Whale of a Time!

It was great fun being the fill-in for mommy in Sabbath School this morning for my two granddaughters. When it was time for the big cardboard "whale" to "swallow Jonah", little Julia jumped from her seat and proceeded to crawl through the whale's "belly" from the wrong end! This caused a bottleneck for the kids who had started crawling through the other end to exit from the whale's mouth. I thought for a minute I would have to crawl in there myself to bring her out, but fortunately she listened to the teacher's directions and backed out gracefully on her own. (Actually, she WAS following the Bible narrative when you think about it; Jonah went in the mouth and came out that way too.)

There were other directions that Julia was not as prompt to respond to. And that was anything her older sister suggested or tried to guide her to do. Invariably, Julia did the opposite of what sister proposed.

I wonder if I am as apt to listen to some people's advice as I am to others'. It really does depend on who the person is, doesn't it? I pray that I can be the type of grandmother, mother, wife, sister, and aunt that the valued people in my life will want to listen to. However, I realize that I can't be that for everyone all the time. That's why God recommends a multitude of counselors. We need several people in our lives to give us advice and direction, including and especially those in our church family. I praise God for giving me family of both kinds.

Because we all need direction. You don't want to cause a bottleneck in the belly of the whale now, do you?

You can see the "whale" behind the boat on the left here. 

And this is Julia about to go up for her birthday celebration a few weeks ago.

Road Trip

Today I drove with someone to a friend's house, but neither of us was sure of the way to get there. We knew the highway we would need, even the name of the small town. But other than that, memories were fuzzy about the exact directions that would lead to our destination.

Thanks to our cell phone we were able to call the friend midway there and get reassurance that we were headed in the right direction. It was a bit embarrassing though to discover we had started out in the wrong direction, so it had meant a few unneeded miles of driving. But the closer we got there, the more familiar it was and the easier it was to actually locate the house we were looking for. How nice it was to finally get there and see this friend again.

This is so much like our journeys with God. Sometimes the beginning of the trip to heaven is shaky and unpredictable till we are actually on the highway of life headed in the right direction. But even then we need to be reassured by God along the way. The closer we get to this heavenly home, the easier it is to recognize familiar landmarks. And the journey is always well worth the effort to get there.