Sometimes, people say that God doesn’t care, and that he lets evil run rampant without stopping it.

I believe, of course, that he DOES care. That he has set in place things we can CHOOSE to do to head off the hideous evils that our world can produce, but that people do not CHOOSE to heed these preventative options.

For example, when I was suicidal many years ago, I could have followed my own heart and killed myself. I was fully prepared to do so. The Lord stepped in, however, and stopped me. Not by holding my arms back from myself or putting me to sleep, but by reminding me that it — meaning my life — would be all right. Eventually. I just had to give it time.

I could have killed myself. I could have. But I chose, instead, to heed the Lord and refrain.

Could be, that when we hear of monstrous atrocities, that the voice of God, through him or through his people, was there to prevent it…

But that someone, somewhere, did not heed that voice and something horrible happened.

God loves us. So much. We must grieve him so when we ignore him. Me, I hate being ignored and I’m just a chick. I can only imagine the divine frustration when an omniscient God tries to get his people to hear him and they refuse.

I can only imagine his sorrow when tragedy ensues.

God, forgive us for our willfulness. Help us to be brave enough to listen.

Tags: choices, God, tragedy

We are now a few weeks into Home Church for my little guy and myself.   Every week, I ask him what he wants to hear about (because I think that helps focus him as we start this new routine and it helps to give God’s Word greater relevance if he gets to choose) and then I find a coloring page or activity page and tell the story from one of the Bibles I used when I was still in Youth Ministry.  (Builder doesn’t like “kid Bibles” so this is a good compromise.)

Today, the story was David and Goliath.  Due to the necessity of keeping his attention, I do some acting out of the story, changing the language to more “contemporary” phrasing, while showing him what the Bible actually says.  This makes him listen and react, which is good.  Then he did the activity page. Today it was a word search.  With each word, I asked him who or what in the story related to that word.  “Armor. Who wore armor?  Afraid.  Who was afraid?”

I am thinking that when he runs out of stories he wants to hear, I will alternate stories of the Judges (Ehud really captures the imagination!) with Jesus’ teachings.  We’ll see how that works.:-)

After we have our lesson, we talk to God (after discussing what we wish to talk to God about) and then we have a snack and then our Sunday School time is over.  It isn’t perfect, but it is preferable to spending half of Sunday morning walking aimlessly about, or having melt-downs in class or in the Children’s Ministry.

It is a challenge, but I am trying to do what is best for my whole family, even if it isn’t always optimal.  Sometimes, in a house like ours, that IS the best that can be done.

Thanks be to God for his mercy, grace and sense of humor!

Tags: Autism, Bible study, children, God, home church, Parenting, Sunday School, teaching