snow

YES! JESUS IS ALIVE! VBS Day 2 – When you feel alone, TRUST JESUS

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It was probably the most important conversation of the night, as it will be all week. As the littlest cutie in my Imagination Station science and craft session blurted out in wondered questioning: “Jesus is Alive??? He died and is alive?” – “YES” I was able to affirm, avow, acknowledge and AMEN to… And my Holy Spirit jumped as excited as his.

And then he asked: “How?” I simply said “Jesus is God” and the littlest ones repeated amazed “Jesus is God?!!!!” YES !!!!

Amazing opportunity to affirm what we know, Jesus is always with us, Jesus is alive, and “When we feel alone, we can TRUST JESUS!!!”A blessing to know and teach.

The truth is that Jesus knows the praises that come from our lips as much as the concerns. And our Bible lesson was on how to live and know we are not alone like the one sheep left away from the 99.The fluffy sheep wool, and fluffy pretend snow was fun in our circle time.

More fun? REAL SNOW!! I brought out some of the ten bags I saved 6 months ago in my freezer. The amazement unreal! The joy real. Cool cold!!! We made fluffy photo frames too. “Jesus loves me, this I SNOW! (Know)…

Interestingly, my cat who passed away was named SNOWY… Interesting…

Earlier that day, and throughout the evening I explained, when asked by friends in the know, about the circumstances that led up to my cat Snowy’s rapid decline. The group knew she had passed but not the kids. I was surely able to praise the Lord for the Lord’s timing the night before, I had finished vbs and could rush home. We prepared the cat and ourselves for the next night, when we took care of burying the cat, and I said to my family, from dust she came and to dust she will return, but we always carry her with us in our memories and love.

With my cats passing, it’s strange to not have to look out for her each time you open the door. She was an escape artist. I’m slowly finding her items and tossing or saving. Will donate much after it’s washed. No, we are not getting another pet so soon. No need to do anything but take it day by day.

At work, I only told one person and in that conversation, I was super careful in choosing my words as they are someone who lost a child a number of years ago. I remember that timing too. The Lord is to be praised even we don’t understand. And surely one day we will see the Lord face to face for knowledge and comfort. We all best take day by day to process and pray and praise. Loss comes when it does, whether we are prepared or not.

At VBS, we could talk briefly about loss, aloneness, and avow that Jesus is already with us. I often look at this craft I have from last Easter: “there is no gloom in the tomb – Jesus is risen today”…

Yes, Jesus is alive and walks with us. Jesus comes for us. Psalm 139 reminds us we can never flee from His Presence.

Thank God. Jesus is alive indeed!

Thank God.

Amen

VBS is a Holy Spirit blessing from the Lord

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I can tell that my mindset is SWITCHING GEARS – to VBS mode!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love getting to this point of the year, the VBS planning meetings. I am SO excited – I was thrilled when I heard about VBS coming back to my old church, the first time since covid era. Trust me I already read the materials well beforehand. I’m SO EXCITED!!! These are great Jesus stories of love, care, hope… Especially that Jesus calls our unique selves to Himself.

And last month I almost started ordering supplies before I even got signed up into my choice of station leader position: Imagination Station, combining science experiments and crafts. But I held myself back, because I am not in charge of this VBS, one of the “seasoned” helpers. Yes I led VBS for 7 years but this time is in a different season with all of us seasoned folks in a new mix with new folks and we need to LET the Lord put it all together HIS WAY. 

Not phoning it in but being “called” to help… Vacation Bible School is the LAST place for any of us to have a “been there done that” attitude. WHY? Because this is a new situation for each person at a new season in their life and especially new for the children young and old who will learn the lessons new and anew.

Remember each day is new, let alone each year, so YEAH each VBS is NEW. There are no broken records of Scripture, each time we hear even a well-versed Scripture, it’s NEW to our situation at that moment. More important it is NEW to the student and the intended ears to hear. 

My lessons learned in VBS year after year, and especially last night? The Holy Spirit moves unhindered and fast and fresh. 

