Guess that Parable!

The last parable is found in Matthew 20:1-16. If you guessed The Laborers in the Vineyard you guessed right! We learned on Wednesday that it is a good thing that God is not fair. Just like the vineyard owner who paid all his workers the same (those who worked all day and those who didn't get hired till the last hour) He gives salvation to all of us, no matter when we ask or in what condition we are in when we ask. If he treated us fairly...who would get to heaven?

Here is this weeks parable:

Jamie was a leader at his school. He didn't lead normal things like band, football, or a club. Instead, Jamie was the one who other students looked to for guidance  They treated others the way he treated them. They wore similar clothes that he wore. You were a part of the "in" crowd when you followed Jame and many students did. Mainly because he would have you beat up of you didn't. 
Tami is a new student today and at lunch was trying to find a place to sit. Tami has red hair and Jamie's group didn't like this feature for some reason. By placing books, bags, or saying that the open seat was being saved they kept her from sitting them. Their "group" took up most of the lunch room, and by the time Tami found a seat she didn't have much time to eat. Jamie's group was relentless in their taunting and wouldn't give her a break. It went from teasing, to cruel put downs, to beating her up. It started with Tami having read hair to picking on anything about her appearance or personality. The day they had beaten her up Rosa, who is a part of Jamie's group, went home that night ashamed for what she had down and for what Jamie's "friends" had done. She had felt this way for a while but finally made a decision about it. The next day Rosa, with all her courage, broke away from Jamie's group and went to Tami's house to check on her and to apologize. Since Tami is now home-schooled, Rosa visits her everyday even at her own risk of being hurt.

Have fun guessing! 

Responding instead of Reacting

I feel like it's been a while, but I have really been tired at night this week. The new glasses have put a bit of a strain on my eyes. I feel okay tonight. 

Every Thursday a dear friend and I get together. We are building a discipleship relationship, so we dig deep in the Bible and also talk of life. This Thursday I was telling her of something that had happened to me on Tuesday that I would have normally reacted to. Now, if you have been reading my posts you know this but if not then I will give you a run down... I have a short fuse and have been working to respond rather than react and that this dear friend and I came together in circumstances that I can only call "A God Thing". When I was done she said I should talk about that on my blog so I am...

On Tuesday I set out to make apple pie bars as well has bread (which makes three loaves). I have an adorable three year old son who helped. Before I even get our oldest out the door to school I dump over our son's milk. He put a straw in his cup, which I asked him not to for this very reason (except I thought it'd be him spilling it not me!). Later as I was washing something I needed my elbow hit a cup of O.J. So I had the opportunity to clean my kitchen floor! Then our son dumped all the apple skins I had been pealing for the apple pie bars! He was very helpful in cleaning up his mess thankfully. Normally I would have said some very "put down" type things to myself and to our son. Working with my friend closely to "Be still and know that He is God" has really, really helped me a lot. I have learned and have been practicing much I have learned from her and others around me. 

Who are you thankful for in your life? Someone who has taught, guided, listened, or play with? Think about it, then thank God for them and let them know what they mean to you!

Danzig Passage

I have finished Danzig Passage. This was an incredible book. I love the way she uses history and then makes personal stories come alive. There were a couple of characters that I didn't mention before. One is a boy named Alfie. He lives in a graveyard. Four other children who are trapped in a church. The Nazis are after them because two of them are Jews and two of them are children of parents who are helping Jews. Through some amazing event they finally make it to the train to take them to Danzig. Lucy finally breaks away from Wolf and escapes with two boys who she saved from Wolf capturing them. It wasn't as suspenseful as the other ones but it has the same pull on your heart. Since it wasn't as emotional to read this one I feel able to read the next and last one in the series. Usually I need to wait a couple of weeks. The next is titled Warsaw Requiem. 

This is sort, but soon I will have another with a parable and a few thoughts. Plus my cake is coming up. I will be making a graduation cake for a friend of mine for Nov 17th.

Everyone have a nice night!

