BIGGER

The kids and I stood on our front porch taking in the fresh air and watching the downpour of rain. The thunder was loud and the storm was right above us. It was exciting! Suddenly lightning struck the tree in between our house and our neighbor's. It sounded like a car bomb went off and I could feel the vibration in my chest. We all jumped and clung to each other in fear as we darted inside! My five year old went up to my husband who was in the living room and said, "Dad, God is really powerful!"

With so much distractions in this world, it is easy to forget to look up at the beautiful sky and all realize how small we are in this universe and how big God is and indeed how powerful!Surrounded by concrete jungles and with our noses constantly in our ipads, facebook, and cell phones, it can be easy to overlook or ignore nature and all that God has created. But we must not. Just look up and look around you and you will see God in all he has created!

We went to Stonybrook state park a couple of weeks ago. It was beautiful and humbling. We looked up and saw huge cliffs and towering trees above; and below, people that looked as if they were the size of ants. When we get things in perspective it is humbling. Glorifying God in his creation not only teaches our children to realize how big God is but it teaches them about God's love for them. God loved us so much that he made this world and everything in it for us. He painted the sunsets for us, gave us big beautiful tree's for shade, I think he even created the bugs and snakes for the enjoyment of my little boys. By speaking to our children about how Great God is when we are in the midst of his amazing creation we are instilling in them God's love and a reverence for Him.

Psalms 145:1-10

" I will extol you my God and King and I will bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One Generation shall praise your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wonderous works. Men shall speak of the might of your awesome acts, and I will declare your greatness. They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness and shall sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all his works. All Your works shall praise you O Lord, and your saints shall bless you..."

Psalms 104:1-7

"Bless the Lord oh my soul! O Lord my God you are very great: You are clothed with honor and Majesty, Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain. He lays the beams of his upper chambers in waters, Who makes the clouds his chariot, Who walks on the wings of the wind, Who makes his angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire. You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever, You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the voice of your thunder they hastened away..."

If God is so big that He created the universe and all in it then He is for sure bigger than anything we would face in this life and there is hope and comfort in that too!

GOD IS BIGGER than ___________ (fill in the blank)

-Shannon

Discouragement

Discouragement paralyzes motivation like a deadly snakebite.....


He whispers in our ear.....


You are small, Look at the amazing things others are doing, why even bother, there's nothing that hasn't already been done.


Almost 3o now, life is passing. face reality there are many better than you, you are not original.


Then I hear the quiet whisper of the spirit of God ........


I never meant for you to know of every way I am working through others in the entire world. you need to be doing what I called you to do in YOUR WORLD.


You can make a difference for me


All the little things DO matter.


You are the most magnificent, original, special and BIG person to the three little people I put in your care.... THEY ARE YOUR WORLD.


Don't forget my word....



Phillipians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"



John 15:16a, "You did not choose me, but I choose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain."



Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts I think toward you sayeth the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."



Psalms 40:5, "Many O Lord are thy wonderous works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are toward us; they can not be reckoned up in order unto thee. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered."


Psalms 139:14, "I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."



And HIS peace settles the soul and quiets the accuser's voice.


Isaiah 26:3, "And you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you/"

-Shannon

Our Recent School Drama Continued!

Ok, so I know I have been terribly inconsistent and slow at keeping this blog up to date and for that I am sorry, but hey, atleast I get to it at some point, right? lol. So let me share with you all what happened with Domenic's School a couple of months ago.......


Domenic was in class and he drew a picture of two people with word bubbles. The one person was calling the other a name, and the other was saying "I'm going to kill you. That may not have been very appropriate to draw in school, but it was just typical boy behavior. Now, at this point in the story, we recieved two different accounts of what took place. One account from Domenic's teacher, who was there at the time, and another account from the school psychologist. The teacher said that another student and Domenic came up to his desk and that the one student told on Domenic that he had written bad words. According to the teacher, he took the paper and gave it to the assistant principle as was procedure for anything "violent" or questionable. and that was the end of it as far as what he dealt with. So the story continues......


Later that day, Domenic was called out of art class and taken down to the psychologist's office and was questioned by the psychologist and the social worker without our knowledge or consent!!! They basically did a psych evaluation on him. They asked him questions about every area of his life and even asked him, "do both your parents live with you?" and "do you sleep in the same bed with your brother?" as well as, "What happens when you get into trouble at home"

I only learned of this later that day when I got a call from the school. I think it was the assistant to the principle that called. She informed me of the drawing and said that he was talked to about it and that he didn't give them much information, but he did say that he was sad because his father was gone. BRYAN WAS IN NYC FOR 2 DAYS!!! Not gone like they were obviously thinking! It was very obvious to me that they were asking him leading questions and infact doing a psych eval on him. Domenic gave us a list a page long of questions that were asked him.

So, Bryan, having a law degree was not happy! According to the constitution of the United States of America you cannot interview or question a minor without his or her parent's consent. There are reasons for this. For those of you who have children, you especially know that a child will oftentimes say things they don't mean, mix up definitions of what they do mean, and may not always recall things accuratly. But the school district thinks they can do whatever they want. After meeting with the principle and social worker and expressing our concern for the handling of the situation this is what we got....

Basically, if your child is deemed a possible threat to another student or staff the school has the right to question your child without your knowledge or consent. Ok, soooooooooooooo they determined my child was a possible threat......because of a drawing. Ok, so they can basically say that anything is a threat. There are no guidelines. One question, if they thought my child was a possible threat, why did they let him continue on with his day to later take him out of art class? If a child is a possible threat to someone shouldn't they immediatly be removed from the classroom and sent to the principle office? I sure wouldn't want my child in a room with another child that could possibly be a "threat"! The corrent handling of the situation would have been to send Domenic to the principles office. contact us, and then deal with the situation with us involved. They took a simple thing, a drawing from a good boy who is exactly that, a BOY and turned it into this big fiasco! This whole thing could have been avoided by a simple phone call. But no, the school thinks they can do whatever they want, even usurp our children's constitutional rights!

But wait, it's not over yet! There is still more to this story. Stay tuned!

-Shannon