Oh glorious to-day

Hawaiian sunset. Photo taken by me. I don't know what heaven is like,
but if Hawaii is anything like it, I think I am in for a HUGE treat!

OH GLORIOUS DAY

 One day when Heaven was filled with His praises
One day when sin was as black as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin
Dwelt among men, my example is He
Word became flesh and the light shined among us
His glory revealed

Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He's coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day

One day they led Him up Calvary's mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for me

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now He's ascended, my Lord evermore
Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him
From rising again

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming
One day the skies with His glories will shine
Wonderful day, my Beloved One, bringing
My Savior, Jesus, is mine

Lyrics taken from here

(Casting Crowns)

 

FALLING PLATES VIDEO

 Very much worth the watch!

Happy Easter!

He has risen!

He has risen indeed!

 

 

This Sums It Up

A friend of mine had a post on her FB page about how her preschool-aged son is teaching her so much when she is by profession a teacher.

I think God does that to humble us teachers. I think he does a lot to humble us. . .and to bless us.

Here is my little {weekend} story for you:

It is Sunday afternoon. The family is doing odds and ends types of things. I'm catching up on few things that don't get done during the week (yes--on Sunday!!!) And then we get a phone call from Grandma, she wants us to visit--right now. I'll admit it. I'm a planner. I like planned visits better. But we pick up and go, because, well, really, what is stopping us?

While heading out the door, I'm thinking of all those little things that I'm trying to catch up on and the fact that we are having the small group over this evening--stress for me. Love having people over, but it is instant stress. I'm not a perfect hostess. I wish I were. I'm not. So, there lies the stress.

Guess I was thinking about that too much. My oldest son is putting on his shoes and asks, "What do you guys talk about?" So I answer, "You know, we read the Bible, we talk about what God wants us to do and how God shows us grace." Hubby cuts in: "We do that with Grandma?" I admit that I was thinking he was talking about small group. My son says, "Don't worry, Mom. I'll pick out a story for you to read to Grandma." Hmmm. . .hubby and I look at each other. . .how is this going to work? Not our typical "visiting" material.

But we visit. Son goes to play with Lego. And I figure I'm safe from the Bible story reading. (Yes, I actually thought those exact words!) But my son doesn't forget and a bit into the visit all of a sudden he abandons the Lego and is holding a Bible for me. "Okay, your turn to read."

Grandma gets all concerned (should I point out she was a "pastor" at one point? Ah, maybe not.) She wants to know why he needs her Bible, what verse he needs, what is going on.

And I smile. Flip the bible open, "because it;s the kind that flops" says E, and start reading about the Plagues of all things. God's mighty power shown on earth to those who didn't want to listen to God.

Kinda fitting.

Grandma wants to know what I am doing. This is all a little weird.

I explain. . .and yes, it's weird.

But I guess my son knows it better. God didn't call us to live in community and just visit. He asked us to grow in faith together. . .and I guess you gotta read His word to do that.

E was the happiest kid in the world because we read the Bible at Grandma's house.

"I guess that is what you talk about now." Smart kid.

This morning at staff devotions, the leaders talked about how God blesses us and in return we can bless others; sometimes intentionally, sometimes just by doing your every day stuff. Then they led us in singing this song.

I think every once in a while you get a song that sums it all up. . .

Glorious Day by Casting Crown

I'm just pretty thankful for the blessings I'm surrounded by in the extraordinary. . .and the ordinary, weird parts of life.

A Quick Frame. . .

Just under a year ago, I attended a "Take It Home" event at our church. It was pretty much a class for parents or parents and children to teach us ways to use the things we learn at church in your home (making a connection between church and home). The particular one I attended was for a pre-school aged group. It was about blessings and our children. One part that stood out to me was a story (don't quote me on this one, I'm just telling it as I remember it) about a man/parent who had a bible verse in his child's room and would pray this verse over his child while sleeping as she grew up. When his child grew older, she was able to repeat this verse in a particular situation when wisdom was needed--and knew what her dad had done all these years. That story left me thinking about the power of praying Bible verses over my children--and particularly praying blessings over them.

