Love Brightly

I can best tell you how I experienced Matt Mikalatos's book " The First Time We Saw Him " with a story. In the early dark morning, a jolting loud crash woke me. I wandered around the apartment inspecting for fallen items. When I came up short, I determined that it must've been something outside or in the neighboring apartment, so I went back to bed.  Just as my eyes closed, my neighbor's kitchen light shone through my bedroom window, and I snarled at its disturbance. This is why I close the shutters at night--why were they open?! Then it dawned on me--the shutters caused the big crash!  We had been told that the "wind was going to change tonight." With it would come Fall. Growing up in Texas and living there most of my life, this concept was lost on me. Fall breezed into Texas slowly. And it rarely stayed a day or two before Summer returned. A pair of shorts and a t-shirt were kept in our closets beside coats and boots because of the ever fluc...

After an exceptionally pleasant morning of homeschool, we opted for a picnic lunch. We stopped by the corner market to purchase a few supplies, and the sweet gentleman who owns it gave each of my kids a piece of candy as we left. As too often happens, after I checked the label, my eldest daughter couldn't eat it because of her severe nut allergy. I told her that I would give her a different sweet treat later at home, but as she watched her brother and sister enjoy their candy at the park, she began to cry. I gave her a hug and told her I understood how she felt because I have watched them eat delicious pizza while I couldn't partake. The empathy helped, but the burning question within her--one that she and her siblings have asked before, one that each person struggles with at some point if not many points--arose from her lips once again: "But why?! Why does this have to happen to ME?!" Upon discussing the qualities of an imperfect world, and how she is not the ...

I saw this with my own eyes. I truly paused before posting due to its utter sacredness: the oldest copy of the Torah/Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible in one volume), dated 1125 AD--one scroll, scribed on leather. It was discovered not long ago in the recesses of the Univ of Bologna Library (which has existed since the late 11th century), and is a perfect exact match of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Absolutely in awe! Just this week, the babes asked "How can we know that the Bible we read in English is actually the words God said?" Because He promised that not one jot of the pen would fade away. You can read more about it's discovery and authenticity at the UK Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2332806/University-Bologna-Rare-complete-Torah-scroll-turns-worlds-oldest.html