A Close Call with a Critter

Last night before we went to bed, Matt went out the front door to make sure the cars were locked up. When he opened the door, there was a raccoon standing there. The raccoon ran off and Matt continued outside to check the cars, leaving the front door open. While he was standing by his truck, he felt something brush by his legs and turned and saw another raccoon running down the driveway. He started to come back into the house and saw yet another raccoon standing at the door almost ready to come in the house! Thankfully, Matt got there in time to scare him away before he came inside. Meanwhile, I was sitting on the couch in the family room happily watching "Dancing With the Stars" completely unaware of what was going on outside. I don't know what I would have done if I had seen a raccoon come tearing through the house. It probably would have been similar to the scene in "Christmas Vacation" when they found the squirrel in the Christmas tree.

Operation Christmas Child

This past weekend, Matt took Emily and Griffon to church to put together some shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. This is a wonderful organization that sends shoe boxes filled with toys and other small items to children in third world countries for Christmas. The kids always love to put together a box to send to a child of the same age they are.

They also made Christmas cards to send to the troops.

In the meantime, Noah and I were at the Longwood craft festival where I bought this cute fall wreath and little Christmas tree.

Ice Skating

The University of Central Florida has an outdoor ice skating rink for the holidays, so we decided to go over there one night to check it out. I skated with Emily while Matt and Noah watched us skate and walked around looking at the beautiful Christmas lights. Santa was there, too, so Noah visited with him for a little while. We had such a good time. Emily loved the skating. I wasn't sure if she would like it or not. She fell down quite a few times, but kept getting back up. We skated for almost 2 hours!

Whoops!

Brrr! It was cold!

Evangelical Pharisees

We had the privilege of having Dr. Steve Brown speak at our church last weekend. I always love to hear him preach. Not only because his voice is mesmerizing but because he brilliantly teaches on God's grace. He says that he gets a lot of hate mail and I'm not really surprised. He usually says some shocking things and I'm sure that some people are offended. My dad said he heard or read somewhere one time that if a pastor isn't shocking his congregation, he probably is not preaching pure grace.

One of the things Dr. Brown said really convicted me and I have been thinking about it all week. He said that Evangelicals (meaning all of us Protestant church-going people, including myself) are the modern day Pharisees. Whoa. How many times have I read Jesus' parables and rebukes to the Pharisees (the religious people of that time) and thought to myself, "How could they be so self-righteous? What was wrong with them?" Well, guess what? I'm just like them. For years I have known that there is nothing that I can do to enter the kingdom of heaven on my own merit. Only through Christ's sacrifice on the cross is this possible. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Rom 3:23 I've know this truth for years, but there's still a part of me that tries to please God on my own apart from Christ. Sometimes, I'll see someone whose sin looks uglier than my own (in my eyes at least) and I'll think, "Whew...at least I'm not that bad." But the truth is that even our good deeds are like filthy rags.

When Jesus preached, the sinners, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, all the people who were looked down on in society flocked to him and loved to listen to him. These are the people he hung out with. This was shocking to the Pharisees. I wonder what would happen if those kinds of people today were to come into our churches? Would we look down our noses at them like the Pharisees did? Would we compare our sins to theirs and think that we are better than them in God's eyes? I'm sure this is one reason why Evangelicals do not have a good reputation among unbelievers. It's because we're just like the Pharisees. If we were like Jesus, those people would be flocking into our churches. But they're not.

A Clever Video

This made me laugh:

Some Recent Random Pictures

Noah is constantly putting food in his hair. It's very annoying. I found him the other day wearing his cereal bowl on top of his head.

He still loves his Mickey hat. We don't let him sleep with it on, but he refused to let us take it away from him when we put him to bed. So, I waited until he went to sleep to take it off.

Matt got up early one Saturday and picked up doughnuts for breakfast.

Thoughts on the Global Church

I recently read an interesting article by R.C. Sproul titled "Ecclesiastical Myopia" from this month's Tabletalk magazine that astounded me. Here are a few quotes from the article:



"Sociologists and historians have predicted that by the year 2050 the strongest center for Christianity will be in Africa and Latin America."



"One of the strongest churches in the world is the church in Korea, which has enjoyed explosive growth over the last forty years."



"It is not an unusual thing to now see missionaries being sent from the Third World countries into Europe and even into the United States..."



Wow.



The article talked about how some geographical regions have experienced great spiritual growth in the past and are now spiritually barren. A few examples of this are Western Europe which was booming with the spread of Christianity during the 16th century during the time of the Protestant Reformation. Now, only a small percentage of people there go to church and many of the beautiful churches and cathedrals sit vacant. Another example is New England which saw great spiritual growth during the time of the Great Awakening during the 18th century. Now, this region is starting to resemble Western Europe. What is happening here? I believe that the United States is in danger, as Sproul suggests, of God removing his lampstand from our midst. Will we soon become like Western Europe and New England where Christians are the minority?

Thoughts on the President

I just read this interesting article from last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal that I think is absolutely right on:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584386627599251.html

After Barack Obama was elected president, I decided to pray for him and be supportive of him even though I did not vote for him nor do I agree with him on many key issues. I am saddened and embarrassed by the hate that has plagued our nation between people of opposing political viewpoints. I think that the person holding the office of our president deserves our respect, support, and most importantly our prayers.

Our Future Basketball Player

Last month when I took Noah to the doctor for his 2 year check up, they told me that they could estimate how tall he will be when he grows up. They said for boys, you double their height when they turn 2 and this will be their height when they are fully grown. Noah measured in at 37 1/2 inches which was off of the charts. His height doubled puts him at 6 foot 3 inches. This is one inch taller than his daddy and one inch shorter than his papa (my dad). They also tried another formula using Matt's height and my height and this also came out to be 6 foot 3 inches. So, I guess we'll find out in about 16 years whether this is true or not. I am thinking that if it is true that basketball may be his sport just like his Papa. Matt said that 6'3" is the perfect height for a quarterback. Either way, I am hoping that he is good enough at something to win a college scholarship somewhere.

Emily and Rileigh

Rileigh is one of Emily's best friends. They have known each other since they were one year old. Their birthday's are only 11 days apart and they actually had the same due date- January 11, 2003. Rileigh belongs to a wonderful, Christian family who live right down the street from us. The girls have always gotten along really well and enjoying playing together frequently. Friendships are such a wonderful blessing and are so important. Hopefully, they will become lifelong friends no matter where their journey through life takes them.

Emily and Rileigh then:

Emily and Rileigh now:

Trick or Treat

The kids had a great time trick-or-treating. Noah finally let me dress him in his cowboy costume. It was a Halloween miracle. I guess he was waiting for the actual day to arrive before he would wear it. Either that or the lollipop I bribed him with.

Noah said "trick or treat" all night long and "Wow!" every time he saw some Halloween decorations. I didn't think he would last very long, but he was a trooper. We walked up and down three streets. He would not let anyone either carry him or his candy bucket which got quite heavy by the end of the night.

Checking out his loot when we got home. I never did get a picture of Emily with her candy because she was too busy answering the door for trick-or-treaters. She told me she would "take care of our customers."