I am always amazed at how personal our God is. The past two weeks I have seen God at Work several times and I just have to share it with you.
God At Work #1:
"So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes." Daniel 9:3
I have been studying the book of Daniel this school year in my lunch hour Bible study group. Last week was specifically about Daniel Chapter 9, in which Daniel cries out to God in prayer for the his people. The lesson I was working on really spoke to me personally, because I am typically a "go-go-go" type of person. I LOVE to be busy and have a very hard time slowing down. When I do slow down, it is usually to read or be on the computer. I know that God was specifically speaking to me as I read about Daniel and his prayer life. I know that God wants me to be in His Word, reading and listening for Him and then speaking back to Him in prayer. I also know He wants me to be still in Him, too. VERY HARD for me!!
So, last Saturday, I did my lesson on Daniel 9 and prayer. Sunday night, I opened the church bulletin to see what the sermon title was....it was Daniel 9!! The following day, on my way to work, I turned on Family Christian Radio...and again, the topic was prayer. Wow!!! Some people would believe this is all "chance" or "coincidence"....but for believers, we know that our God is a personal God and this is the way He speaks to us. It humbles me to know that if I am in His Word, He will speak personally, to me!! How cool is that?? I know God wants to talk to me all of the time, but because of my self-centeredness I don't always take the time to really listen.
God At Work #2:
On Wednesday night, as I was praying with Caleb and tucking him into bed, we had such an awesome little conversation...it went like this:
C: "Mom, I prayed the prayer with Aaron at school today."
G: "Really? That's awesome, tell me about it."
C: "Well, I asked Aaron if he knew that there is only one way to get to heaven. He
said, "yes". I asked him if he said the payer to ask Jesus to be the leader of his
life and he said, "no". So, I asked him if he wanted me to pray it with him and I
did. Because, mom, I really like Aaron and I want to see him in heaven."
Wow!! If we, as adults, could have that "childlike faith", how simple it would be! Instead, we try to complicate things so much...with our minds and the world, that we can't just rest in the knowledge that "our God is BIG...and can do anything"...we don't need to understand it all...or we wouldn't have a need for Him. We just need to give our lives to him and rest in that. Out of the mouths of babes!
God At Work #3:
I had a haircut and color yesterday. It seems like whenever I get my hair done, the topic of "religion" comes up. I think some of this is because in everyday conversation, I usually have something to say about my church, or a book I am reading, a movie I've seen, etc...and it often has something to do with my faith. So, we were chatting about what we were doing this weekend and I mentioned something about having to serve pizza at church on Sunday. This lead to a discussion about churches. My stylist and her boyfriend are trying to find a church home. Well, as the discussion continued one of the things she said was "Well, everyone is entitled to worship the way they want and what really matters is that you're a good person". BOOM....door opened!! Thanks God!! I just got quiet, b/c I wasn't sure the words I should say about this. So, after a few minutes of quiet....BOOM...she asked me "How did your husband and you get to the point in your faith that you are?" WIDE OPEN DOOR!!! So, I was able to tell her my story...but I was still trying to figure out a way to tell her how to "receive the gift". BOOM....I told Caleb's story (see #2)...with a few extra details, about how heaven is a real place, how we are all sinful and no one can be "good enough" to go to heaven or to be in God's presence b/c He is such a Holy God, how Jesus is the only way for us to get to heaven, but that we need to pray and ask Him to be the leader of our life."
What an awesome week of God sightings!!
Happy Birthday Grandma! We hope you have a great day!!
Love,
The Fiddlebugs
Happy Chinese New Year!
Lots to celebrate this week:
1. After 13 years at his company, Steve gave his resignation on Monday. He will start with a new company on February 9th. He will go from managing 14 programs and about 50 employees to managing 1 program and 13 employees. A great and much needed change for him. The really cool thing is that when the CEO interviewed Steve, Steve noticed several photos hanging in this gentleman's office. The photos were of children of different ethnicities. After the interview, Steve inquired about the photos and the man said that he does work for World Vision. Very cool....we sponser a little girl named Somkit, through World Vision. She lives in Thailand. If this was any sign of the type of company this is, it will be a welcome change for Steve!
2. My Distiguished Service Award (see previous post).
3. Our application with Better Futures Adoption Services was approved and we can begin the process of bringing our little girl home.
4. It's Chinese New Year!
To celebrate all of these things, we decided to go to our favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner. The boys wanted to order off of the "adult" menu, and Caleb was determined to try the duck. Of course, his meal was the most expensive of all of ours, but he loved it. We all liked it. Caleb took the leftovers to school for lunch the next day. The funniest thing is that Emma kept saying, "I eat duckie"....I'm sure she was thinking of one of her bathtub duckies. Fortunatly this "duckie" was not rubbery, like the bathtub duckies.
Happy New Year!
My job share partner and I were recent recipients of our school district's Distiguished Service Award. We were each nominated by our principal. We were presented our awards at the monthly school board meeting, along with about 15-20 other teachers and school personal. It was quite an honor to be acknowledged for the work we do with our students.
It is an even greater honor to be entrusted to help mold and shape these little minds. God has equiped me with some great gifts for teaching and learning. He continues to strengthen my character by hand choosing each little child that will be in my class for the year and allowing me to learn from him or her. I thank God every day for the opportunities he gives me!
We had a snow day/ no school today due to the extremely cold temperatures. So, today we invited Becky, Kyra, Braden and Kenson over for lunch and to play. We made homemade chili and ginger snap cookies, played a game of Scrabble and I even had time to vacuum my downstairs and mop the wood and tile floors.Emma stayed up a little later than the boys on Tuesday night so we read some books together. When I was done reading, she wanted to read to me. Pretty darn good for a 2 1/2 year old, I'd say. As my teacher friend said, "Emma has good book orientation, understands left to right, gets meaning from pictures, understands that words must make a story. Needs work on one to one and needs to begin making some text to self or text to text connections". We'll work on that....ha!
