For God So Loved The World

It was a festival week.  The children of Israel were celebrating the Passover.

The Passover.  There was a time when God had moved among their ancestors in order to free them from slavery in Egypt.  God had provided the Israelites a way to escape judgment and death, which were coming to the land where they were being held captive.  He had instructed them through Moses to slaughter a lamb for each household, to take the blood of the lamb and put some above the door frame and along the sides of the doors of each house, and then to roast and eat the lamb.  God was going to pass through the land of Egypt and take the life of the first-born in each household, except the ones covered with the blood of the lamb. 

God gave the Israelites a substitute, a life for a life.  The lamb's blood was shed, and the Israelites' blood was not shed.  The blood of the lamb covered the Israelites and protected them from the wrath of a righteous God.

The Passover was an annual celebration, a week of commemorating the awesome way God had intervened in the history of this people.  This particular Passover was going to be different, though.  There would be blood shed again.  The blood of the Lamb.  Providing a way for a people to escape judgment and death. 

God gave us a substitute, a life for a life.  The Lamb's blood was shed, and our blood does not have to be shed.  The blood of the Lamb covers and protects us from the wrath of a righteous God.

I will remember.  As the blood was spread over the tops and sides of the doorframes, Jesus' hands were spread across a wooden beam.  His body was broken, his blood was poured out, his life was given.

Unlike the lamb of the first Passover Jesus was fully aware of what he would do in obedience to his Father.  He knew his Father's love, he loved those his Father had given to him, and he willingly laid down his life for those who were his.  He saw the suffering that was to come, and yet he saw the joy that was beyond that suffering.  He was beaten, he bled and died, because he loved us.  He loves us still.

Hebrews 12:1-2

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

They Crack Me Up

I rarely eggsagerrate, as you know.  I take eggstreme care to eggspress eggcerpts of our life eggsactly as they are eggsperienced by us Walkers.  I do get eggcited at times, but I aim for eggcellence in both the eggxhibition of and the eggsplanation of our eggceedingly eggceptional life.

Things don't always go as I would eggspect around here.  But I think it makes for an eggstra special eggsistence.  For eggsample, Michaela often eggsecutes eggstravagant hair-dos with her sister's long locks. But I found out today that this eggsercise does not belong eggsclusively to a sister.  Christian, too, has eggsperimented with eggsemplary skill to eggspertly and eggsquisitely decorate his younger sister's hair.  Let's eggsamine what he called "The Egg Braid".

Christian created this look with eggscruciating care, eggstensively eggxhorting Eliana to be still so she would not be hurt.   

It must have been an eggxhausting endeavor!  Sometimes he can eggsemplify patience.

Inhale, eggxhale...egg by egg; he eggspedicously attached plastic orbs to strands of Eliana's hair until her head was eggsorbitantly covered with a glorious array of pastel.

How did Eliana feel about this eggsplosion of eggs all about her?  She was eggsuberant regarding the eggsponential appearance of pink and yellow and purple in her hair!

It was eggciting to see the finished product!

However, as happens with most good things, even the time for such an eggstroidinary hair-do must eggspire.  As Eliana moved from being eggstatic to eggspostulating with any sympathetic ear about the possible eggstirpation of almost all of her hair I knew I would need to eggstract each egg quickly.

I am not an eggspert, but I believe we can eggstrapolate from this eggsperience that this is not a trend that we can eggspect to see on the Red Carpet any time soon.   And please eggscuse my eggcessive use of a certain word in the eggsposition of this afternoon.

Texas Rangers In the Swing of Things

A week ago we went to our first baseball game of the season.  I wish I had known when I was younger how much I liked baseball!  Grandma Lillie loved watching baseball, and I would have loved to have had a connection with her about that. 

Anyway, we have had a lot of fun becoming true-blue Rangers fans.  After winning the League championship series, the team went to the World Series last year for the first time in the history of their existence, and it was so exciting to watch them go as far as they did. 

So far this season they have one of the best records in the League, and when we went to see them they were undefeated (since the game we attended, they have lost one game to Baltimore and one game to Detroit). 

We cheered like mad whether they were in the field or up at bat.

I should probably say that I cheered like mad.  While the kids were happy to be at the game, they were really happy about $1 hot dogs and ice cream.

Eliana hung in there.  Baseball games for three-year-olds don't hold the same kind of interest as they do for thirty-five-year-olds (give or take a couple of years).

She did some lap-hopping and shared her ice cream with her mama.  What a sweet girl!

Christian.  You might not think that is a complete sentence, but it is.  This boy?  Makes me laugh so. 

Only Christian can eat his lemon ice in such a way that it looks like he's smoking the world's longest cigarette.

When he wears his hat like that (which I'm never sure if that is accidental or not) all I can think is,"Booyah!"

Towards the end of the game I took Christian and Eliana to walk around in the shaded area behind the seating (they were hot), but we made it back to our seats for the Rangers' last pitches, and their defeat of the Mariners.  Of course, there is the congratulatory line/hand shaking/high-fiving. 

We are looking forward to a great season with a great team!  Goooo, Rangers! 

If only I had pom-poms.

Welcome to My Mind (Or, Run! Run Away!)

I am, I mean, my computer is undergoing a bit of an upgrade.  Mike has upgraded the operating system and other changes are in the works, but what that means is that right now I don't really have anywhere to put my pictures.  So...there are blog posts waiting in line in my head (almost as well as Mindee's kindergarteners, I bet) because there are pictures to go along with them, but no way to get them from my camera onto the blog.  Then there are pictures that I have taken with my phone (like the Pinkberry pics) that take FOR. EHHH. VVVERRRR.  to upload from the phone to the web album because I choose to upload 158 pictures at a time and after the phone has had a heart attack and then decides to start talking to me again and finish uploading the pictures, two days have gone by and I may or may not remember why I took the pictures and was I going to write a post about that? 

Here is what you have to look forward to (of course with cleverly written narrative full of sharp wit and exquisite photography) (or at least pictures of pretty cute kids) (I know I am totally biased)...

a post about our new tree swing

a post about our first Rangers game (would you write "Rangers' game", as in "the game of the Rangers"?)

a post about a dead lizard (you should know the dead lizard was indeed in our house and not in a very nice place, either)

a post about a random day (okay, this could be one of about forty posts)

Now.  Because I had a conversation with Michaela tonight after reading the mother/daughter devotional about idolatry, I am going to set the computer aside and read some Scripture.  I was convicted of how much time I spend on the computer at night again, and how little time I give my completely focused attention to my Savior.  I am so grateful he is one who calls us back to him, and forgives us! 

Pinkberry

The kids have been asking me to take them to this very, very cute little frozen yogurt place that we pass every time we head to school and back home.  It is called Pinkberry.  

You can see the allure, can't you? 

There are several choices from original to chocolate to mango to lychee.  You can get one flavor, or mix them up.

I was completely surprised by Eliana's choice:  chocolate.

Just kidding.  (That I was surprised, not that that was her choice.)

Let me tell you, this girl can rock the chocolate goatee. 

Christian also chose the chocolate.  You can get toppings, and you pay one price for as many toppings as will fit in your cup.  So...it only makes sense to get as many as will fit in your cup, right?  Right.  He chose chocolate pieces, brownie bits, and Oreo cookie crumbles.  I told him that he better behave later.  That is a lot of chocolate.

Michaela had the mango.  She added brownie bits and one other thing that I cannot remember for anything.  She ate every bite.

This was a special treat, and they had fun.  Who wouldn't have fun in a place called Pinkberry, though?!

Pinkberry, Christian!  Not Pickberry!  Management may or may not have asked us not to come back...