Sand Dollars prove God loves 6 year olds

We arrived home safely from Cannon Beach today (the weather was snowy, but roads were mostly wet -- not icy). All the way home, however, I knew I wanted to write about what took place last night just before dinner.

Spurred by Jessica's haul of nearly a dozen in-tact sand dollars the day before, our family decided to strike out for Haystack Rock at the lowest tide of the day to look for more of these treasures. We all hunted diligently as we walked, but found very few complete sand dollars. Clay and Will had run ahead of the rest of us and apparently had found two great ones. Reminded of the graciousness of a woman to us a few days before (who had given us a whole sand dollar when we had found none), Will gave one of the two sand dollars he and Clay had found to another person who had none. This warmed my heart to see Will's generosity.

Then I found out Clay was crying because Will had given away the sand dollar HE had found (for the record, I don't believe Will intentionally did this to hurt Clay). Moved by what I assume was the Spirit, I asked Clay if he had forgiven Will (he had) and we prayed and told the Lord that while we wanted to be content with not finding any more, Clay would like to find another whole sand dollar himself.

We started walking back and I was hoping against hope that Clay would be able to find a sand dollar. Hoping and praying during the walk home, it was thrilling to me that Clay found 7 or 8 wholly in-tact sand dollars on the return trip (Joe who was with us also found 1 or 2). What a tremendous blessing to talk with Clay about how the Lord is kind to us and in this case showed Clay and me His power and love through sand dollars. Tomorrow I'll try to post a pic of Clay holding them!

Back to Blogging

It is crazy that it has been 3 weeks since I last updated this blog. I hope to write more in the coming days. The past week has been spent in Cannon Beach, OR teaching at Ecola Bible School and it has been a tremendous blessing in several ways:

1. Our whole family is housed in a great little beach cottage and we have many opportunities for family bonding (basketball in the gym, hiking, beach combing, carpet balling, reading books together). I love my family. These family vacation days are never guaranteed, so it is all the more of a blessing when they happen.

2. The weather has been AMAZING here at the beach. No rain, few clouds, and fairly mild temperatures. The high yesterday was only 50, but that was the coldest day so far. I am convinced that there is a big plot among beach residents to fabricate stories of bad coastal weather to keep the year-round population here very small.

3. The students and interns here at Ecola have been eager to learn and very gracious to me and my family this week. I've had several really encouraging conversations with people and just finished one prior to this writing. I love hearing the stories of people.

4. I LOVE teaching. I am built to communicate truth and it blesses and humbles me to have this opportunity this week. I don't know what the future holds, but I am grateful for the present. God's word is so rich and I'm eager to share more about that today.

James 1 says that every good and perfect gift is from above -- originating from the Father of Lights in Whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. I testify that the blessings above are from Him and today I recognize that and celebrate His kindness to me. I live a blessed life.