The blog

Writings on food, faith, creativity, and family, all with the goal of helping you nourish your soul.

Welcome to my little home on the Internet! If you were in my actual house, I’d offer you a drink and start raiding the pantry for snacks so we dive into the deep stuff (I’m not great at small talk). My internet home isn’t much different–there’s food to savor and words to mull over about everything from faith to creativity to family.

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Encouragement, Parenting and Family Sarah Hauser Encouragement, Parenting and Family Sarah Hauser

For the One Who’s Holding Her Breath

She was talking about the writing life, but I think Anne Lamott’s words in Bird by Bird are true for all of life. She wrote, “You can’t fill up when you’re holding your breath.”

Are you holding your breath right now? I mean proverbially, yes, but even physically? 

So many of us are holding our breath, afraid of letting go because we’re not sure we can handle the tears or anger or overwhelm attempting to pour out from our bodies. We hold our breath because we’re bracing for what’s next, waiting for the other shoe to drop. We hold our breath because, ironically, sometimes keeping it all inside feels like the only way to make it through another day.

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Baking, Breakfast and Brunch Sarah Hauser Baking, Breakfast and Brunch Sarah Hauser

Honey-Almond Granola [and doing good when the world is hurting]

I’ve had this recipe sitting in my drafts for months, waiting to get posted. But every time I’ve gone to write and publish, I don’t have the words. It’s not because of the recipe itself. This granola has become one of my go-to, simple, make-ahead breakfasts. It’s because when the world feels like it’s falling apart, why bother posting about granola?

It feels dumb, honestly.

I’ve shared about this tension before, about how it’s strange to do ordinary, mundane things when people are deeply suffering. I want to fix it, to make a difference, to bring about real, lasting change.

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Encouragement, Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser Encouragement, Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser

How the Resurrection Changes How We Live—and Even How We Grieve

My mom’s body laid flat on the hospital-style bed in her bedroom. My dad, sister, and I removed her soiled clothes and put clean ones onto her lifeless body. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Her frail frame felt unexpectedly heavy—heavy in my arms, heavy in my soul. Then we waited for her body to be picked up.

Eventually, two men arrived. But they came earlier than we had anticipated, so we asked for more time. Don’t take her. Not yet. We’re not ready.

They kindly came back a few hours later, wrapped her in a black bag and carried my mom’s body out the front door. Just like that, gone. We stood in the entryway for who knows how long hugging, sobbing, clinging onto each other.

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Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser

Living Out a Changed Life [James Study Week 4, James 1:19-27]

I am starting to think this 12-week series could have been a year-long series. Every week I come to the set of verses for the week and wonder how in the world we’ll cover them in one post (which I couldn’t even do last week and had to break the content into two posts). The Word of God is so, so rich, and we could study this a thousand times and not exhaust all there is to learn and meditate on. But while we won’t be able to grasp all there is to learn, we can still take small, meaningful steps in the right direction.

In the first chapter of his letter, James has laid out a bird’s eye view of many of the topics he’ll bring up again. He reminds his readers to be joyful and steadfast in their trials, because there’s a reward that will be worth all the struggle. And along our Christian journey, we’ll face trials and temptations that threaten to bring us down and lead us in the wrong direction. Yet we must consistently choose to follow our good God, trusting him and demonstrating that trust by putting that faith into action.

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Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser

Running Away from Death and Toward True Life [James Study Week 3b, James 1:13-18]

After introducing his readers to the topics of joy, wisdom, steadfastness, and our eternal reward, James turns to warning them about what stands in the way—trials and temptations, which are not exactly the same thing. Trials form us like gold refined in a fire. God often uses trials to mold and shape us to better image him to the world.

But James is clear that temptations are not from God. While God is sovereign over us and everything we face, the intent of temptation is to draw us away from God. God sent his Son, Jesus, to die for us so that we could be reconciled to him (2 Corinthians 5:18). Why would he then try to lure and entice us away from himself? He wouldn’t, and he doesn’t.