At this class, some Bible verse suggestions were given to us, as well as some "posters" of some of these Bible blessings. Some parents shared about how they already had verse hanging up as a result of taking this little class at an earlier time and what it meant to them. To be honest, I didn't jump on the bandwagon right away and mount these posters that very same day, but gave the whole idea some thought. I thought about how I currently pray for my children and if/how I would change the way I pray for my children after hearing what I did that day. I thought about scripture verses related to prayer and blessings and raising children in the Lord. I thought about the verses printed on the posters and what God had said to His people in the past and was He was saying to me and my children through those verses now.

Eventually my husband and I did choose a verse for each of our children from the suggestions given. One thing we did find was how the things we would pray for our children turned up in these verses--and it was {easy} to "assign" a verse to hang in each of their rooms.

It is interesting (for a lack of a better word at the moment to capture how I ponder this) to me now, already, that my oldest often wants to read his verse as his night time prayer or reminds me to pray the verse for him. I got a glimpse of the passion the story-teller mentioned above had in sharing his idea with others--a glimpse of a yearning to share in God's blessing, whether we fully comprehend it or not. And a glimpse of how we have a need to have conversations with our Father, but also for others to have conversations with this same Father on our behalf. IT also reminded me that sometimes when we pray we just don't know the right words to say. . .but that God does, and He gave us the words we need in His Word.

Phew--And this was just gonna be a "look-at-the-short-little-project-I-made" kind of post!

So, here is that part! Here is the latest one I made. Like I said, I didn't jump on this project right away. But a few weeks ago, when my husband started wrecking--I mean, remodelling, if you can call it that at this point--our house, I needed something to do that felt like I was creating something nice--not a mess! So, I decided to mount the verse we had chosen for our youngest child.

Here is how this project worked for me. . .go through box of old frames. Reject all of them. Not even a coat of paint would fix any of them at this point. Go through junk room. Find old picture that hung in a baby room once upon a time. Decide that frame could be used but picture had to go. Realize frame is too big for my trusty scrapbook paper. . .think a little. . .pause for a "Candyland" break with the kids (sheer excitement!!!). . .think some more. . . Realize that I can use fabric. Search remnant fabric box. Choose one that will match room colors and fame. Get to work.
My stuff
Covering the frame. I just covered it in a similar way that I would wrap a present. Easy-peasy.

Then I mounted the "poster" of the verse to the front side, added a few star embellishments, and there you have it. Easy project. Hardly worth blogging about. But shows you how art-ish-y you can look even in you are not! And it shows you what you can accomplish in a whole 15 minutes! And it made me feel like my home was a {teensy} but prettier and nicer than our kitchen looks right now. :)

By the wall and bed cover of my youngster's bed. (Choosing exactly where to hang it might take a while still--but it is done and ready to be hung!)

Here are the ones I have in the rooms of my other kiddos:

FYI: Other verse selections we were given at this class in poster form included Ephesians 3: 17-19 and Galatians 2:20.

Luke 2:52 in the Classroom

In my previous post, I wrote a quasi-review about the book, Emma's Journal, by Ed Rowell. Now I want to share with you how I have used it in the classroom:

1. First, I made a bulletin board like so. . .
Because I teach primary, I made a simple bulletin board--and one that we can write on each month and erase. Instead of using words, like "intellectual", I changed it to primary-friendly phrases, like "With my mind."

2. Next, we had a classroom meeting. this usually happens weekly to talk about issues going on in the school, in the classroom and with our peers. We role-play scenarios and talk about ways to figure out our problems. This time, we read the Bible--Luke Chapter 2. then we talked specifically about verse 52, and how the verse can be broken up into these four areas. We talked about how we want to praise God with our whole beings (insert words of song, Let Everything That Has Breath Praise the Lord here--sure mixes the meeting up by doing a random song!) then we talked about 4 ways that we, as a class, could praise God with our whole beings.

3. We came up with this:

-say one thing we are thankful for each day

-use these words: "please" and "thank-you"

-run or walk around the track one time each day

-read one Fall or Pumpkin book (our current unit) at home with our families

Not bad for a bunch of cute, adorable, eager, wonderful, energetic little primary kiddos!

So. . .now for the rest of the month, we will remind ourselves and check ourselves to see if we can "complete" these goals. If we can, cool, we'll make new ones to grow on these! If we can't, we will break these current goals into smaller steps, so we will eventually be able to do it!