the moon and some ramblings

It would be a complete understatement if I said that Ari was infatuated with the moon. The kid LOVES the moon. It really just came out of nowhere, and now it is a daily discussion about where the moon is. Whenever we are driving in the car, it's "moon? moon? moon?". Whenever it's time for bed, it's "moon? moon? moon?" It was the most depressing week when the moon was gone and I had to explain to Ari everyday that the moon was not out. He would then quickly reply with "clouds in the sky?" That seems to be the most logical reason for not being able to see the moon...at least for a two year old.

For a while I just couldn't figure out what the big deal was about the moon. But after hearing Chris August's song "Starry Night" over and over, I would start to think of Ari and his love for the moon. The chorus says,

I'm giving my life to the only one who makes the Moon reflect the sun.

Every Starry Night, that was His design.

I'm giving my life to the only son, who was and is and yet to come

Let the praises ring, 'cause he is everything

'Cause he is everything

I then realized how there is so much more to God's creation. We should be in awe of it. We should take care of it. We should appreciate it. This is God's design.

It just so happens that we are talking about Creation with middle schoolers on our Wednesday night program at church. I was surprised to find me learning something from it. Yeah I understood the actual creation of everything, but not necessarily the part where God made man in his own image. What exactly does that mean? I never really thought about it before. After exploring lots of verses, we talked about five attributes that we share: love, will, emotions, and two others that I can't seem to think of off the top of my head. But the point is that I am still learning things that I thought I already knew.

Our Wednesday night program for the middle schoolers is new. It is challenging on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. Mostly spiritual because I am required to do daily quiet times and memorize a verse every week, just as we require the students to do. I find that when someone is keeping me accountable I actually do the work when I am supposed to (especially when that person is 10 years younger than me!). I can see the wheels turning in the kids head as we approach new topics every week. It is amazing the thoughts and questions they share each week. They are so much farther in their spiritual walk than I ever was at their age. My prayer for them is that they actually put into action what they are learning from these studies, and not wait until they out of college, or married, or when they've made a huge mistake and reaping the consequences. We are all going to make mistakes, we're sinners. I just know that I could have avoided many in my life if I would have applied God's Word to my life much sooner. Now I want to take the opportunity to share that with these young people and hopefully make some kind of a difference.