FUEL @CLC - Silence and Solitude

At Christian Life Center this week we are starting a series called "FUEL". The adults, the youth, the kids, small groups...we are aligning everything for six weeks to start the year off.


The series discusses Fuel for our souls - godly habits that we should develop in our lives. This week is Silence and Solitude.

As a pastoral staff we are writing devotions to be emailed out each day (you can sign up for them here), and I thought I'd share mine with you for the week (a preview copy!):

I have two children – Caleb, age 4 ½, and Ellie, almost 3. They are the essence of energy. Anyone that has children, or has been around children, knows how they can run circles around you and still have more energy later…long after yours is depleted.

That being said, I love to play with my kids! Ellie loves when I play princess with her (I don’t dress up like the princess…I am the prince) – we dance the Sleeping Beauty waltz, we try on glass slippers, we’re upset at the mean stepsisters – it fills up her love tank! Caleb loves when I fly spaceships and airplanes around the house, build new train tracks with his Thomas set, or just wrestle with him in the living room. These are things my kids love, and I do them because it helps my children understand how much I love and cherish them.

But do you know what I love? I love to sit with my kids at night and read them a story. I love to hold them close in the morning when they wake up and tell them how much I love them. I love when they look me in the eyes and listen carefully when I have something special to tell them. These things show me that they love me.

There are things I can’t tell them in the middle of a game of hide and seek. Some things they won’t hear and understand when we’re outside swinging or playing in the snow. Sometimes they need to be still and just listen to hear the good things I want to tell them.

When I saw some of Pastor Del’s main verses this week I thought of these things.

Psalm 131:2, “I have stilled and quieted my soul.”

Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Remember to take time out of your comings and goings to just be still with the best-Father-of-them-all and see what He has in store for you!

God bless!
AG

The Sweetest Gift of Christmas

I must say, Ellie has given me the best Christmas gift of all (other than Jesus of course) ... being potty trained. WOOHOO! How sweeeeeeeet it is! Sing it with me (to the tune of "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth"...

"All mommy wants for Christmas is no diapers
no diapers, yes no diapers!
If I don't have to change anymore diapers ...
Then I'll have a super duper Christmas!"

HUZZAH!

Yup, she's been in underwear all week and she's been DRY. And just the past 2 days, she's started telling us when she has to go potty! We've been out shopping plenty and she's been dry all through it. We are pretty excited!!!

And here's a cute picture of the "big girl" to celebrate!


Merry Christmas to us!!! No more diapers (except at bed)! YEAH!
~JG

Little things

Well, here are the little things of life.

1. We are growing Ellie's bangs out. We have entered the world of headbands, barretts, etc. How long will this ordeal be? Only her hair (and God) knows.

2. I gave up the potty training that I have been trying the past few days ... for both our sakes. She doesn't seem to get it, and I don't have the patience. I did finally find training underwear ... and they will be waiting for her in a few weeks or months. I don't like diapers ... but I dislike wet underwear (and worse) much more.

3. I took Ellie to the doctor this morning and she has some sort of bronchitis thing (I probably have the same thing - my doctor's appt. is tomorrow morning). So we went to Target and got her prescription and hopefully that will cure her cough. Poor thing has been coughing for almost a month now. Last night she woke up at midnight with a temperature, so she crawled into bed with me. At 2am she finally fell asleep. Then Caleb woke up missing daddy (who is on a trip to TN). Rough night for all of us. Tomorrow morning I go to the doctor and will hopefully get some medicine to cure MY hacking cough. Enough is enough!

4. Looking forward to my Grandma, aunt and uncle coming in town! They arrive tomorrow (it's a busy day!). Yeah!

5. Watched the movie Up!. Wonderful! I cried 11 minutes into it both times we watched it.

That's about all. Time to put Caleb down to an early bed (Ellie's already down). Yeah!

~JG

Star Wars in Concert

Tonight Aaron and I (along with Dick and Darlene and our friend Bryan) went to the SUPER AWESOME Star Wars in Concert at the Wachovia Center in Philly. Again ... AWESOME!!! The Royal Philharmonic played Star Wars music from all 6 movies accompanied by scenes from the movies on a massive screen overhead ... and in between each song Anthony Daniels (aka C3PO) narrated live! He has such a cool voice and expressive face. It was the best concert ever!





In addition, around the rim of the Wachovia Center were various props and costumes from the movies - Chewbacca, an original score of music from John Williams, prop guns, and my favorite - Queen Amidala's costume when she visited the Senate (see the picture!), etc. There was also "licensed Star Wars in Concert" stuff to buy ... t-shirts for $35 and such. I did NOT purchase the $50 Princess Leia hoodie! But it was really cool!




Perhaps my favorite part of the music was the Darth Vader sequence (see the movie below) showing his redemption. After all, that is the heart of Star Wars - the rise, tragic fall and ultimate redemption of a man. The need and search for redemption lies in every heart for it is placed there by God. And our need for redemption is so powerful that 6 blockbuster movies were made about it. Watching the images and listening to the music, I am reminded how thankful I am for my redemption given to me by Jesus.





