No prayer in school?

Every once in awhile someone will pull me aside or send me an e-mail to say something to this effect: "Can you believe they've taken prayer out of the schools?" Or, "Can you believe they want to get rid of the 10 Commandments?" Or, "Can you believe they're teaching evolution and not creation science?"

And here's my response . . .

I believe that we as followers of Jesus are living in an unprecedented time to have spiritual impact in the lives of students, teachers and the school system as a whole. I have been blown away by the opportunities that Jesus-followers have to live out the Good News of God's Kingdom. Here's what I mean:

1. Pray with your children. Pray with them before they go to sleep at night. Pray with them before they depart for school in the morning. I frequently pray a simple prayer with my fifth grade daughter, Tabitha: "God, please let Tabs have a great day at school today. I pray she will be a good friend to others. Please keep her safe and remind her how much you love her."

Praying with our children has a profound impact in their lives.

2. Make a commitment to pray for your child's teachers every school day by name. If you have the opportunity, let the teacher(s) know that you are praying for them. I've even asked the teachers HOW I can best pray for them. I want the teachers to know that I am their advocate.

3. When you're behind a school bus (if you're like me, griping because of the frequent stops), pray for the bus driver and the students on the bus. When you see children waiting for the school bus, pray for them.

4. Be a blessing to children in need. Ask someone at the school if you can supply a backpack filled with school supplies for a child in need. Very quickly the school will be contacting you with its needs. The community of believers that I'm part of supplied 350 filled backpacks this year!!!

5. Invite an administrator or teacher from the school system to your community of believers so that you can pray for them. No agenda but God's blessing. We recently prayed for the Superintendents of three major school systems in our community. THEY came to OUR prayer gathering!!!

The risk is high for children these days but our God is a powerful God who loves them even more than we do. The question is--will we care enough to get involved with our prayers, our time our financial resources?

The Reason For God

Some friends of mine recommended Tim Keller's book, "The Reason For God." I'm glad I took their suggestion.

Tim is a Pastor in New York City leading an amazing church. It comes as no surprise that New Yorkers ask a lot of challenging questions. "The Reason For God" is Tim's response to those questions--questions we all ask at one time or another.

Chapters in the book include:

There can't be just ONE God.

How could a good God allow suffering.

The church is responsible for so much injustice.

How can a loving God send people to Hell?

Science has disproved Christianity.

You can't take the Bible literally.

If you're like me and have asked the same questions (or know someone who has), then pick this one up!

Recycling

My family started recycling last week. And YES, we should have been recycling years ago. Better late than never.

Aside from the fact that I've known for some time now about our responsibility as stewards of creation . . . I took this a bit more seriously when I participated in a survey about how many earths it would take to sustain the world's population if everyone lived like me. I discovered it would take 7.5 planets!!! You can take the test at www.myfootprint.org.

Recycling is a bit of a pain. We started with 3 bins and really need 6. If we mix things up a bit we can get by with 4.

When I carried out our first bag filled with recyclable plastic, I must admit, it did feel good contributing to caring for the earth God has entrusted to us.

Got any great recycling tips?

The Graveyard Book

Okay, this one is just for fun.

"The Graveyard Book" is Neil Gaiman's most recent release. You might know him as the author of "Coraline" the book that was made into a movie for kids that adults enjoy as well (it's one of my daughter's favorites).

"Graveyard" won the Newberry Award Medal. (The award is given to an author for an outstanding contribution to literature for children.)

Books like this remind me why reading is fun. They also help spark my creative juices.

For a light, enjoyable read, pick this one up.

Summer recipe therapy

It's that time of year when many people have gardens that are producing abundantly (I'm not one of them). However, I have some very generous friends. One friend stopped by and gave us 15 dozen ears of sweet corn! After giving 10 dozen to family and friends I decided to venture out into the realm of freezing some for the winter--so I found myself husking 5 dozen (great fun).

This is my mom's recipe and is absolutely amazing for the winter months.

1. Husk the corn (at least 18 ears).
2. Cut the corn off the cob (this is prior to cooking).
3. Use 9 cups of cut corn, 1 tablespoon of salt, 2 cups of water and 1/3 cup of sugar. Boil for 5 minutes.
4. After the corn has cooled a bit, fill one quart freezer bags and then freeze (should make 4-5 bags).

We were also given several zucchini. So here's my favorite recipe for that summer gift . . .

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.
3. In a large bowl, beat together 3 eggs, 1 cup oil, 3 teaspoon vanilla extract and 2 1/4 cups white sugar. Mix in 2 cups shredded zucchini. Mix in 3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon. Fold in 1 pint fresh blueberries.
4. Transfer batter to loaf pans. Bake 50-60 minutes until a knife inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.
5. Cool 20 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.
6. Enjoy your blueberry zucchini bread!

Okay, I know this is a bit Ohio old school. However, there's something very therapeutic and just downright good about making your own food. I wonder how much we have lost over the years with all the "benefits" of prepared and packaged food?

The end of relaxation

We arrived home from our summer vacation/study break this morning. Good trip all in all. Always good to be home . . . something about sleeping in your own bed . . .

After unpacking I needed to run to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials. No problem--accept for the "Good Night" diapers for Elijah. Giant Eagle no longer carries them. Sooo, a quick stop at Babies R Us.

I found the "Good Nights" right away. Unfortunately all three checkout lines were at least 8 people deep. I am no longer in vacation relaxation mode--I am now in task "git r done" mode. Three people from checking out, the cashier informs that I'll need to move to another register . . . she is closing down.

Okayyy, I see a shorter line near the end of the store. I move towards it. Just as I am about to make my dash, an elderly (and I mean ELDERLY) woman shuffles from another line into the line in front of me. Ughhhh. Finally, this grandmotherly lady is the only person between me and checking out (NO, I didn't shove her out of the way!).

Very nice elderly lady lays her purchases on the counter (a baby bath thingy, you know, big plastic wash tubbee). The young girl at the register rings her up and then removes her purchases from the gift registry. Nice elderly lady asks, "Do you have a gift bag for this?"

"Oh no, we don't have anything here at the register. There are some nice big gift bags over in our gift wrap department."

"Would you go get me one?"

I'm thinking to myself, "Okay, the nice cashier will call someone to assist this nice elderly lady." BUT NOOOO. Very nice young cashier smiles and says, "I'd be happy too." As she walks away (leaving eight of us stand in line) the elderly lady, who in my mind, is no longer receiving the affectionate term "nice," calls out, "It's for a boy!"

By now I'm thinking that my Chunk Monkey ice cream is now Slushy Monkey at best (did I mention I went to the grocery store to get some essentials?).

Five minutes later the nice young cashier comes back with a nice blue bag for the baby bath tubbee thingy which the elderly lady decides she doesn't want because it costs too much.

Vacation is over and it's back to reality. And the reality is that I still have to make conscious decisions on a regular basis about how I'm going to respond in challenging situations (no matter how insignificant or goofy they are).

"Jesus, help me be like you . . . not only when I'm in relaxed mode but especially when I'm wanting to 'git r done'."