Chuffy Doesn't Understand

The Glory of Snow

 

 

Snoccer, the Next Big Thing

Man versus Dog

Fierce competition

A snoccer breakaway with man in the lead

 

A snoccer kick on goal

Halftime

The conditions were perfect for sliding

Chuffy loved the bone hat

The Children of the Wardrobe

 

In Season Reads

This is a miraculous nonfiction story full of human energy and effort and God's goodness.  A Lost Boy of Sudan becomes a refugee and runner.  God's preserving hand was so evident in his life, and he speaks without bitterness of his difficult childhood.  As a teen boy he came to the U.S. with little to no formal education and graduated from high school in a language he did not speak. Sweet humor and secrets to running fast lay in "zebra meat."

Zany, fast-paced mystery.  A precocious twelve year old girl is the sleuth in 1950s England.

 

This book is a dichotomy of a winsome Iran before the revolution and a sickening spiraling of a nation in turmoil. The writer's father was executed by the new regime and she saw her safe little world warp into an unrecognizable future.  I found the book subtlety addresses many social issues through the survival of her mother in a patriarchal society which does not honor women.  She reveals her privileged upbringing and the escape from the reign of terror.  It was a sensitive account of how things might have been and her personal confessions.   The book takes it title from this beautiful poem below.

 

After reading that, tell me is not God's goodness to his Creation written on each man's conscience?

Makes me think of the True Son.

 

This is the eyes wide-open version of the Iranian revolution.  It is a horrific story, but somehow written with beauty and dignity.  I found it fascinating, painful and a plucker of the heart strings.

 

The odds are crazy.  The outcome miraculous, but what after 20 something years you discovered that you have a famous twin on the other side of the world?  Two Korean adoptees find out that though they were single birth babies born to different women (according to their birth certificates), adopted by different couples, grew up on different continents, speak different languages...in fact they were identical twins separated at birth.  Makes this mom wonder just slightly, does my Teddy have a twin?

 

The Progression of Loss

Attending Sunday school, I had just heard three parables on the lost sheep, lost coin and lost son...  How little did I expect that the next week I would lose three things myself, especially a son.  

My sheep was in the guise of a stray cocker spaniel that won my heart by greeting me with wet kisses and wagging his tail like mad when he saw me.  He had sweet sorrowful eyes and he was a gifted with soulful silence.  We nurtured him back from the grave as his ribs were all showing, his hair matted and he was shivering as if his very emotional stability was at risk.   A week after taking care of him, we found his owner 15 miles away which meant we lost him, but he was restored to his original sheepfold.

 Chummy

A day after Chummy, the dog, left, we lost our cat, I.Q.   He was Emily's dream cat and a sweet beast, even though we discovered he wasn't as brilliant as his name.  After a year with us, his disappearance of one day was highly unusual.   Unfortunately the one day stretched into a week and then many weeks.  Our neighbors felt bobcats or coyotes had taken him.   The girls were particularly devestated as they valued him highly as if he was only one of ten cats in the world.   Last night, Ben came home with another cat during the super bowl.  The girls were joyous!  I think Ben scored the winning touchdown. 

I.Q.

Losing the animals was indeed sad, but when in Vermont we lost Fritz, loss was unspeakable.   It happened at the end of a single digit day in the ski slopes. Fritz did not return with his ski partner who had last seen him several hours before.  The lifts were closed for the day to get everyone off the mountain before dark.   It was dusk and bitter cold.   Ben's cell phone rang and then died because the battery was zapped by the polar cold.   He borrowed someone's charger and listened to a new message that ski patrol had Fritz.   He was found!   The strange part he was found two miles away and about a five minute car drive from where he started.   Fritz said he was so cold he felt like he was going to throw up.   God preserved our precious son and brought him back to us by the kindness of strangers.

The God of the universe showed his love to me by his hand-selecting the Bible lesson for the Sunday prior to these events.  God spoke of loss, but also restoration.  He showed that even one of a hundred mattered to him.   Just as he carried the sheep on his shoulders with tenderness, I believe Jesus gave back someone their lost dog.  The parables do not stop there.   The one of ten coins mattered to God as well.  He gave a celebration when the coin was found, or in our case another cat came home.   With the final parable, Jesus showed that the two of two mattered to him.  He restored the lost son and sought out the embittered son.  May you take from our stories that what is lost is an opportunity for a God-sized restoration.