A revelation brought on by Sam and Dean

I woke tonight with these thoughts:

It is sobering and yet hopeful that the Creator of the universe is also my Friend.  

Sobering because I am reminded of our corporate and my individual sins that separate me from my Creator.  He is good and just.  The Bible says that my righteousness is but filthy rags before The Lord.  Every good thing, every sacrificial thing, every just thing that I have done is tarnished by my sin whether by commission or omission. Even when I try my best, I will still make mistakes.  I will be greedy.  I will fail to help someone. I will be dishonest at times.  I will hold on to things that should be let go of, physically and emotionally.  And even though I will sin, when the Lord looks at me He sees me clothed in white. My sins are gone.  He sees me through the covering of Jesus.  There in lies the hope.  I am not doomed to eternal shame that I can't live up.  Just like I love my children and forgive them when they mess up, He loves me anyway and forgives me.

The same awe-inspiring Elohim who created an expanding infinite universe, who tailored a sloths claws for it to hang upside down, who designed the spinal chord,  who made the incredibly complex interwoven system that is our world, also knows how many hairs are in my head.  He is so big!  And yet He cares about us all, individually.  He is The Almighty and yet He is my Friend and Comforter.  

I think I know what prompted these thoughts.   We have been watching the show Supernatural.  We started from the beginning and are about halfway through the series.  As the plot developed more into a story involving demons and angels, I began to have a real problem with the theology that was being implied.  But I kept reminding myself that this is fiction, not theology, and like any science fiction/fantasy story, it doesn't have to be anywhere near the realm of "true" to be a good story.  I do worry that people of little or no faith will identify with the misconceptions and warped views of God, Christians, and "righteousness" presented in many fictional works.  But that is for another night.  Back to this night.  In the latest episode of Supernatural we watched, The Lord finally showed up.  They didn't say His name, but that was the implication.  Jason says that I'm just setting myself up to be disappointed later when the show explains itself in some other way, but for tonight I rejoiced.  God can use even a fantasy tv series!  He can be glorified even by those who do not praise Him! He used unbelievers in the Bible to do His will and speak his words at times and  I think He still uses them today.  

So I am reminded not to dismiss a revelation, message, or rebuke just because it comes from someone I don't think shares my belief.  God is in control.  He's not micromanaging us, even though I believe he can when it suits him. But He is Lord I of All.  Not just over "churchy stuff."  Not just Christians.  He is Lord period.  Alpha and Omega.  And He cares for us as our Father.  A Good Father.  One who guides and comforts and forgives yes, but also rejoices, laughs and has fun with us.  

He is a "beautiful outlaw." Just when you think you know who He is and what He will do, He surprises us.  He continually busts out of whatever box we think we've got Him contained in.  And I am thankful for that.  Thank you Jesus that you are infinitely more creative and good than I could ever imagine You to be!

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da

Life goes on, even in the freakishly cold weather.  I thought we left single digits back in Illinois!  At least there's been snow to play in.  The girls have gotten a little stir crazy.  Lyla REALLY wanted to dance.  The first picture is how most un-posed pictures of her are - blurry.  She isn't still often.  The second one is the "stop a minute so I can take a picture" picture.

We're doing the Revolutionary War in our History club so we made our own tricorn hats.  True Patriots!

     The girls also had to give their presentations on vaccines that they researched.  Lyla didn't have any pictures for hers because every time we looked for some she got grossed out.  Tetnus is horrible!

     While we were over at our friend's house for History Club, her son's cocoon of preying mantis babies hatched.  It was so cool!  And bonus - their birthday party was a few days later and guess what we all got as party favors?  Yep.  Our own preying mantises.  I never imagined I would actually pay for fruit flies, but that's what they eat at this point, so I did.  We started off with four and now we're down to two, but these two are doing good.  We're just waiting for them to molt and then we have to separate them - no canibilizing in our house!

     Gwyn's been on a cooking spree lately.  She got these cute cookbooks from the library and she's been making things almost everyday.  She insisted that we take pictures of each creation "to put on your blog."  So I did!

     She'll hate it one day, but I just love this picture.  For some reason she wore this hat for about 4 days in a row.

     Gwyn and Celee's Girl Scout troops had a STEM Day.  They spent the entire day learning about electricity and circuits.  It was awesome!  They made lights light up, spinners spin, and even learned to solder.  They made a lantern with a flip switch.  To end it all they created an "operation" game to take home.

By Monday, I had to get outdoors.  It warmed up.... a little... so I convinced everyone to go on a hike at Bear Branch Nature Center.   As you can see by the iced over pond, it was still cold, but we had fun.  Everyone was glad we went at the end.

