Jane at Cozy Reader had  this yesterday, and I loved it.  Click on over and check out all the other great stuff at Cozy Reader.

The Bible in 50 Words!

God made
Adam bit
Noah arked
Abraham split
Joseph ruled
Jacob fooled
Bush talked
Moses balked
Pharaoh plagued
People walked
Sea divided
Tablets guided
Promise landed
Saul freaked
David peeked
Prophets warned
Jesus born
God walked
Love talked
Anger crucified
Hope died
Love rose
Spirit flamed
Word spread
God remained.

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I really enjoy our church’s project of packing boxes to ship to our soldiers serving overseas.  Today was our fourth time to gather together to pack boxes.  Today we put together a record of FORTY-EIGHT boxes!  That means that forty-eight soldiers serving in Iraq will receive a package from us within a few weeks.   Each box included a letter, a CD, a box of Girl Scout cookies, a bag of candy, beef jerky, notepad and pens, magazine(s), various toiletries, packages of crackers and granola bars, individual packs of pudding, hot chocolate mix and other goodies. 

I was particularly blessed by how everyone stepped in wherever they were needed – whether it was manning the tape dispenser to put boxes together, packing the boxes, addressing labels, bagging candy or q-tips, gathering up all the trash, writing letters, sealing boxes, matching up box labels with customs forms – and so many other things.  Whatever needed to be done – someone stepped up to do it.  I loved watching the children who so enthusiastically participated.  They were so proud of the boxes they packed – along with the letters they wrote.  Sweet Stuff came to church with us again today so she could help with the boxes.  She has taken a personal interest in doing this project with us.

We will plan to do this again in May.  In the meantime, we will start collecting items again for that next shipment.  We already have enough boxes and customs forms for the next shipment.  So everyone will be looking for sales on items that our soldiers will appreciate. 

I’m getting this down to a science now – knowing the items that ship best, organizing everything so that the packing will go smoothly, and making sure that we have all the supplies we need.  However, obviously I don’t have it down exactly because I thought we’d probably pack around 30 – 35 boxes today – but we wound up with 48 very full boxes by the end of the session.

Oh yes, I also got up early this morning and made a pot of chicken and dumplings, along with a pot of chili – and took them to church with me.  Everyone who helped with the packages had their lunch provided – and there was not a drop of either soups left over.  And that made me feel good, too.

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This is a hymn that I heard for the first time just a couple years ago, but now it is among my favorites;

Freely, Freely
Words and Music by Carol Owens

God forgave my sin in Jesus’ name,
I’ve been born again in Jesus’ name,
And in Jesus’ name I come to you,
To share his love as he told me to.
He said, “Freely, freely you have received,
Freely, freely give.
Go in my name, and because you believe,
Others will know that I live.”

All power is given in Jesus’ name,
In earth and heaven in Jesus’ name
And in Jesus’ name I come to you
To share his power as he told me to.
He said, “Freely, freely you have received,
Freely, freely give.
Go in my name, and because you believe,
Others will know that I live.”

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Ash Wednesday is one of those days we observe as part of the Christian year, and yet its meaning and significance is not always understood.  Ruth at Ruthlace has written a short but exceptionally clear description of the day and why it is so important to our faith.

When our daughter, Deborah was critically ill at age 2 months, her Daddy and I sat in the waiting room of the hospital where other people with sick children were waiting.

If you have spent many days in a hospital waiting room, you realize how you begin to interact with people. You listen to their story and tell yours. You become concerned about their loved one and appreciate their concern for yours. Each individual patient is precious to someone.

Charles and I were so distraught that someone asked, “Is she your only child?” I replied, “She is our fifth child, but she is our only Debi.”

Jesus came to earth to tell us the amazing news that each individual one of us is precious to God. We each have our own fingerprint, our own voice ascent, our own DNA. God so loved each one of us that he sent Jesus that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

The Pharisees thought God rejoiced in the death of “sinners.” In Luke 15 , Jesus tell us there is joy in heaven when each one of us repents of our wandering and believes this greatest Good News the world has ever heard!

