A beautiful day

I liked the devotion today. It was about the Guinness World Record held by the largest chocolate bar ever made. It was 5000 pounds and measured 124 inches long, 59 inches wide, and 17.7 inches thick. Then it transitioned by saying, “If we’re looking for the world’s best gift giver that we should not bother looking at the Guinness World records. We know where to look - God. He gave us: life, food, rain, and fruitful seasons, wisdom, and peace. He also gave us grace, love, forgiveness, compassion, kindness, rest strength, and power. But the best gift ever was His son Jesus: and that beats a candy bar any day (no matter how big it is.) So go ahead and nibble on the corner of a chocolate bar and remember what God gives us.

I did the Purpose Driven Life today while JD read his book “Hero’s Don’t Run." He’s almost done reading it. He’s really getting into it. Too bad that’s the last book of the series. I read the Purpose Driven Life today and it was titled “Becoming a World Class Christian.” It started out with “You will either be a world-class Christian or a worldly Christian.” (Rick finds a way to strike with the low blows huh?) I can’t wait until the day when the “Great Commission” will be the “Great Completion.” TIME TO GO HOME! Then Rick tells us how to think like a world-class Christian. Shift from self-centered thinking to other centered thing. I love how the book reminded me to have moment-by-moment dependence on God. This day’s reading got to me. I have been talking with family and friends about God and salvation but they keep shutting me down. In today’s reading it told me to ask God “to help understand what is keeping this person from knowing you.” Then as I was gardening today I thought, “Well it took me about 15 years to accept Christ so why am I expecting this to happen on my time clock?” The next step to becoming a world-class Christian is to shift from local thinking to global thinking. I would love to go on an overseas mission trip but it’s never been the right time. Maybe I really ought to be praying about this. The book says to pray about specific countries. Then it said people may refuse our love or reject our message, but they are defenseless against our prayers. The next step it to shift from the “here and now” thinking to eternal thinking. The last step is shift from thinking of excuses to thinking of creative ways to fulfill your commission.

The geometry lesson was all about triangles. There are four different types and they are: right, equilateral, isosceles, and scalene. All we had to do today was identify them amongst other triangles. Again, JD was all over this. I’m so proud of him.

JD completed Level 4, stage 12 in the Dance Mat typing site. Today he learned how to find the shift key. He did this independently while I caught up on some laundry.

We used the edit/rewrite time for a language arts lesson since somehow I managed not to have him write anything this week accept how to tie a shoe and that was types anyway. JD was getting mad at one of the passages. They were both fact and opinion readings. At the end of the reading passage they ask questions about facts and opinions. The story JD got mad at was taking dodge ball out of school. JD says that was a fun game and 20,000 other kids think so too. The other story was about a guy getting shocked by lightening seven times. (Ouch!)

Today’s health lesson was about “What causes disease?” JD learned it comes from many different sources to include but not limited to: bacteria from uncooked food, malnutrition from hunger, unwashed hands, not getting immunized. It also taught him the safe ways to cook and clean, that water may be contaminated, and to brush and floss teeth twice daily. Most of this he already knew but I made sure we covered all the bases.

I know JD's Grammy was worried about the spelling test. It was a nail biter but he scored a 100%. He had 14 homophones that were words like pole and poll. I counseled him about the amount of time he DIDN’T spend studying and that I had to make sure he studied them four times today just to feel confident enough to take the quiz. But he pulled another one off.

Jeff came home from his last day of work in Raleigh and asked if I had seen the comment on the blog. I said, “No.” He said, “You have ten followers today.” Yeah 10 followers! Jeff starts a new job in Fayetteville on Monday. We’re excited about the move, lack of jammed traffic, and of course the commute.

I have submitted my writing samples to Lifeway. It’s all in God’s hands now. I received this email about 1 hour after submission. “Thank you for submitting additional sample writing materials for Children's (School Age) Curriculum Materials. A Childhood Ministry Publishing editor will review your samples. At a later date, we will inform you of the status of your application.” (Ok, now I must wait… Are we there yet? Are we there yet? I’m not good at waiting.)

I have always liked warm days when I can get outside and garden a bit. Today was a beautiful day and I went gardening while JD was on a break. Sometimes we take long breaks. Today was one of those days. I tried to uncover my iris’ from all the weeds and extra sand that had piled up on them over the fall and winter. The ants played a huge role in that. I hate those little buggers. Anyway, I stayed God focused most of the day but I felt closest to him while gardening. They only distraction I had was Tater looking at me asking if she could come out and play with her boy. She mentioned there might be lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my. And she needed to be out there to protect her boy. Her real motive… (she’s half beagle) to runoff into the neighborhood. Well, until Monday…