Sunday in 2 parts.

Part 1: the kids.
They told us that attendence would be low the first few weeks and then as school started, would surge and then level out in October or November. The first 3 weeks, we had 7 or 8 kids in our class each Sunday. Today we had 15. That's right. 15 5 year old blessings. I've been praying to become a more patient person and for sweeter speech, and this is an excellent arena to develop those things! Probably 10 of my kids are wonderful. They're pretty well behaved and the worst problem is a bit of the wiggles or wanting to keep playing instead of doing the lesson activities. But the other 4 or so offered some challenges. These challenges were totally exacerbated by today's lesson which was the plagues in Egypt. To replicate the boils, the kids were given red dot stickers. Most of them were adorable with it. 3 of mine were gone for the rest of the lesson because they got so wrapped in sticking them on each other's eyes. Don't worry, they offered up challenges outside of that, too. The biggest challenge of the day was that they did tangible renactments of these plagues outside. Friends, it was HOT. We didn't make it through all the plagues, but we did add a new one: the plague of "I have to potty real bad!" It wasn't really that horrible, but I hope that they rethink the time of the year they do this lesson when it cycles back around.
The morning ended with an awesome moment, though. I had a new girl in my class and she was not happy about being there when she arrived. We sat together on the carpet and I tried to convince her to play with the other kids, but she wouldn't even talk to me, just make gestures and "HRMPH!"'s. When her mom came to pick her up, she ran over and gave me a huge hug. LOVE IT.

Part 2: the sermon
Today was the first day of the new sermon series: For Better, For Worse. Today's message was the purpose of marriage. I've been praying since I found out about this series that God would open me to it and change me. I prayed it again this morning when we were praying before he delivered the message! So imagine my surprise when I found myself sinking into resentment and a general feeling of, "Duh." I caught myself and immediately prayed for God to remove my arrogance. Obviously, there are lessons for me to learn and changes to be made in me with this, because why else would God have me in this place to hear these things?

I believe that God is at work and moving, and maybe, just maybe, D will listen to these sermons online. Nothing is too big for our Lord, so why not?