Ash Wednesday begins Lent and the believer’s journey to Holy Week and Easter. It is a journey of individual repentance and prayer. In the Service of Ashes, we kneel at the altar and the pastor marks the sign of the cross in ashes on our forehead.

The ashes are to remind us that our physical body is dying. The sign of the cross is to remind us that we are more than our physical body. What we call” death” does not have the last word over what God calls “life.” It is Ash Wednesday but Easter is coming!

Prayer: Father, during this Lenten season help each one of us to kneel at the cross in humility and to arise in the strength of knowing who we are in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

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The season 7 premier of AMERICAN IDOL starts at 7:00 p.m. Central time tonight! Yeah! Join some of The Cotillion ladies to chat about the crazy characters, Simon’s antics. Will Paula do anything crazy (well, of course she will!). How many times will Randy say “dog?” Come on in and join the party.

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I was at the bookstore the other day looking for a couple books that I thought RT would like for Christmas. One of the books I selected was 90 Minutes in Heaven. Since RT was already reading another book, I started reading it Christmas evening, took it with me to Georgia yesterday – and finished it this morning. Fascinating book.

In the true story, the man, Don Piper, was involved in a horrific wreck – and was declared dead at the scene. He was checked immediately and declared dead – then checked again later – still dead.  So they covered him and his car (he was trapped inside and would require the jaws of life to be extracted) with a tarp and concentrated on the accident victims who were alive – along with getting the wreckage cleared away in order for traffic to resume.  They figured the dead man could wait awhile.   But then a minister happened upon the accident scene and felt compelled to pray for the man in the badly mangled car.  The medics and police told him repeatedly that the man was dead, but he still felt strongly that he was supposed to pray for the man.  He climbed into the car and prayed for Don – and eventually started singing a hymn to him – and suddenly the dead man, Don,  started singing along with him.  He was alive – after having been twice declared dead. 

In the first of the book, Don describes the ninety minutes he spent from when the accident happened and he was declared dead to when he suddenly became alive again and started singing with the minister.  His injuries were horrible and he should have died – and his subsequent recuperation was long and horrible – and he will never walk normally again – and many years later he still lives in constant pain from his injuries.  However, for those ninety minutes, he was in heaven, and he describes his experience in detail.  The thing that impressed me most was his description of the music in heaven – how beautiful it was – how it was many different songs that were distinct but also blended in together and was more magnificent that anything he had ever heard before or since.

It brought back memories of the story my  mother told me about when her father died.  My mother was just a young girl of nine years when her father died, and her mother was inconsolable at the loss of the man she adored.  She cried and was unable to sleep for days.  She told my mother that finally one night he appeared to her and told her that everything was going to be all right – that she needed to go to sleep and rest – and then he sang her a song – the most beautiful song she had ever heard.  And she was comforted and she fell asleep for the first time since his death.  When she woke up, although she was comforted, she couldn’t remember the song – only that it was the most indescribably beautiful song she had ever heard.Indescribably beautiful music.  Is that what fills heaven?  Fascinating line of thought…

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Previously I wrote about Sunshine and her concerns about God and death.  Apparently the entire problem was solved today – and we have Sweet Stuff to thank.  My daughter called a few minutes ago to relate the following conversation between Sunshine (4-years old) and Sweet Stuff (6-years old):

Sunshine: (In an uncertain, questioning voice) When I die, I’m going to heaven.

Sweet Stuff:  Sunshine, this is how you get to heaven.  There’s nothing to be scared of.  First you’re a baby, then you’re a big baby.  Then you’re a big, big baby.  Then you’re a big, big big baby.  Then you’re a little kid.  Then you’re a big kid.  Then you’re a big, big kid.  Then you’re a big, big, big kid.  Then you’re a grown-up.  then you’re a big grown-up.  Then you’re a big, big grown-up.  Then you’re a big, big, big grown-up.  Then you’re a mommy.  then you’re a big mommy.  Then you’re a big, big mommy.  Then you’re a grandma.  Then you’re a big grandma.  Then you’re a big, big grandma.  Then you’re a grandma grandma.  Then you’re a big grandma grandma, and THEN you go to heaven.

