Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Tues July 15, Summer day 44

Today was good.  I was a little hesitant about getting back to work (remember.... that means admitting that vacation time is actually over) but it was a good day. 

A new student joined my class last week, so it was fun to meet her today & see how she fits into the dynamic of my funny little crew of kids.  Everything went well, except that Savannah's return (after 3 weeks of her absence...a week long visit w/ friends, a week at camp, our week of vacation) brought about a lot of noise and an injury.  Not that SHE was noisy, but the kids love her & they get rambunctious & rowdy when she's there.  I keep trying to convince her to NOT wind them up so much because then she gets overwhelmed at how loud & rough they are.  Today, she was playing crazy with one little boy over near the kitchen (home center) & before ya know it, she took a plastic corn cob to the eye.  Ouch!  She was a little shocked that some three year olds could actually hurt her.  I tried to tell ya, hon.  Afterward, she took her Nintendo DS to find an empty room & chill out privately for a while.  Good move, kiddo.  (hmm....I wonder if I could do that sometime?  ha!)

Samuel enjoyed his 2nd day of day camp today.  As always, I'll tell you about where he's going at the end of the week after it's over.  (gotta play it safe online, ya know?!)  I can tell you this, though.  He is doing a cooking camp and he LOVES it.  He's added chef to his mile long list of things he wants to be when he grows up.

Join me in praying for my sweet Sarah.  Well, for 2 things.  I'll tell ya the easy one first.  She's got some sort of mild allergic reaction to something on her arms tonight.  We noticed the first "spot" while we were eating dinner.  Concerned that it might be a spider bite at first, Larry used his pen to mark around it so we could watch & see if it "grew" or spread.  By the time she finished swim class, though, I realized that she had a matching "spot" on her other arm.  Looks like the first one must not be a bite, but part of a reaction to something or other.  I'd like to figure out what she's reacting to and I'm praying that it's not worse by morning.  I'm definately hoping that these big red blotches on her arms are NOT the beginning of something much bigger/worse.  Tomorrow night she's going on her first ever sleepover with a friend.  She's spent the night w/ family before, but this is the first time a friend has invited her over for the night!

Ok, the 2nd thing--- she is being pounded hard by Satan.  If you will remember, she was saved in May.  She was baptised in early June.  Before asking Jesus into her heart, she had spent about a month randomly confessing things to us at least once a day.  She'd come to us all upset about some little thing that happened (literally) days/weeks/months or even years ago.  She was under such strong conviction about these things & needed to hear us say that she was forgiven.  In the past couple of weeks, she has gone back to this again.  While I'm THRILLED that she is so very aware of conviction when it strikes, at the same time, she's battling condemnation about things that happens ages ago.  At least a dozen times a day, she comes to me crying or quite upset about some bad thought she had or a word she said that maybe wasn't nice (no "bad" words..just things like "dumb" or "stupid", etc).  She gets all upset over these things, not just feeling bad that it happened, but literally clawing at her face, holding her head in her hands...really beating herself up over some minor little infraction.  She's always been extremely sensitive, and now Satan is having a field day with that---smashing her little conscience to smithereens over every little thing!  I talked to her about 'taking her thoughts captive' & giving them to God.  We've talked about the fact that when Jesus died for her sins, ALL of her sins were in the future---so His blood covered them ALL.  She was forgiven for those that happened prior to her salvation & she has been forgiven for all of them SINCE.  She's having a really hard time grasping that God loves her even when she has one mean thought about her brother or when she leans back in the chair at the bar (something we have to fuss at all the kids about all the time!).  Please pray that she learns to respond appropriately to conviction, but that Satan will be rebuked every time he tries to condemn her for long-ago offenses or when he tries to beat her up over the tiniest infractions.  I hate to see her feel miserable about some tiny little thing ...or things that were over & done with LONG ago!

Ok, it's nearly 1am.  I'm tired.  Heading off to bed now!

No comments: