The Revelation

Today I was driving home from the OC.  I got to thinking about all of the pain and sorrow in our world.  I was listening to my music and being amazed at the great hills covered in wild mustard, which make them look neon yellow.  I was just thinking for some reason about how great it would be for Christ to come at that moment.  I began longing for the Revelation Christ.  The tattooed, sword yielding, horse riding Christ who would come and rid the world of this darkness called sin.  The darkness of death, the darkness of pain and sorrow.  I longed for the Christ to come.  For God to be with us yet again, but not as a donkey riding humble servant, but as the ruler of the world.  The conquerer of this darkness.  The verse came to mind, "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom."  I fear that Christ.  I am in awe of him, with the trumpets and the bowls and the scrolls.  I want to be ready for that Jesus.  

Anger Management

I watched "Anger Management" today.  I had never seen it before.  I enjoyed it.  The whole chaos of it was hilarious and then the ending was great.  However, if someone ever did that to me, I think that I would not propose to them, I would not talk to them anymore.  Just so you all know!

A very loud Hamster!

I have a hamster.  I love him very much.  He hangs out in his cage and is always very busy.  We had many hamsters as children and I have never known one as busy as Cody.  Right now, he is playing with his food.  He is crunching and moving it around and it seriously sounds like someone is walking through crunchy leaves.  He is also a very loud drinker.  In general Cody terrorizes poor annabelle - the pomeranian that lives here.  Annabelle is a scaredy cat and any unknown sounds freak her out.  She also hates balls in general (unless they are very small) and when Cody is in his hamster ball, poor Annabelle runs for cover.   

Critical Observation

Today was a long day - I met part of the children's team from Life Church at 7:00am.  Then went to an all day conference.  It was great.  Really it was, I was able to reconnect with some great people.  I was encouraged to be a better minister to kids.  I also realized that I am getting near the saturation rate of topics covered at these kinds of seminars.  YES!  It is always good to be reminded to remind parents that they are the primary spiritual influencers in their child's life.  That we need to be really connecting with kids, that preschoolers are great people and need a special kind of connection.  Yet, I am much too aware of presentation styles, teaching styles, the way people learn, to stop evaluating the entire time I am sitting through a session.  Usually there is only a few things that I can say "I learned".  Part of that is that I love to learn, so I have learned a lot about my field.  Definitely not everything, but this was a conference directed mainly towards Sunday School pastors so it was at more of a basic level.  I did hear some great presenters/teachers today and was encouraged to grow in that area of my life.  Anyway, now I am home after church.  Was gone a total of 13 hours and since I am still fighting a cold I am done now. On top of all of that during the sermon tonight the pastor mentioned that Nathan who confronted David about his sin, had anointed him as a young boy.  Wait what?  Did Nathan and Samuel somehow merge into the same person?  So, I did mention that to him at the end of service, he seemed appreciative, but really, why must I be so aware of these things?  

First Wives Club

Tonight I watched First Wives Club for the first time.  I know.  I have issues with movies in that I don't watch many.  My friends Joe and Julie are working on remedying this problem.  I really enjoyed first wives club.  It was probably one of the better ones I have sat through in the last few months.  I have trouble with movies.  I love TV and books, movies though, I really have trouble loving.  I am working on this...

Brainstorming

Tonight I hung out with some great friends and worked on brainstorming for the next quarter of lessons that we are writing.  Tonight we hit the 4-6 year old lessons and among a few great ideas, we had a few crazy ones (don't worry none of these made the mark, but caused some laughter).  

My top four favorites 

 - Lock all the children in chains 

 - Draw a picture of the guard with his sword at his throat 

 - Take all the children up to the top of the building and throw them over and see who lives (See Acts 20.)

 - Have a child grab a red cloth and play bull fighting with all of the other children.  This, by the way had absolutely nothing to do with the lesson, but was probably the most random idea that any of us ever had. 

Now - don't you want us hanging out with your kids???

A busy Day

Today was a great Saturday, slept in, hung out for a while, did some errands and then worked on a decorating project.  I had some left over Ikea frames and a large wall that needed some extra love.  So, I bought some scrap booking paper and went to work.  I created five similar scenes, beach, palm tree and surfboards.  Then painted the frames and hung them on the wall...

Frame 1

Frame 2 - that is really a dark blue behind the palm tree not black...

The wall as it turned out.  

This is Annabelle, eating a giant plastic chewtoy fish that we bought her today.  It is kind of funny b/c it is way too big for her but they didn't have the smaller size.  So she has to move it with her paws by pushing it across the floor.  

She loves it though - it keeps her entertained for quite a while!