Sunshine:  Oh.  (big smile and satisfied look on her face)  Okay!

Questions answered and problem solved.  Heaven is just the step after being a big grandma grandma.

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Four-year-old Sunshine has been thinking aobut life and death issues lately – literally.  My daughter has been concerned about helping Sunshine understand about heaven and God.   Here’s what she wrote to our family:

Sunshine has been a little obsessed with death recently and very concerned as to when everyone is going to die.   Yesterday I was talking to my dad on the phone and when I hung up she said, “Who was that?”  I told her, “Paw-Paw”.   She said,  “I miss Paw-Paw.  I don’t want him to die.”   I said, “Baby he isn’t going to die.”  She explained, “Yes he will die next since he is the biggest of us and then Grandma Carol since she is the next biggest.”   I thought it was tender how concerned she was and how matter of fact she was that everyone died in order.

Anyway, a couple of days ago she was also discussing death and how she didn’t want anyone to die and I explained that if someone died they would go to heaven and be with God.  They would still be with us but not physically and that they would watch over us.   Anyway, she then says, “God is a monster then. I don’t like him.”

Shocked I said, “Why?”  She said, “Cause he kills people and takes them away to heaven.”   Anyway, I was lost for words and obviously my explanation of heaven and death was not good enough.   I did slightly convice her it wasn’t God’s fault people died, but anyway I felt completely inadequate to explain it all to her.”

So what do you think?  How do you explain such things to a four-year old?

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(Saturday night) UPDATED at end of post:

I’m giving the children’s sermon in church tomorrow.  Here’s what I’ll say and do:

Theme: God’s Word feeds our hearts.

Materials: a box of Alpha-Bits cereal, some paper plates.

To give the children at the end of the lesson: snack bags with Alpha-Bits, small booklets of Bible verses

Good morning, boys and girls.  What’s this? (hold up box of cereal).  Yes, it’s Alpha-Bits cereal.   I always enjoy eating Alpha-Bits because I can spell words with it.  Let’s see what I can spell with these.  (pour some onto one of the plates and spell a simple word with whatever letters are there.  Show the children the word – them eat the word).   Yum!  I can spell the word, and then I can eat the word.

Here, you try it.  (Give each child a paper plate with some Alpha-Bits on it.  Call on the children to tell you the words they make.)

Can we eat the words you make from the Alpha-Bits ?  Yes, we can, and when we eat good food - it nourishes our bodies and makes us stronger and happier.  (To avoid spills, take up the plates and Alpha-Bits.  Tell the children that at the end of the lesson they’ll get a bag of Alpha-Bits to snack on later.)

Alpha-Bits aren’t the only way to eat words.  God gives us good words, too.  The Bible is God’s word for us. 

There was a prophet – a wise man – in the Bible named Jeremiah.  He wrote: “When God’s words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight.” (Jeremiah 15:16a, NIV)

Now do you think Jeremiah really ATE the words of God?  No, he didn’t.  He meant that he read them and they were like food to his heart.  They made him stronger and happier.

That’s what God wants us to do.  He wants us to read His Word – the Bible – and let his Words feed us so that we will know more about God and love him more and be stronger and happier because of the nourishment (good things) we get from His Word.

Here is a booklet of Bible verses for you to feed your hearts.  Will each of you promise to read one verse from this booklet each day?  Make sure you feed your heart with God’s word each day.

Let’s pray:  Our Heavenly Father, thank  you for giving us your word – the Bible – to feed our hearts and make us stronger and happier.  Amen

Hand out the bags of Alpha-Bits for each child.

UPDATE (Saturday evening):  Has Post stopped making Alpha-Bits?  I searched FIVE different grocery stores today, and none of them had Alpha-Bits.  I had a clerk at one Kroger look it up in the inventory, and he said that it had been six months since any had shown up on their inventory.  He didn’t know if it was no longer being produced or if Kroger had just stopped carrying it.

Now my lesson will have to be modified.  Not having Alpha-Bits nixes the use of that particular text – the whole idea of “eating words” doesn’t work without some literal words that can be eaten – and I’m not getting into alphabet soup.

