Today I nearly scarred my kid for life. Ethan has been home, sick for the last 2 days. This morning I packed him a lunch and dropped him off at school, like it was a normal day. Around 11pm I got a call from his teacher, who assured me that Ethan was feeling fine. She just wanted to give me a friendly reminder that that today was the day of the costume parade (aka: holloween party). I have no idea how I missed this. I’m so grateful for her call. I’m sure she was going down the list of all the dead beat parents who forgot.
Jill and I have made decision that we are going to let our kids participate in things like Halloween and visiting Santa for a number of reasons. The biggest one is that we want our kids to associate following Christ with a list of do’s instead of a list of don’ts. Plus we went trick or treating last year and it was a blast.
All I could picture was Ethan as the only kid in plain clothes while everyone was dressed up in their Halloween costume. Would Ethan take it hard? Well, let’s put it this way… Earlier this month Ethan brought fig newtons to his class for snacks. He took it personally when not everyone lived them. Some kids even said they looked like wallets! (hilarious!) He was devestated. So, I could only imagine how hard he might take this.
Jill and I rushed out to find him a costume. Like manna from heaven, there was one mr. Incredible costume left, and it was Ethans size. Ethan plays mr. Incredible all of the time and I am forced to play syndrome. (I think b/c of my body type) We got to school in time to help him put on his costume and sit throught story time in the library Then Ethan got to parade his costume around to the rest of the school. Crisis was averted, but it was very hectic. I’m still trying to figure out this stay at home dad thing and there are times when I fail miserably.
This week we are continuing the story of everything at Restore. We are talking about the story of Jesus. I’m really looking forward to teaching this one. I’ve often heard that everyone has a life message that they always communicate, that is the thrust all that they say and do. For me it always comes back to helping people see the real Jesus. Which is where you come in. Comment or email me your story of how you discovered the real Jesus and what has happened as a result of that. You can email me at nateATrestorecc.org
I’m really loving the series that we are in at Restore right now. One of the cool aspects of this Story of Everything is that as a church community,we are all doing a reading plan that takes us all through the bible over the next six weeks. The scripture selection is incredible, taken from some of my favorites stories in the bible. You can read other staff blogs that track daily with their favorite passages like here and here. What I’m going to do is a once a week post about the passages that didn’t make it in the reading plan. Let me explain. On day one, one of the readings was Exodus 13:17-14:31. The reading before that was Exodus 1-3, so I just flipped over to chapter 13 and here is an excerpt from what I found:
18 “When someone has a boil on his skin and it heals, 19 and in the place where the boil was, a white swelling or reddish-white spot appears, he must present himself to the priest. 20 The priest is to examine it, and if it appears to be more than skin deep and the hair in it has turned white, the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is an infectious skin disease that has broken out where the boil was. 21 But if, when the priest examines it, there is no white hair in it and it is not more than skin deep and has faded, then the priest is to put him in isolation for seven days.
Yeah, that is pretty disgusting. But I kept reading wondering if this was user error, or if everyone journeying through the story was as grossed out as I was. When I got to the end, I checked the verses and to my surprise I had the chapters right. But then I realized that I was reading out of Leviticus. Apparently I had flipped over too far. As for this passage, if I was stranded on a dessert island this might be a little more meaningful. Paul wrote that all Scripture is God breathed, and I believe that. I’m just searching for an application for what I found as I wandered off the path of the story of everything.
Today my mother-in-law is in town. With my wife out of commission with strep, we went to Ethan’s school for lunch. It was a lot of fun to meet his friends. It was a special day, because Ethan had his first hot lunch at school. All of his cold lunch buddies were excited for him. After lunch we got to read to the kids. Ethan helped me read the Dr. Suess book, Hop on Pop. He even corrected me when I missed a word. (Dr. Suess gives me a headache). The whole experience was a lot of fun. Can’t wait to do it again.
Ran across this a few weeks ago. I actually saw it when it aired and it made me angry… as I laughed out loud. This may be why I have made a futile attempt to extract the word Christian out of my vocabulary, in order to distance myself from the likes of the guy swinging his coat and other loons like him. No matter where you stand on Benny “the Slayer” Hinn and other guys like this… you have to admit this is pretty funny.
Can I just stop you as you surf the web and stop by my blog to see if I will ever post again? Tonight I was reviewing some of the posts from the past year on this blog. It has served as a journal for me. I am overwhelmed at the goodness of God. Seriously, I can’t believe the journey that we have been through in the last year. It has been an incredible ride. Tonight as I watch football and prepare to send out an update to all of our supporters, I am sitting here saying wow. How great is our God… no really? Stop what your doing right now go to your blog/journal/diary/inbox and review your journey from the last year. I bet you will be amazed.
While Im on this topic can I just take a second to say how grateful I am that Jill is got a promotion. This was promotion that we were praying for before we got to KC and she started her new role at a Starbucks much closer just last week. Im in awe of this story that is so much bigger than us, that God allows us to be a part of. wow.
I am a lot of things... a stay at home dad... an off site video producer for the Chapel.. a media arts director for Restore Community Church and a wanna be church planter. Read here to see what happens when all of this collides.
