Each year our daughter along with thousands of other young people come together at GYC . Ron and I have been blessed to be able to attend a couple of these but not recently. God moves in a powerful way when these young adults become "of one accord" and uses them in a mighty way. This year as lately we were not able to attend but Alden Ho just recently posted pictures of that week. I kept clicking through them hoping that I could catch a glimpse of Alanna in some of them. I did not see her in the first set but it did get me to wondering. When we love someone, we want so much to see them even if we can not be there in person. If there is an event we know they are at, like me we look and look. Only with a mother's heart can I try to understand how God, our heavenly Father looks through out the world to see His children. How as a father pity's a child He seeks our face turning to Him. I pray that He will find me looking for Him every day, every moment, trusting Him.

What I am about to share was something shared with me and not mine. But a good thought none the less  I don't know about you but I believe that most everyone that may read this has something that has a zipper in it. A jacket, vest, sweater, pants or jeans....somewhere we have encountered a zipper. Now zippers have three main components. There is the two pieces of cloth with plastic or metal "teeth" and the slide part that brings it together. I have experienced the frustration of having either a metal tooth or two missing or the plastic on gets worn. Either way it creates a problem when trying to get the slider up or down. You know we as humans have much in common with zippers. We were created to mesh together, to be a part of each others lives. There are things that happen that can cause us the be 'bent' or 'worn' or even 'missing' that affects how we interact with others. I would like to say that I am not like that but my friends and family will tell you that I have been all of the above and then some. We are closing in on the time of year when we become a bit more tender towards family and friends. We have a tendency to be more willing to reach out and maybe "mend some fences" so to speak. I am praying that we will allow God's love to heal our brokenness and allow His love to 'slide' between us to create relationships that are stronger for our coming together. May we not continue to be the "broken" tooth that prevents us from drawing closer to each other or to God.~

Tonight as most Friday nights we started the Sabbath with a candle lighting vespers. For those who do not know what we do let me explain. We have one large pillar candle that represents Jesus. Each person has a taper candle. We take turns going around the circle telling what we are most thankful to God for this week and light our candle from the pillar. We then push it up next to the pillar candle. When everyone is done we each say a sentence prayer thanking God for what He has done for us that week and then we each choose a song to sing. We then end with a prayer. The idea is that Jesus is the light of the world. We as Christans only receive our "light" from Him. As we come closer to Him, He adds His light to our hearts it becomes so bright with His love. OK... As we were talking and sharing Ron noticed that the wicks were curled over so he tried to straighten them up, practically burning his fingers in the mean time. (The wicks did not straighten much) I looked at mine and decided to try something. I blew mine out (and by accident the large pillar too) and straightened the wick as it was cooling. Once it was straight I relit the candle. See, I wanted to show Ron that a straighter wick would produce a smaller flame. Some points of interest from all this. The straighter candle did produce a smaller flame but only in width. You see now the flame was narrower but very straight. It actually focused the flame and it became more efficient. So we are in life. The more we are distracted or 'bent' by the circumstances around us, the less effective we are in our message to others. In my effort to try and 'teach' Ron something by my experiment I also put our the candle that represented Jesus the light of the world. I our effort to "prove" something by the inspired word, let us not put out the light of Jesus to them.

~Happy Sabbath to everyone