So I bought some red seedless grapes.  The lesson will be about how food feeds out bodies – how we have to have food each day in order to grow and be healthy.  Then I’ll lead into how reading the Bible feeds our hearts.  We have to read the Bible each day in order for our hearts to grow strong and healthy.

I will change the scripture to Deuteronomy 8:3B “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”   We need food for our physical bodies (bread – grapes), but our hearts/souls need food, too – and food for our heart is found in the Bible.                                           

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The Warren Jeffs’ story that has been in the news off and on lately gets stranger.  Apparently young girls weren’t the only ones who were treated as objects to be used, abused and disposed of by the sicko leaders.  Now we have 18-year old Johnny Jessop suing Jeffs for information about Jessop’s mother.  There are a lot of sick adults in the world, and they seem driven to draw children into their worlds of darkness. 

SALT LAKE CITY (Feb. 21) – Saying he was kicked out of his home and his fundamentalist church, an 18-year-old man sued Tuesday to force polygamist leader Warren Jeffs to help him reconnect with his family.

Attorneys for Johnny Jessop, 18, asked a state judge to order Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to tell Jessop how to find his 62-year-old mother, Elsie. Jessop has not spoken to his mother in more than 18 months, attorney Roger Hoole said.

Jessop is among what may be dozens of so-called “Lost Boys” who say they were kicked out of the FLDS church in the past four years by Jeffs for being disobedient or because they were seen as competition to older men seeking young brides.

The FLDS practices polygamy and arranged marriages. The faith has an estimated 10,000 members, mostly in the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. Jessop grew up in Hildale, Hoole said.

FLDS members consider themselves “fundamentalist Mormons,” although the mainstream church disavows any connection. They also consider Jeffs a prophet of God with dominion over their salvation.

Jeffs, 51, is in jail on two felony counts of rape as an accomplice for his suspected role in a 2001 marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her older cousin. On the run for nearly two years, Jeffs was arrested last year in a traffic stop in Nevada.

He has led the church since 2004, and dissidents describe him as a heartless ruler who has fractured dozens of families, sending fathers and husbands away and reassigning their wives and children to other men.

Now living in Salt Lake, Jessop was forced out of his family five years ago, Hoole said. Essentially homeless, the youth ran into some minor legal trouble and was ordered several times by courts to return home.

Under threat of church punishment, though, his family turned him away, and Jessop ended up in Salt Lake City as a ward of a nonprofit organization that helps boys who say they were pushed out of the church, Hoole said.

For several years, Jessop maintained telephone contact with his mother, but that ended nearly two years ago, Hoole said.

Jessop believes that Jeffs ordered his mother to cut ties with him and that the leader knows where Jessop can find his mother, Hoole said. The young man says that he has written two letter to Jeffs, begging him to allow the family to reconnect, but that Jeffs has not responded.

Jeffs’ attorney Wally Bugden also has not responded to requests for help, Hoole said.

A message left by The Associated Press after business hours at Bugden’s office was not immediately returned Tuesday.

“The child/parent relationship is a protected relationship under the law,” said Hoole. “We need a court order that will force Warren Jeffs to tell Johnny where Elsie is. Then the lawsuit can go away.”

It was unclear whether Jessop might have sought help from other authorities in finding his mother.

Jessop is not seeking damages, Hoole said. No court date has been set.

Jessop tells us that he was “kicked out” of the Jeffs’ group 5 years ago.  That means he was only 13 years old at the time.  A child.  Whether he was kicked out for misbehavior or because Jeffs saw boys his age as “threats” to his acquisition of the young girls as wives for older men, it is simply WRONG.

However, Jessop’s mother is also WRONG.  What mother would kick out her own son because some whack-job like Jeffs told her to?  Just looking at a photo of the man is enough to give me the heebie-jeebies.  And where is Jessop’s father?

It seems that anybody can come up with any kind of perversion, call it a religion, and there are people who will join in.  There are way too many sheep in this world – blindly following whoever has their attention at the moment.

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