     It snowed again on Tuesday, so Celee and Lyla made snow ice cream.  (Gwyn's doing her own thing in the background)  They had never had snow ice cream before so it was fun to convince them that yes, we can eat it.  (Probably because I'm usually getting on to Lyla because she eats questionable snow)

     We got to try out the snowboard again.  Celee was getting pretty good.  But it's a whole lot easier to just "surf" on the sleds.

    All the "neighborhood" kids were out of school so the girls got to sled with them all day on Tuesday.  It's nice that even though we don't live in a side-walked neighborhood, there are still kids around to play with.

     We have been blessed with some really nice neighbors!  The kind that plowed our driveway before we got home from our Christmas trip.  The kind that phone to see if we all want to come just hang out or watch a movie.  The kind that stop in the driveway to chat or see if we need anything.  I'm liking this little Village of Patapsco.  

Climbing the walls

     We got back to school this week.  It went well actually!  Everyone had a pretty good attitude and we got everything done.  I'm feeling much more at peace with everything.  That probably helps with the schoolin'!
     Our field trip group went to Earth Trek climbing center this week.  The girls had sooooo much fun!  They all were hesitant and first and chose "easy" climbs.  But by the end Gwyn and Celee at least were trying to make it harder by following the colored tape paths and doing the "hard" climbs that took them up over a ledge.  Then they both did a climb blind-folded!  By the end their hands and whole bodies were tired.  And of course, they want to go again.  I do too!  I didn't expect it, but I even got to climb!

     We don't go out to eat much, but we received a very nice gift certificate to Cheesecake Factory so we went out.  I don't know why I like these two pictures so much, but I do.  I will explain that often when confined to a booth or table in a restaurant, Lyla can get a little intense.  So rarely does anyone sit next to her for the duration of the meal.  We take our turns!

    The girls also got back into the swing of things with Girl Scouts this week.  All three girls' troops met on the same day.  Lyla got to present her family tree to her troop.  I know that we've talked about maiden names before, but she didn't realize that all the women on our tree had other last names before they were married.  So that was cool for her to see all the different names.  My name changes are a little boggling to her, but at least on the tree we only had to put my maiden name.
     Celee's troop got to learn some things about China and play traditional Chinese games.  Gwyn's troop had a lot of planning and decisions to make.  Oh the responsibilities of a second-year Junior!  They have some events coming up that they have to run so the pressure is on!  
     All the girls got to hear a talk from a life-time Girl Scout who spoke about Title 9.  She had lived through the laws changing to mandate girls' sports opportunities and facilities and the retro-fitting of her college gym.  It was interesting to consider how much our girls take for granted that they have opportunity to do.  And that girls are still under-represented in sports participation, jobs, and scholarships.

     The weather has warmed up.  No coats today!  So we've been back outside.  The girls have been having a good time alternating between games of "Explorer Camp" and "Forest Fairies."  Everything is an adventure!

Polar Vortex Weather

     We made it back home in time for the super cold weather.  It's been sooo cold!  We woke up this morning to a windy 3 degrees.  I thought we left this kind of weather in Illinois! 

    Weather or not, we started back to schoolin'.  I taught the girls how to play math bump games.  Lyla even did a multiplication one - it was only x2, but that's still pretty cool I think.  We're doing a 25 day drawing journal this month too. I am really looking forward to seeing what the girls come up with it!

     Everyone online was going on about freezing bubbles, so we gave it a try this morning.  It was too windy though. The wind just blew them away and they popped in the air. We did get to see a few though.  One froze on the deck and then we touched it leaving the shell of the rest of the bubble there.  My other problem was that the bubble liquid was freezing in the container so it was too hardened to blow out of the wand after we had been outside for a while.

     So we gave up on blowing bubbles and went down to see if the river was frozen instead. The main channel wasn't frozen over, it just had thick ice in the edges and the rocks.  But the offshoot that flows around the island was frozen!  So of course we ice-skated!  The ice was so pretty!  There were crystals on some of the debris on top. We also found some minnows and a little trout-looking fish under the ice.  They were trapped in the middle and Celee and Lyla had fun chasing them.  They were also pretty neat to watch when they were sitting still!

     If it hasn't been so cold it would have been fun for a long time.  But if it hadn't been so cold we couldn't have done this anyway.  So we played on the river until the cold penetrated our snow suits and our noses had frozen and our toes were numb.  I am so thankful on days like these that we can do spontaneous things like ice skating on the river in the middle of the morning.  This is one if the days that remind me why we homeschool.  It doesn't hurt that miraculously everyone has been doing their school work the past two days with no or little fussing.  Small victories!!  And a big reward!!