When we think about temptation, we have to remember two simple points. They seem obvious, especially if we’re not currently facing temptation. But when we’re in the middle of fighting our earthly desires and the siren song of anything that goes against God, these points are easy to forget.

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Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser

#Blessed Are the Steadfast [James Study Week 3a, James 1:12]

“Blessed.” It’s a word our culture has overused and misunderstood. It’s a word that has become a joke on social media. New car! #blessed. Big house! #blessed. And maybe that’s not entirely wrong. “‘Blessedness’ has to do with well-being in life that flows from the favorable position in which one is rightly related to God”[1].

We’ve gotten part of our understanding correct. We receive good gifts and recognize that we have some well-being in life. But what we often miss is that those gifts aren’t necessarily because of our right relationship with God. That’s why the psalmists and the prophets over and over again lament that the wicked prosper (see Psalm 73). Often it looks to human eyes like the wicked are ones who are #blessed.

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Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser

It Will Be Worth It [James Study Week 2, James 1:2-11]

For many of us, the events of 2020 have probably raised that same question. Maybe we wonder if God is really in control or why there’s so much evil in the world. Maybe we’re not sure if we can really trust him or we’re uncertain even in the age of information what’s actually true. Maybe our emotions, what others tell us, or our circumstances leave us feeling tossed around in doubt, confusion, and discouragement.

But in the beginning of his letter, James reminds us that joy, steadfastness, and spiritual maturity come from knowing and trusting that God is who he says he is.

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Encouragement Sarah Hauser Encouragement Sarah Hauser

Lord, Have Mercy [a prayer of intercession during a season of chaos]

I'm not really sure what to do, how to think, or what to say these days. But if nothing else, this season of chaos has pushed me to my knees. And that's a really good place to be.

I wrote down some things I've been praying for this week, and as long as my list has gotten, I know it's still not comprehensive. But I'm offering what I can in this post today.

Lord, have mercy.

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Sarah Hauser Sarah Hauser

Sing the Wounds [reflections on lament, song, and hope]

The poet, Christian Wiman, writes, “Lord, suffer me to sing these wounds by which I am made and marred.”

****

Only a few days remain in the year, and I stand singing on a Sunday morning.

This world is a weary place, brokenness marks every face.
Dear ones are lost and bodies languish, divisions drive our souls to anguish.
Injustice mingles with the soil, we eat the bread of anxious toil.
Hear our cries, show us favor, we need hope, we need a Savior.

My voice trembles, and I feel my jaw tighten. The notes ring in my ear, but not as loudly as the words. Weary. Brokenness. Injustice. Anxious. I hear those words scrape at my soul, tearing away at the armor I clothed it in when I stepped into the church.

We need hope. I fumble through that last line and try to blink back the emotion flooding my face. The voices around me carry the lyrics I can’t seem to say. It seems a fitting way to end a hard year—a song of desperation sung with a shaking voice, a few tears, and a community who cries out with me.

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Sides, Encouragement Sarah Hauser Sides, Encouragement Sarah Hauser

The Same Stories We’ve Told [and a recipe for cranberry sauce with pomegranate + orange]

Every Thanksgiving, I set out a dish with cranberry sauce the way my grandmother used to make it—right from the can, ridges in tact. It reminds me of her and helped us find joy in the midst of grief during one particular Thanksgiving. Of course, I like to include some homemade cranberry sauce, too, like this version with pomegranate and orange.

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Encouragement, Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser Encouragement, Faith and Theology Sarah Hauser

The LORD Keeps Us

I’ve said it before, and it’s still true. Motherhood has revealed my own need to me more than any other experience in my life. I have never felt so in over my head than I have in the last five years. I overanalyze how I handle my twins’ fighting, I beat myself up for too much screen time, I fear the thousand more important and life-altering decisions to come in the next 15 years. And I’m just so tired

We haven’t had a hard road to growing our family. We haven’t even had hard babies for the most part. Sure, having two newborns at the same time proved quite the challenge. But even the most ordinary of parenting experiences puts me on my knees.

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