He still loved me

I told him I didn’t love him. He still loved me.

I cursed him, mocked him, dismissed him as irrelevant. He still loved me.

I said I didn’t want him or need him, that he just got in my way. He still loved me.

He saw all my many flaws, knows how much I have failed. He has seen me sin boldly and he still loved me.

When I blamed him for everything that went wrong in my life and said he simply didn’t listen to me or care about me, he still loved me.

I scoffed when he said he would die for me. Then he did.

There was that time when I was in the boat with the fishermen. I watched him on the shore, building a fire, and heard him shout to the fishermen to cast their nets on the other side. I jumped from the boat and swam to the shore to be with him. I was cold, shivering and afraid. He wrapped me in in a blanket, sat with me by the fire holding both of my hands in his, and I looked deeply into his dark eyes. He still loved me.

And I came to know, so deep in my heart, in spite of all my protestations, in spite of all the effort to run from him, to hide from him, to deny his existence, that I love him. Perhaps because of all my efforts to deny him, to not love him, I now love him with a love so fierce and deep that it has become the single most important thing in my life. He has taken away my fear and shame and he has given my life meaning. He never gave up on me and will never leave me.  And he still loves me.

Tomorrow is his birthday. 

Cream of chicken and wild rice soup

It's snowing and I'm thinking about comfort food, specifically Panera's cream of chicken soup. I like the soup at Panera, but it tastes a little of garlic powder and I wanted to improve it, so I started searching for an easy recipe that would replicate it. Voila! Combining a couple of recipes I found online, plus a little improvisation and this is what happened. It's good, worth saving, and really easy--one pot. I made a big pot of soup, probably about 12 or more servings. 

See what you think.

Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

What you’ll need

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup chopped celery

2 medium sweet onions, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil 

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup fresh spinach leaves, chopped

8 cups chicken stock (or water with 2 TBS Penzey’s chicken base)

2 cups milk

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 bay leaves

2 cups milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 4.3-ounce boxes of Rice-a-Roni Long Grain and Wild Rice with seasoning packet

How to do it

Place the carrots, celery, onion, and olive oil in a large Dutch oven or soup pot.

Allow to simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are translucent.

Add chopped chicken and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add garlic, spinach, chicken stock, and 2 cups of milk to the mixture and blend.

Add pepper, oregano, and bay leaves.

Mix and allow soup to simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes.

Whisk together the other 2 cups of milk with flour until smooth. Whisk into soup.

Place rice and seasoning packets into soup and mix until combined.

Simmer for 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Add a little milk or water if too thick.