Time Management

Last post I talked of not going to church for a bit and asking what would you do to spend your time. This is an extreme situation to make you think. So, what did you think of? What would you do to cultivate your relationship with Jesus? Talked to my hubby about this some and his answer was not to stop going to church, but perhaps the church as a whole needs a break from the normal things. His idea would be to still meet but do something different. I thought on this some and think it to be a good idea. Have you noticed some Sunday's your church as a whole is just ho-humming it? Sometimes after tragedies churches can do this, ours has. Just like in your own life, there are ebbs and flows. Same is for the church. So I thought of different things a church could do as a whole. 1) Serve together. Every year our church serve the community soup during the Christmas season. This is a planned thing, but I think it is good for us to work together on something to better our community and perhaps witness to someone about God's love for them. 2) Fellowship together. Once we were totally snowed/iced out. Instead of cancelling, we kept the church open. We had a small turn out of course but we still had a small lesson and then we enjoyed hot chocolate together and just had some fellowship. Maybe your church could use a change up. Small sermon/lesson and then just let people mill around with some snacks. Communicating is an important things. Some people maybe looking for someone to confide in, or maybe someone just needs adult time away from kids, or maybe someone need comforted. This would be a great way for people to have the time to connect and grow. 3) Pray together. We had a wonderful 40 of prayers where each Sunday the member leading this would get up and speak on some verses that were covered in the coming week and give us ideas on what to pray for each day. She had pamphlets made up for us to take home with the verses and ideas too. We've also had prayer days were we had station for people to spend 10 minutes at in prayer. Confession station, pray for others station, pray for our nation station, ect. 

Tonight we had a speaker talk to us about manage time as well. What he talked about went with my last posted and wanted to share some of his thoughts. God doesn't want us to live a life of pressure but one devoted to God. Then everything else will follow (Matthew 6:33). He also pointed out that we need to give to God not only our money but also our time. So then he asked what is 10% of our day. After we sleep there are about 16 hours that. That's nearly 1.5 hours that can be give to God in prayer, Bible reading/studying, serving, ect. This do not need to be done alone. Pair up with a friend and do these together. I have a dear friend suggest to me to pray a prep pray for the day at the beginning, rather than crying out to God when I was already in the middle of a muddle. So I started praying what she prayed for me, Ephesians 1:17-19. This really helped me a lot and so I prayed it for others in my life. I have not done this in a while. Though and I do have a new verse that I focus on, it does not seem to have the same effect. I read out of my children's Bibles in the morning and don't usually get to mine until night. These are something I have done in ebbs and flows of my own life. What do you do with your 1.5 hours to God?

Guess That Parable!

The after school program that everyone was worrying about went of without a hitch. All their worrying made me edgy. I am glad it is has finally started.

On another note, this year for my Wednesday night class at church (3rd grade - 6th grade kids) I am following an example I found in a book by Herold Fickett titled Conversations With Jesus. He took the parables Jesus used and re-wrote them to be more relevant. I take the parables Fickett used and am re-writing them for children. So here I am going to type up the one I wrote and see if you can see which parable it represents. Should be fun. Leave your guess in the comments below.

This Saturday it was raining and the Ronald kids were bored. Matthew, who is 10 years old, came to his mom and asked if there was anything for him to do to earn some extra cash. His mom said that there was, he could do the dishes, fold and put away his laundry, and put away his things. Hmmmm, she thought for a bit and said that she'd give him $5.00. Matthew said, "Sweet!" and he went off to start working. The whole time he imagined himself in his yard with his remote control car. After a bit Mark, who is 8 years old, came to his mom asking a similar thing except he wanted a baseball mitt. She told him to dust and pick up his things and put them away. Mark's mom also told him he'd get $5.00. By this time it was lunch so Matt took a break to eat while Mark was just getting started after lunch. When supper time was near, little Maddie who is 4 years old, asked her mama if she could work too. her mama said sure and that she could pick up her books and place them back on the bookshelf. Maddie wanted to save for a doll. At bed time all three came looking for payment, excited about what they wanted to save the money for. Their mom gave them each a $5.00 bill. Matthew was so mad that he couldn't talk at first then he wanted to know why they were all paid the same when he clearly had worked the longest. He thought he should get more or they less. Mark had the look of confusion on his face. He wanted to know why Maddie got $5.00 when she only picked up like 3 books.  Maddie was the happiest, took the $5.00 and ran to put it in her piggy bank. Their mother explained to her boys that she had given them what she had promised. That it was not their concern how she gave out allowance among them. 

