Tiny Dart Frog

Poison Dart Frogs are some of the tiniest and beautiful creatures on the planet; they are also incrediably deadly. So, why call this blog "Tiny Dart Frog"? It goes back to the old adage - good things come in small packages. We are all created exactly as God has intended - unique, strong, and beautiful.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Tell me...

Wednesday evening I had the opportunity to worship at a church down the street from the one I serve.  I was going with a few people from our Wednesday evening Bible Study to a Thanksgiving Eve service.

I sat.
And...I didn't worry about a thing.
It was nice.

Sunday mornings are not like this for me.
I hardly sit.
I try not to worry, but I do.
It is still nice.

Just different.

So, I sat.  And I prayed.  And I sang and sorta danced in my pew - and I'm a terrible dancer.
And I didn't care.

And soon the pastor got up to preach and all I wanted was for him to tell me about God.

Just tell me again, the same thing I preach every week...

Tell me about God.  I'll never tire of that - of someone saying:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

And I'll never tire of someone saying:
Let us pray....

And I'll never tire of someone saying:
God is like...
or God loves you...
or God gave his only Son...
or God forgives you...

And as I sat there, longing to hear about God, I knew...the task of the preacher is not so much to be creative, but to just talk about God like you really care.  Because for some reason, we just can't get enough.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

This Day

I have a different prayer practice with each of my three sons.  My youngest son and I say a prayer in this manner:
Me: Dear
Cooper: God,
Me: We
Cooper: give you this day
Me: All
Cooper: of our work
Me: And
Cooper: all of our play.
Me: All
Cooper: that we do
Me: And
Cooper: all that we say.
Both: Amen.

We've been saying this same prayer together since he was about two (yes...probably time for a new one).  We began alternating so he could learn the words....I gave him the prompts.

Last night as we said this prayer for possibly the 1800th time, Cooper says to me,
"Mom, how can we give God the day?  God gives them to us.  That makes no sense."

Wow.  I was shocked he'd even heard the words...let alone hearing them in a new way.  Now it's true that theologically we give our days back to God.  How we live and act and play (which is what I explained to him)...

But the beauty of his statement was that what he saw first was that his day(s) is given to him by God - first and foremost.

That each and every day is a gift.  Sometimes that's harder to see.  Since I've worried lately about his days - how he's feeling about our recent move and all, it's nice to know that he still sees them as pure gift.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.