"Crazy Love"

I just finished the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan.  I don't even quite know where to begin so I'll just tell you to read it youself, this book is like a loooonnngggg sermon full of conviction and so challenging to change what the majority of christians are doing in their day to day.  I bawled reading this, God has been working on me for a while, probably for the last year....He has been showing me things, things He wants me to change in my life, how He wants me to do more and love more.  I encourage anyone and everyone to read this, it will make an impact. 

"What will people say about your life in heaven?  Will people speak of God's work and glory through you?  And even more important, how will you answer the King when He says, "What did you do with what I gave you?" - Francis Chan, Crazy Love

More Movie Reviews

This movie, "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry", was a real surprise and joy.  A must see for everyone...it has all the good stuff in it that we, as human beings, need.  A somewhat cheesy at times flick but also with some comic relief.  This movie teaches forgiveness, what it means to love your enemies, and most of all it shares the gospel.  I was once again reminded how I am not doing enough for the kingdom's sake.  This is also based on a true story...you know, my fave!  Give it a try!

"To Save a Life", this is a true to life teenage movie.  We took our youth group to see this in the theater last winter.  There are partying scenes and more and it really depicted what kids see everyday.  This film really touched my oldest son, made him more aware of how much he needed to reach out to kids in his own high school so they wouldn't feel like outcasts, so they would have a friend, and ultimately so they could find Christ.  I would recommend that youth watch this but that someone, youth leader or parent, have a dialogue about it after viewing.  We talked about it on the bus on the way home.  I have seen youth bible studies packaged for this movie in Christian book stores.

Snot Fest 2010

I declare September "Snot Fest 2010"!!!  It started with Christian, he was hacking and coughing, sniffing and snotting.  Ewwwww, yuck, gross!  It traveled only briefly to Cameron, FAKER, oh, he coughed a little...anywho, I encountered the mucous monster last week.  James followed shortly after, for some reason it affected me by attacking my voice, it's scratchy and deep.  I feel better but I still don't sound like myself.  James spent the whole weekend calling me "Charles" and "Frank", it's been said I could sing like Johnny Cash.  I don't know about that but I am singing a special at church on October 3rd so I gotta recover by then!

Substitute Teaching is not for the weak...

I have been a substitute teacher for several years now for PreK to Seniors. There has never been a dull moment so allow me to share a few.
Kindergarten Komics - Subbing for Kindergarten is very exhausting, they are so high maintenance but they still have resttime, thank you Lord. I recently subbed for a very spirited group of kindergarten students, it was "Pajama Day" so they were more excitable than ever! One student in particular was only in my class for part of the day, he goes to a special class for his regular class time. At the end of the day is 'Show & Tell' time, Johnny (name has been changed to protect the innocent), said he had show & tell, so I said okay, meanwhile the other students were just shaking their heads whispering 'no he doesn't'. I let him go last because most of the time I don't know who is telling me the truth about who has what or what is supposed to be happening. Okay Johnny, your turn! He came proudly to the front of the room started digging in his backpack, he reached in to pulled a piece of paper out and said "I've got Homework!" The other kids just stared with blank expressions on their faces so Johnny said "Clap for me", they all began to clap and cheer which was really sweet. This is a good story but little did I know the day before was actually little Johnny's Show & Tell day and that he tried to show something much more interesting. You see, earlier the day before he had a quite messy #2 accident, he got cleaned up and his soiled clothes were put into a plastic bag in his backpack. Well, much to his surprise when it came time for Show & Tell, he had something in his backpack to show. He started taking that plastic sack out of his backpack and his teacher yelled "NOOOOOOooo!" Whew, glad I dodged that one! On a side note: there was a cute blonde headed little boy in this class and his name was Chris Farley! I about died, he was pretty ornery too.

First Grade Frustrations - This particular day had an array of various events. At the start of the day one little boy told me he had a nose bleed that morning and that it might happen again. Then another little girl kept asking me questions about her math and this big snot bubble kept bulging every few seconds, of course, I told her to get a tissue. Later at lunch all the girls were in an uproar saying another little girl stole Gabby's watch (yes these are still first graders). I walked the kids back to the room and kept the two girls involved in the hall to talk to them. I asked the victim her version of the story and then the alleged thief. She said she had the same watch. I told her I would call her mother and she said "Actually, it is a friend of mine that lives far away", I said "Give her back the watch and tell her you're sorry", she did. A little later another girl came to me holding out her cupped hands saying "I threw up", I told her to go to the nurse and for someone else to please get the door! She came back a few minutes later and said "The nurse is at lunch so I just washed my hands", I told her to go to the office, they sent her home and the janitor came and cleaned up, I definitely don't get paid enough for that. The nose bleeder did indeed have another nose bleed but it was minor. Then, right as the kids were getting on their coats and backpacks to go home, a little girl said she couldn't find her jacket. We were searching everywhere then somebody mentioned the thief from earlier in the day. Well of course I couldn't just call her out so I said "Just in case it accidentally got into someone else's backpack let's all opened them up and I will run down the line and check". I got to the little suspect and she was standing with her backpack still on and her back to the wall and she said "You don't have to look in mine, I'm telling you the truth, it's not in there". Well, wouldn't you know, there it was!

Art Class Accident - I was subbing for the Art teacher in a small school district, the high school and grade school is connected so the Kindergarteners had to walk a long way to get to the Art room, which is located in the high school, to get there. The class went pretty smoothly until the last 5 minutes, a student asked to use the restroom. Well, there were only 5 minutes left and it was a long way back to the grade school and his teacher would surely be there any minute so I asked him to wait. He didn't make a fuss so I paid it no mind until I saw his pants start to change colors...I yelled 'Go, hurry, run' who knows what else. Poor little kid, he was probably traumatized by this event and since then I always let the younger students use the restroom no matter how far away it is.

Excuse me, where?

Christian has been hacking his head off coughing...I was thinking it was allergies and treated it as such.  It was really getting annoying, he wasn't getting a good night's rest and was really becoming drained.  After about two weeks of this nonsense I decided to take him to the doctor, being I had no appointment we had to see the nurse practitioner, which was fine.  She decided to do a CBC to check for mono and any common viruses he might have, it was negative and showed that his blood count and all looked great.  She came to the conclusion that it was probably allergies and was going to send in the nurse with a shot of steroids and start him on a daily allergy pill (which I already had).  Now, here comes the good part...my kids have been pretty healthy for the past several years and haven't had to have many shots.  The last one they received was a tetanus shot, Christian the year before last and Cameron just last spring.  These shots were given in the arm....oh, you know where I'm going with this and you know where it went.  I wasn't even thinking about it.  The nurse came in and asked him "would you like to lay down or stand up?"  Christian paused a second and said "uh...stand up, I guess", then it dawned on me, he had no idea where that thing was going.  I said, "I think I need to leave the room", Christian gave me an in quizzical look and then I looked at the nurse and said, "I don't think he knows where that's going."  He looked at her and said, "where?" and she politely replied, "in the bottom".  He was all for me leaving the room then and so I did.  Shortly he came out with a limp and said "wow, I had no idea that was going to happen."  He also told me when she asked whether he wanted to lay down or stand up that he was thinking (why can't I just sit?) LOL, I was chuckling the entire time and I couldn't wait to come home and tell James.  (yes, I'm a terrible mother)  The best part was when Cameron came home after school the first thing out of Christian's mouth was "I got my blood drawn and a shot in the butt", Cameron just stood there and with a priceless expression said, "the...butt?"  It was really hysterical, James and I were rolling.  Then he went on to say "I'm glad I'm not sick!"