They way to really wrap this up would reveal too much of the Biblical version and make it easier for you to get, so I will put the point on here with the next post I write. Good luck!

To Church or Not to Church?

What if you didn't go to church for one month? What would you do? This is something that I was wondering as I was putting our son to bed tonight. It was random, but I think it stems from some things I have read from the "The Jesus I Never Knew" bookby Philip Yancey. How would you spend your time? Don't get me wrong don't stop getting together. The Bible talks of getting together with other Christian as being important (Hebrews 10:25). I am just wondering when a small part of following Christ became such a focal point. For me I sometimes find myself running around trying to get to church on time. Wed, Sun, Sun night and then anything in between. We are to be taught and to also teach, but Jesus talks of so much more than this. There's feeding those who need it, clothing, and loving your enemies. These things take much time and energy to do and do well. 

It not just church taking up our time either. It seems that we have put ourselves into a box. A very limited box...one with time restriction, culture restrictions, race restrictions, what is safe and not safe restrictions (like me picking up the hitch hiker = not safe). How are we to completely live a life as Jesus' if we are not open to living with others around us? Maybe we need to be interrupted doing the laundry, filing that paper, or going to an event so that we can  help someone else. I mean Jesus would be interrupted many times trying to get somewhere. He never rushed though, he always helped people on the way. Once He was interrupted so much that a little girl had died. A man came to Jesus asking him to heal his daughter. On the way there he was interrupted by a woman who had a hemorrhage. This woman touch Jesus' clothes just to be healed. Jesus stopped everyone to find who had touched him and then proceeded to talk to the woman, during which a servant came and said that the little girl had died. Jesus continued on though and then brought the little girl back to life (Mark 5:21-43). This is one of my favorite accounts of Jesus. 

I had a friend once tell me that everything we do needs to bring glory to God. That the things God does brings glory to Himself. He can take something bad in your life and make it good and bring glory. 

In the end I am trying to live a more flowing life rather than one defined by restrictions I try to put on myself. So far I have done a so-so job of it. But when I do succeed in flowing rather than being upset at the interruption, I have the most incredible sense of peace. I ask again, what would you do with your time if it was not tied up with church, sports, tv, books, ect? How would you bring glory to God? If you find yourself rushing around, maybe you need to cut something out of your life for now. Maybe you need to try not being so set on what you are going to do in a day, but allow God to guide you. Here is a chorus from Newworldson's song "Today". This gets stuck in my head when I try to take the lead or try to grumble that my day is not going the way I want it to.

 MAYBE THIS TIME YOU CAN TAKE THE LEAD, 

AND I WONT TRY TO PULL YOU BY THE SLEEVE.
BECAUSE EVERY TIME I THINK THAT I KNOW BETTER, I LOSE MY WAY, 
SO GOD, WHAT YOU WANNA DO TODAY?

Piddly Things and Books

I really should talk about something tonight. But I am really tired. I know that the graduation party is November 17th, so I will start planning and buying things for his cake. Tomorrow our after school program starts. I am wondering how it is going to go. I am sure that I will have a lot to talk about then. 

Theo has made it back to London to his family. He saw Hitler's army set Berlin on fire. It was terrible. Bodie does a great job describing what is going on. It really pulls you in. Theo's daughter. Elisa is Theo's daughter and is expecting their first child in the middle of all this chaos. She keeps having this dream of saving children from the Nazi. So is an adopted child that her and her husband have. I am wondering what they are going to do, they can't stay in London.

Well, this is a short night. Going to enjoy a video game with my hubby. Night.