2.10.14 Birth...to death.... and all in between

Bountiful Blessings

February 9, 2014

             This week’s school assignment was to draw a lifeline with the far left being my birth and the far right, my death. Then I had to put a dot representing where I was on the line. Wow. Who wants to put that down on a piece of paper? And realistically, who knows? Only God knows the true time of our death. Me personally, I don’t want to know. A friend of ours says that he is living until he is 120. He clearly has a lot more time on his lifeline that I did. My dot was a little too close for comfort. Ok, you are wondering what kind of assignment was this? Good question. We had to indicate past events, places and people who have made a significant impact on our career paths. Basically, who or what contributed to getting us where we are today. It is a cool assignment if you take out the whole death lurking on the right side of the page thing.

            Take a look at your life. What are your events, places and people? Hmmm, I chose 1) meeting Jim 2) Summer 3) Robbie getting hurt 4) getting laid off 5) job at Samford (leading to school at Samford) 6) Summer and the tornadoes 7) graduation and 8) acceptance into Master’s program at Alabama. A pretty heft list, I know, but it was hard to narrow down. Wait till you start thinking about yours…

            But I don’t want to look at it from a career point of view. I want to look at it from a personal side. Now to make this interesting, I want you to consider someone else. Pick a Biblical person. David, Joseph, Mary, Esther, Adah…. Look at their lives. Can you identify any events, places or people that impacted the course of their lives?

            Let’s flip the coin. There is a strong possibility that in the course of your life, you have been one of the “people” who have impacted someone’s life. Was it a positive or negative experience? Ouch. Hopefully, all good. But who knows. People have come into my life and the experience, well, it definitely was not great. But I was able to turn that experience into something positive. That doesn’t mean that I want to be someone else’s Negative Nelly that they have to find the good side. Seriously.

            Ok, so I am a little all over the place. Sometimes it is hard for me to focus. I don’t allow myself to process all my thoughts into an orderly fashion before I share them. Once again, just me. And I am happy with me. The good – Jim, Summer, Samford, graduation, Alabama, and the bad – Robbie’s lightning, Summer’s tornadoes, getting laid off from a crummy job with an even worse boss (oops. A little too realistic there. Obviously still some buried issues), it all encompasses who I am.

Bible Verse for the week:

“In the time of those kings, the God of Heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.”

Daniel 2:44 NIV

Bible Fun for the week:

First people to ever see a rainbow were …. (Genesis 9:8, 13)

God used a …. to take the prophet Elijah into heaven. (2 Kings 2:1)

Jesus and Peter once paid taxes with a coin found in a …. mouth. (Matt. 17:24-27)

Longest name in the Bible is ….. (Isiah 8:1)

 …. was a whistler (Isaiah 5:26 and 7:18)

There are only 2 books in the Bible named after women, ….

In the entire book of …. God is not mentioned once.

 Solomon had …. horses. (1 Kings 10:26)

Solomon wrote 2 books known for wisdom, ….

With 5 loaves and 2 fishes Jesus fed …. men. (Matthew 14:15-21)

Moses wrote the first …. books of the Bible.

…. was the world’s first murder victim (Genesis 4:8)

God used ….to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 19:24)