Cyclone has started a new semester at school.  Gone are drawing and painting and general fitness and present are television production and weight-lifting.  Concerning the latter, the lad has had no actual experience with lifting weights thus far at school.  He and I used to lift free weights on occasion when we were homeschooling, but I think the training he will get by a professional coach will stand him in good stead.

If, of course, the coach materializes.  He’s been out all week and the kids have just been killing time in his class!

However, the TV class is going much better. It is exciting for me to see how my older son lights up as he relates things he learns in this class.  Homework last night was – surprise, surprise – to watch TV and take notes on the commercials.  Alas for the young man who HAS to watch television for homework!  Tonight, though, he is going to be making a 3-D model of a DNA strand.  Or a part thereof.  He and I have discussed it and will go shopping for appropriate materials this afternoon.  I enjoy his sense of humor and skewed version of his school day.

Builder, though, is not as communicative.  He puts a barrier between school and home that is rarely breached. I rarely hear about school; he flatly refuses to discuss it at home.  The reverse is also true; his teachers hear almost nothing of what happens while he away from them.

So the yearly IEP meetings are highly enlightening for all of us!  I am pleased to report that Builder is mastering many of his former educational goals and is ready for new ones.  As he finishes first grade and enters second, he will have new opportunities and will undoubtedly find new ways of communicating.  Already, he has made such outstanding progress!

My kudos to the ESE staff at his school. They are truly amazing people with remarkable dedication.

Tags: ESE, IEP, TV

When I got to my computer this morning (even before coffee!) I found a question waiting for me in reference to my post regarding a pretribulational rapture.  I thought I would share my answer here on my site, taken from my note to my reader.

~*~

Good morning!

A couple of things about 1 Thessalonians. I see that book as evidence of the man as he wrote what God gave him to write.  Paul believed still, in that letter, that Christ’s return was imminent…as in within his — Paul’s — lifetime or shortly thereafter.  That understanding changed for him by the time he wrote his second letter to the churches of Thessalonika.

Now having said that, lol, let me address your question.

[1 Thessalonians 4] 15 For we say this to you by a revelation from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly have no advantage over those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will always be with the Lord.

Paul says that there will be Christians alive when Jesus returns. Many of those to whom he was writing had expressed concern, scholars infer, that those who had died already would not be resurrected to live in Heaven. That only those who were alive would see the Lord.  Paul is addressing this worry — for it can be a debilitating one!  He is telling the people that those who have died in the Lord will rise FIRST.  So not to worry.  And then those who are alive will join them in the air and be with the Lord forever.  A joyful anticipation!

He is addressing the issue of hope, in this section of his letter.  And there is hope indeed for all who are in the Lord, whether dead or living.

As pertains to any “rapture” event… this passage only describes the great harvest, spoken of in the book of Revelation, in chapter 14:

13 Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “let them rest from their labors, for their works follow them!” 14 Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and One like the Son of Man was seated on the cloud, with a gold crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. 15 Another angel came out of the sanctuary, crying out in a loud voice to the One who was seated on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap, for the time to reap has come, since the harvest of the earth is ripe.”  16 So the One seated on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

This is pretty much exactly what Paul was talking about, don’t you think?  :)  This event in the book of Revelation occurs, in my reading and understanding (see my “Tell Everyone” page at my website if you want the full, 50-part study on Revelation. It’s available for free download in a PDF) in the interlude between the trumpets of the angels during the tribulation and the beginning of God’s outpouring of wrath as depicted by the bowls.

Tags: Jesus, John, Paul, rapture, revelation, Thessalonians