Lesson #22: Time Well Spent

Yesterday we experienced a warm summer rain all day long.  The skies were gray and the intensity of the rain varied by the hour.  It was the perfect occasion to curl up on the couch and watch a favorite movie, or dive into a book that had been left to gather dust, until such a day. 

I chose to do the first. 

I had borrowed a couple Jane Austin movies from my dear friend and decided to take a trip back in time.

My kids were anxious to snuggle under blankets and engage in the seldom practiced art of 'a lazy day'. But after one very long hour (for them) they became restless and needed to move about.  I did not allow their lack of endurance to sway me, and I continued to persevere.  

Baby girl took to listening to her Ipod on the front porch while sticking her toes under the waterfall of rain pouring down from our roof.   Studly decided to engage his mind in a battle of Kingdom Hearts on his game system. 

Every few minutes Baby girl would try and convince me that a game of cards or coloring would suit the day much more adequately.  I tried not to let her pleas distract me from the task at hand.  And I was very successful for several hours. 

Soon the movies ended and the abundance of energy that had been pooling while I lay on the couch suddenly needed to be expended.   About the same time the rain decided to take a break and allowed me enough of a stretch to fire up the grill and cook some mouth-watering cheeseburgers.  We sat around the kitchen table savoring every bite as the sound of the rain began to patter against the windows once more. 

Bellies full and taste buds satisfied, we chose to break out the UNO cards.  Hubs, kids and I sat around the table for two hours more during this grueling crusade.  The stars were somehow tossed out of alignment though (due to all of the rain and wind I am assuming) because, oddly enough, my husband won the match. 

These are a few of my favorite pictures taken recently...

 

 

This Is 'My Today'

I am reading a very short but profound book called School of Christ  by T. Austin Sparks.  This passage from chapter 3 sums up a lot of my day today:

God always keeps the revelation of Himself in Christ bound up with practical situations. I want you to get that. God always keeps the revelation of Himself in Christ bound up with practical situations. You and I can never get revelation other than in connection with some necessity. We cannot get it simply as a matter of information. That is information, that is not revelation. We cannot get it by studying. When the Lord gave the manna in the wilderness (type of Christ as the bread from heaven) He stipulated very strongly that not one fragment more than the day's need was to be gathered, and that if they went beyond the measure of immediate need, disease and death would break out and overtake them. The principle, the law, of the manna, is that God keeps revelation of Himself in Christ bound up with practical situations of necessity, and we are not going to have revelation as mere teaching, doctrine, interpretation, theory, or anything as a thing, which means that God is going to put you and me into situations where only the revelation of Christ can help us and save us.  ...

Do not ask for light as some thing; ask for a fuller knowledge of the Lord Jesus. That is the way, for that is the only living way to know Him: and remember God always keeps the knowledge of Himself in Christ bound up with practical situations. That cuts both ways. We have to be in the situation. The Holy Spirit will bring us, if we are in His hand, into the situation which will make necessary a new knowledge of the Lord. That is one side. The other side is that, if we are in a situation which is a very hard and a very difficult one, we are in the very position to ask for a revelation of the Lord.