Wednesday, July 27, 2011

blessing #6 - climate change

methinks I need to update more often, because then i might have more quality posts / at least post more than once a month.
i am moving to a wee bit south of miami, and looking forward to a change of pace . . . Going to be teaching at a Christian school down there - 5th grade!  Open to all of your advices!

side note - g'bye party at Crystie Long's this Sunday evening after church. come from wherever you are. and if you can't come ..
GET SKYPE. so we can talk once i'm in FLORIDA. craziness.

God is good.

I finished my huge portfolio, so other than discussion questions, I am DONE with classes. (other than student teaching, too, i guess).

it CRAZY-STORMED here tonight. as in, the rain was so loud I could barely hear the (slightly-old) news about the heartbreaks in Norway. it's amazing how big God is. He can create just by speaking. He can stop things just by speaking ... yet He humbled Himself to take my place, my punishment!

What a wonderful saviour!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

(repost from May 4th, 2008) - blessing #5 - babies

This past weekend I got to meet two new babies - my friend Tracie's baby Lucas (a month old), and the newest addition to Berean Baptist, John Gage - called "Gage" as, i guess, most of his dad's line of men are named John ____ and go by their middle name. Rather cool concept, if you ask me. 


   At -(one of my roomates)- Danielle's baby shower, Lucas was a darling most of the time I held him. We had fun... I put him on his stomach across my lap and he just chilled until his socks fell off.   It was great to see Danielle and Leonard again, and watch how excited they were to get ready for their baby and how loving they were towards each other.  It was also great to see Tracie and Lucas and how becoming a mommy has changed my friend for the better - someone as small as Lucas was, making such a difference in so many lives. 
   
And at church today I met Gage - the oldest looking newborn I've ever met. He had the aged, wise old man look to his face, which was intriguing to see on one so young. Not your ordinary chubby-cheeked baby-faced baby, but a young man in a baby's body.  Incredibly handsome, to say the least, and incredibly tiny.  And fashionable, in his little white knit cap. 


Both of these little men were fortunate enough to be born into families where God is honored and people have made the choice to serve the Master rather than the World... how many others have been born this year alone into families that are struggling to make ends meet or struggling with sin and its effects?  Pray for the babies you never meet - and the ones you do.  I've seen God work in so many lives, and I know for a fact not all of these lives started in homes where God reigned. 
I've also seen children that have been blessed with parents who "chose" (if you will) to follow Christ, only to run away from their Creator as soon as they leave home. 



I wish it weren't that way.  I need far more than both of my hands to keep a count of the people I know who've been entrusted with godly, loving parents only to turn their back on everything true and real.  



Choices, decisions, and heartbreak.  



"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. - Pr. 22:6

"If serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselvesthis day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers servedbeyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.  - Joshua 24:15


Something somewhere - most likely the nasty thing we know as sin - gets in the way of the "way he should go" and forces the people who were once babies to make a choice... a choice much like the ones made by the Israelites in Joshua's time.  God's side - the God who basically conquered the inhabitants of the land for the Israelites, or the world's side?

a choice that - when made - can set fire to the innocence of the babies we adore. 

One day, Lucas and Gage will have to choose. As must you and I.  Joshua commands his people to make their choices ASAP.  There is an urgency there, because innocence once lost is never again found in its entirety.  

Pray for these two new little men, and for the babies you meet or are planning on meeting - pray that God will allow them to make a choice for Him, and that their parents will lead them into the battle for truth.  

Pray for your own choices; pray that the choice you make every day will be to serve the God of Israel.  All other gods will fall before the true God, as will all who chose false gods... 

pray for innocence to return to our land.  Make choices that bring innocence back... see what He can do when you do. 


I hope this post was encouraging... and understandable.  It's just something I've had on my mind and I needed to share it.  


from my olde Xanga