstream, but honestly, in Biblical history how often did Jesus say "everyone is doing it so I will too"!? After all, we are called to be set-apart believers!
*We hope and pray that you truly consider what we share with much thought and prayer!
Bible passage on our hearts: Matthew 12:33-37 (NASB) "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. "The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
