This year, I'm a sponsor for A.C.E. regional student convention, and have had the opportunity to work with this awesome group of young people on a one-act-play. The props are fun. I LOVE the fog machine, but I'm also really enjoying watching everyone's acting talents come out in fun ways.
This particular skit they're doing is special to me because it's based off an old Children's Bible Hour story I grew up listening too. I love the message, and reminder that we don't know how long we have on earth, and we need to live every for God.
I'm working full-time this winter at a coffee shop, and every morning when I head out, I look at the car thermometer and wonder if spring will ever come. It seems that nearly EVERY morning it's at least 20-30 below zero, and after a few really warm winters in a row, this feels especially brutal. Despite being completely ready for it to warm up, I really do love living in this cold place.
Miriam and I have been running a girl's Bible study this winter as well. During one of the meetings, we did a personality quiz to help each other understand the way God made us all different and we can use our differences to work together for His glory.
We've been going through the Bible study book called, The 21 Tenents of Biblical Femininity by Jerry Ross. I don't agree with everything in the book, but in a day and age where the world is constantly attacking Biblical feminity, I've been loving this study! There's been some fun discussions, great topics, and obscure Biblical women to study.
And when you go skating at negative twenty, your eyelashes turn to snow! Sadly, I haven't gotten out skating as much as I'd have liked to this winter, but I sure enjoyed the times I did get out!
Our town had a five-mile skate path on the river, and we got to do the whole thing a few times, but they finally had to close it because we had so much snow it was getting impossible to keep up on it.
Over Christmas, I got together with some cousins and played an escape-room-style game where you get to solve a mystery. I loved going through the police files and evidence and trying to solve it. If you ever get the chance to play one, it's a lot of fun!
Since I'm gone so much, I don't normally do much cooking, so when I do get to cook, I love going all out. Like with this shrimp dish that I kind of made up by combining several recipes. :)
In my 'free-time' I've been staying busy as ever. Things like babysitting, Bible study, play practice, snow camp, writer's conference, book conventions, writing weekly for the newspaper, etc. keep me busy.
One of the major things that happened in the end of November/early December that kept me from posting, was that my family and I all got Covid. Mom ended up getting a serious case and was life-flighted to a bigger hospital where she was put on a ventilator, and we weren't expecting her to make it. Many of you were praying for us, and it was honestly those prayers that kept us going. Mom shouldn't have made it, but she did. She shouldn't have gotten out of the hospital so fast, but she did. She shouldn't have gotten off the oxygen so fast, but she did. She shouldn't have been home for Christmas, but she was. We are so thankful and blessed for God's healing, and all of you who were praying for us.
Personally, I really struggled through this time. I was sick myself, and had a lot of vertigo and brain-fog, as well as all the emotional ups and downs with mom, and I'm so thankful that God is a rock and a very present help in trouble. Thank you all for praying, and being there for us.
Since she's been home, she's back to planning the corn maze, and life has swung back into a crazy normal, and as I run from one thing to the next, I'm just thankful that God is with me every step.
So yeah, that's a brief update on my life. Maybe I'll get back to posting more regularly now . . . or maybe not.
