This is Neat ...

I usually don't forward e-mails much, much less post them on my blog but I liked this one:

Malachi 3:3 says: 'He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.'

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining Silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: 'He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.' She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, 'How do you know when the silver is fully refined?'

He smiled at her and answered, 'Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it.'

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

We are still here :)

It has been quite a while, I know I have a lot to catch up on ... I think I am going to post the current stuff and then backtrack a little in order to break it up into small manageable posts instead of one large post which will never get done. As expected Autumn has started fussing the moment I started typing hence the infrequent posting :)

All, except for Jace, had the stomach flu last week. Of course this has been going around our church for weeks but we conveniently decided to contract it during the busiest week of the month. We had something or other scheduled for everyday of that week (this week we have absolutely nothing!). Noah, silly clown that he is, came down with it during Jace's company Christmas party, after our long talk about being on our best behavior for Daddy and having good manners and not embarrassing him. That talk was effective!

Anyway, the party was at Main Event, a bowling alley, and Noah being very sick still beat all of us at our game of bowling! Noah has never thrown up before and he had the funniest look on his face before everything came up. Luckily, Noah is emotional but not at all dramatic like his sister. He threw up very quietly in a chair a couple of times and went about his business like nothing happened. When Jace questioned his coworkers about the event nobody had noticed a thing, even the people sitting right next to us! Praise God!

Our other exciting/interesting, if you can call it that :), event of the week was the baby doll birthday party we had 11PM last night. Ashlyn's cabbage patch, Skylar, turned 1 and she had been counting down the days till her birthday for a couple of weeks. We had been planning to put on her party clothes make her a cake and sing happy birthday. Unfortunately , due stomach flu, we had missed church which was my reminder of this momentous occasion. Ashlyn, of course, remembered it on the way home after a long day of cleaning, tiling and Christmas shopping. Jace and I had no choice but to oblige seeing as Ashlyn had had a thoroughly disappointing week overall - her bowling had been cut short, she had missed a long anticipated birthday party, and she had just recovered from the flu herself.

Noah, always wanting to emulate his sister, decided it was Suzie's birthday also. Suzie is his new favorite toy who he sleeps with and takes everywhere. She was my favourite doll from when I was little, was Ashlyn's favourite for a couple of years and has now been passed on to Noah who adores her profusely. We improvised a party with a birthday cookie, acquired from Friday's home school cookie exchange, with a candle placed in it :) We sang and took lots of pictures and promptly put the kids in bed!

That is about it for this week ... I'll do a belated Halloween and Thanksgiving post here shortly, Autumn permitting ...