Perhaps the funniest thing about the concert was all the people that came dressed in costumes! Kids came with their parents and we saw little storm troopers, jedi's and fighter pilots ... and many many lightsabers. One family came dressed up - the mom was Princess Leia (complete with bun hairdo ... with glowlights around each bun) and the dad draped himself rather well with Christmas lights ... the kids were little jedis.

On the way home, we were behind a minivan that had a little lightsaber duel going on inside! It was dark and all we could see were a green and blue lightsaber going at it in the minivan (what was being said inside we could only wonder ... "If you don't put those lightsabers down this minute, so help me, I will pull this car over and ..."). What a funny end to the night!

Yes, the Wachovia Center full of crazy Star Wars fans and we had a fabulous evening!!! So GLAD we went!

~JG

Ignorance is Bliss

After saying prayers with Ellie tonight, I left to get some vaseline since above and below her lips are chapped (from sucking on them). As I put on the vaseline, she was pursing her mouth in a ever-so-slightly odd way and I had that "mommy intuition." So I asked her, "Ellie, are you eating boogies?" And she opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and right there was the biggest hard boogie ever. Disgusting! And even more disgusting was that I groaned and picked it off her tongue to throw in the trash! Sigh. What we mothers do.

I should have ignored my intuition and let her eat her boogie.

~JG

I want to remember . . .

Last night at dinner, Aaron and I were downloading about our days and the kids were eating (somewhat) quietly. All of the sudden, Ellie pipes up, "Mommy, thanks for making this DELICIOUS dinner." Just like that. Completely out of the blue. So sweetly. And in a complete sentence ... as only a 2 year old can say it. I stopped and looked at her and teared up! It was such a sweet moment! Then Caleb saw how happy I was when Ellie said that so he piped in, "Thank you mommy for making this delicious CUP to eat! Heehee." Nothing like 4 year old silliness. I just said "Yup, no problem," but silently thought, "Good try Caleb but Ellie won this round of 'mommy's favorite'!" HA. And then commenced a 5 minute conversation between Caleb and Ellie of silly things to eat ... the ceiling (always a favorite), the chair, the cup, the floor ... and I think they may have actually eaten some actual food in there as well. Ahhhhh ... the sweetest moments of life usually aren't the big ones.

~JG

God wants to be found

I played a very short game of hide and seek with Caleb yesterday. I ran upstairs ahead of him and hid behind our bed. He ran up too, but then got distracted by some toy that he found, and instead of looking for me, he walked around looking at the toy. Needless to say, I did not stay hidden for long.

I remember when the kids were still learning how to play hide-and-seek. I would hide in really obvious places (like under a blanket in the middle of the room). Of course, their hiding places were even more obvious ... they hid in the exact same place as I had just hidden and then told me to find them. :-) But as the kids got more practice at it, I'd try to find some more challenging places to hide. One of the best was in our laundry room. Now, the kids never had any reason to go in our laundry room. All that is there is the washer and dryer. And they didn't do any laundry, so why go in that room? So when we played hide-and-seek, they never even thought about looking in the laundry room. Which made it quite perfect. And then when it would take too long and I could tell they were getting frustrated, I'd start making little noises. And THEN they would find me! And it's always fun to see their delighted little faces when they find me. But the point of the game was ... I wanted to be found by them. Maybe give me a minute of silence to me myself first ... but I didn't want to stay hidden all afternoon ... I wanted to be found.

Well, I'm continuing on in my Beth Moore bible study, and today we found ourselves in Acts 19, Paul's 3rd missionary journey - spending 2+ years in Ephesus. And in Ephesus, God did EXTRAORDINARY things through Paul, to get the people's attention. But what I found really interesting is the concept that God WANTED to be found by the people.

Ephesus was a city known for its interest in magic and the occult and the unseen world. So God used their interest and performed amazing miracles - far surpassing anything they had ever seen. Even handkerchiefs that Paul touched were used by God to cure illnesses and remove evil spirits. God wanted to be found by the Ephesians. As Beth said, "He did not lead them through a cloudy pillar. He got their attention through supernatural phenomena, because that's where they were looking."

In the same way, God got the attention of the Magi by showing up where they were looking ... the stars. "When He wanted to lead the Magi to the Christ child, He did not lead them by a mark in the sand. He led them through a star because they were star gazers - then He went beyond anything they had ever seen ... God wants to be found ... and He is so gracious to show up right where we are looking." I can just imagine if God had made a huge "crop circle" in the Magi's front lawn ... it's huge, glowing bright fushia, with a big smiley face lawn gnome perched right in the middle. And the Magi would walk past it, never seeing it, because their necks are forever tilted upwards looking at the sky. Maybe that's why God used a star. He is wise and He knows how to be found, if we are willing to recognize Him.

I bet God would be awesome at hide-and-seek ... he'd pick a great hiding spot, but never tough enough that we couldn't find Him. And if we looked and looked and started to despair, His giggling would lead us straight to Him ... hiding underneath a blanket in the middle of the living room with His feet sticking out.

~JG