As I scoped out the room of chairs, 10 minutes late, I sat in the back to be quiet and listen. I noticed for myself that the troubles of the day faded away… I was amazed and thrilled (quietly sitting there to start) because these were the veteran seasoned vbs-ers who showed up. I was moved humbly to see that we were with two FRESH FACES of grown up VBS-ERS from my era of teaching. I remember them both at preschool and elementary age. They were quite grown up now. I found a photo for one, almost 10 years old now, in an old email to her grandfather, for the now teen sitting immediately in front of me, one whom I encouraged last night in this new era of VBS, explaining the stations names and the bible stories this year.

We help with an unchanging God to keep us growing. These new VBS helpers (40 yrs my junior) are our future in sharing the Lord well after we are long gone… And oh I am excited to see more teens now near adults coming to help this year too! (and maybe I can get my kids to help again too this year in some capacity, yay!)

Yeah! I know we are to step IN to VBS and to step OUT of being in the way of His Way. We need to let the Lord have HIS say with our lives and our time. And when it comes to faith, we should not have to rely on “our way” or having “my say”. Everywhere, and especially in VBS, we are to be supportive being used in the Lord’s Way.  Hooray! It should be this way = HIS WAY!!!

Amen and I hope you get to help in a VBS this year in some Holy Spirit Way!!! BLESSED YAY!!!

Snow, Season Shifts, and Such, Savor and Savior it

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Ah, snow… 

It’s a known – “watch the weather” – so I did – and it was more beautiful than scary. I do love snow, so while I really was on a mission to strategically get through it, I did stop occasionally to admire it. (And I packed winter gear for sure – boots and winter coat were donned!!!)

The journey started at 40 then 37 degrees then 33 for a while, 32 just a moment, then down the mountains 33, 37, 40…. rain-snow-rain. So I had fall – winter – fall seasons, and because it was almost 70 last week, forsythia flowers were blooming up at mom’s – spring sprung twice as a surprise each of these recently warm years… I thought how great the northeast has stockpiles of salt deposits – how fittingly convenient… salt melts snow….

The hills surrounding got 4 to 12 inches of snow, but the valley got rain, lots that the minor gorge creek at the bottom of the road was pouring down in volume. 

The trip through mountain elevation caused me to see up to 8 inches of big fluffy snow at one point, but I didn’t stop for that photo, because the roads were really good, salted, and there was a gap of precipitation, and the height of day is when my Dad always preferred me to get through the mountains. I was subaru-safe and slowed down. It is nice to be up home this weekend, pre Thanksgiving moments with my mom, brother, and today planning work at my aunt’s farmhouse (only 4 inches snow there)… it’s normal to keep going in snow…

The snow sandwiched in the middle of my seasons did get me thinking of Christmas, it seemed not out of place then in the moment, otherwise I am so NOT ready to switch my palette of life of browns and yellows, faded red oranges to WAY TOO BRIGHT red and green,  not until after Thanksgiving. So right now preferred browns and yellows in my sights added in white. Christmas is coming, but savor THIS season first, whatever the temperature.

However slow or fast this Christmas season comes, it’s not a delay of understanding the REAL SEASON SENSATION – that is of course the story of Jesus coming – advent starts soon. Well 9 months before Jesus’s birth we are also clued into a preparation story, mary with Jesus is prepared by Elizabeth and cousin John the Baptist, and dad Zachariah having to wait to get his voice back. Ah, many a waiting story…. In Zachariah’s account in Luke, is like spring inside fall (forsythia not overrun with snow) reading about Jesus Savior as hope, in the song of Zachariah, Luke 1:67-75, we see a people who saw the glimpse of the new within the old season. We savor THIS Savior season.

So yes, we can glimpse this season shift in Luke’s gospel account, the crucial connection between old and new testaments but one long journey for Jesus and David’s line…

It’s like snow in my fall, spring in my step, and the real WARM UP to the season!

Zechariah’s Song

His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us – to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

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THEN SPEAKING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST v76-80

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

AMEN AMEN