Palm Sunday

Luci has such a tender heart.

She can't bear to hear the story of Jesus' crucifixion.  She ends up in tears every time, sometimes running from the room.

The first time Luci did this was in second grade at Sunday school.  She sat at the table, tears streaming down her face as the teacher put up a flannelgraph of Jesus on the cross.  Our children's minister happened to be in the room at the time, and told me all about it.  She had never seen a child react that way. She took Luci out into the hall and talked to her, and calmed her down.

Fast forward twelve months, and it hasn't gotten any easier for Luci.  A few weeks ago during the sermon, the preacher talked about Jesus on the cross, and that was it.  Luci covered her ears and bolted to the classroom in the back of the auditorium.  I grabbed my purse and followed her.  John looked around at the other kids and none of them even looked up...they were going about their drawing or coloring, or whatever, as if nothing was going on.  I told John to be thankful at least one kid in there was listening.  :)

Then there was this morning.

It was hard to get Luci to the table for breakfast.  She was not interested in the bacon:  something was wrong.  I asked her if she felt well.  Are you sick?  I said if you stay home, no video games all day (that usually clears up any fake illness).

Huge tears began to fall.  What is wrong?  Please tell me.  I gathered her up and hugged on her.  She would not speak.  She left me, went into the kitchen and wrote a note.

(please remember that Luci spells phonetically)

Of course, Bryan cracked up and said, He did?   I told him to can it.

Luci stayed home with me.  I knew she'd be a basket case, worrying the whole time that the Sunday school teacher or the preacher would bring up Jesus' death, which of course, they did.

She knows that Jesus came back to life, that He defeated death.

We all should be so tender-hearted.

Did you see this story?

Virgin Mary Gives Birth to Baby Jesus on Christmas Day ... in Peru

Virgin Mary gave birth to 7.7 pound baby Jesus on Christmas Day. In Peru.
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Really.
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Twenty-year-old Virgen Maria Huarcaya delivered her newborn son, Jesus Emanuel, in the early hours of Christmas in Peru's capital of Lima, Reuters reported.

The baby's father, Adolfo Jorge Huamani, is a carpenter, causing religious Peruvians to compare the 24-year-old to Mary's Biblical husband Joseph, who was a carpenter as well.
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Though the boy wasn't placed in a manger — he stuck around in a ward at the city's central maternity hospital — he's got Peruvians gabbing about his birth, Reuters reported.
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"Two thousand years later the story of Bethlehem is relived," read a headline about the birth in El Comercio, Peru's main newspaper.
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"A few days ago we had decided to name my son after a professional soccer player," the father said. "But thanks to a happy coincidence this is how things ended up."
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story from Foxnews.com

Vote Tuesday! -- But Remember This...

The world will not be healed and restored because we elect the right president. We live in a great country, with the best political process I know of, but our country is not the light of the world. Our president may be the most powerful person in the world, but he's not sitting at the right hand of God. Our military is full of brave men and women willing to die for their country, but they are not able to eradicate the world of evil.
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Christians should understand these things better than anyone else. Yet the anxious, fearful, and sometimes mean-spirited qualities demonstrated by many Christians at election time betrays just how little faith we have in King Jesus.
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The ascension is more than a cool special effect at the end of a Passion play. It is a dramatic political statement made by God himself about how the long-awaited King of the world has been enthroned in heaven. Slowly but surely news of his reign will spread through the world until someday the curtain separating heaven and earth will lift and the two realms will become one. Until then, our challenge as followers of Jesus is to live in such a way that demonstrates who the real King of the world is. This will be seen in our acts of service, stands for justice, and exhibitions of grace done in the name of Jesus, rather than in the name of partisan politics. In fact, every time we gather to worship and celebrate the risen, ascended King Jesus we’re participating in a political party of a different kind.
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It may just be that the most important political statement Christians can make this election season is to publicly declare that we’re putting our hope, confidence, and trust, not in any one particular candidate or party, but in our ascended King who will someday return and transform our world into a place where the streets have no name.
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By Wade Hodges, from this longer article in New Wineskins.

Blessed Be THE NAME

This project turned out very nicely. For a whole hour today, Bryan and JT were totally wrapped up in the Names of Jesus. Can't have any better homeschool project than that!

This bulletin board is in our dining room. Also on each little paper is the Bible verse where that particular name of Christ can be found. I remember Gordon Teel, during a sermon in Boise, read from his Spanish-translation Bible. He read from Romans 1:5 (in English: "We have received grace and apostleship through Him to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations, on behalf of His name, ...")

In Spanish, that little phrase is "por amor de se nombre..."

for the love of His Name

That has stuck with me all these years. Isn't that phrase so simply beautiful?