We took our kids to WildLights at the Columbus Zoo (highly recommend it if you are in the area…but dress warm!!!).  We had a great time.  The kids loved the lights and it was fun as a family to just bundle up and get in the winter spirit by freezing together.  Ah, nothing brings a family together like freezing temps!

So we get the kids back to the car, hit the Starbucks as a treat, and head home.  Halfway home Andrea, being the awesome mom that she is, gives Addison and Brayden their own bags of a mix of pretzels, raisins, and honey-nut Cheerios.  Way to go mom!!!

So about 10 minutes later she turns and says to me, “I smell pee.”  (Keep in mind, Brayden is getting potty trained and is wearing underwear not a diaper…so it’s not really a weird statement).  And I looked at her, waited a moment, took a sniff, and said “Really I smell Cheerios.”  Andrea’s response “Oh yeah, I think Cheerios smell like pee! (Pause)  I probably shouldn’t have told you that!”

Now my response was “Oh I am so putting this on my blog.  I wonder if anyone else thinks that pee smells like Honey-Nut Cheerios?”

So we were getting ready for bed last night, talking about life, our relationship (always good to keep that talk going), and just stuff parents want to talk about when their kids are in bed….grown up stuff.  We have a routine of getting in bed and watching the Jay Leno Show (tivo’d, of course…who has time for commercials) before we go to sleep.  Anyway, Sandra Bullock was on last night and she was talking about her two dogs, one of which has just 3 legs and one that has 2 legs.  So Jay Leno asked her how the dog goes to the bathroom.  I believe the question was “so what leg does the dog raise?  I mean is it like a flamingo thing?”  Sandra Bullock was like “Jay she is a girl…the squat.”  This is where it got really funny to me!

Andrea turns to me and says (now understand she had spent much of the day beginning the process of potty training with my son, Brayden), “Isn’t it amazing that no one has to teach a boy dog to lift their leg, or a girl dog to squat?  I mean, God just put that in their DNA to know to do that.  You don’t have to train a dog to do that, they just know. YOu have to teach humans how to use the bathroom, but dogs just know that boy dogs raise their leg and girl dogs squat.  I find that fascinating!”

I may have cried myself to sleep, I don’t remember.  All I know is I laughed at the pure honesty of the moment…And knew it would wind up on my blog!

Apparently earlier in the day, Addison needed to cut something (yeah, it’s what you’re thinking!) so Andrea gave her the scissors.  I guess she thought she could cut her pants and not get in trouble.

So here is the kicker.  I asked Addison what she was thinking?!  She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Daddy I wanted pants like the teenagers!”

During our youth morning bible study class, the study was focused around the story of the Fiery Furnace.  You know, the story of the three Jewish boys who chose to stand up for their beliefs when the King told them to bow.  And they said we will not bow, we will not worship you, for we worship God!  And the results was they were thrown into the fiery furnace. You can read it here in Daniel Chapter 3

And about midway through it hit me.  When we look at that story we focus on the three who stand all the time.  But what about the thousands that bowed.  Some people live their faith because they are scared about what God will do to them if they don’t.  But in this story- nothing happened.  There was no punishment handed down from God at that moment for those who bowed to the statue.  Nothing Happened.  But yet something did.

Think about it- there was no big cosmic meteor shower that came to earth and killed all those people who worshipped the statue.  In fact, there daily life was not altered one bit after that.  They continued to live out their existence in Babylon just like they did the weeks and months before this incident.  Nothing Happened.  And you can think it’s just not fair that God doesn’t punish those who do not follow his guidelines. It’s not fair that the only people who were in trouble were the people who stood up for what is right.  Nothing Happened to the other people.

But something happened…and it still happens today.  Think about the story.  When we look at that story, we know the names of those who took a stand.   We see that because of their stand they were tossed into the furnace.  And because of their faith, God rescued them from the furnace and the King realized how powerful God was. And for the rest of the people…Nothing happened!

Exactly.  Nothing.  There was no consequences for their actions, no immediate punishment.  But yet there was also something that happened.  They lost the chance to impact their world.  When presented with the opportunity to stand, they bowed.  And nothing happened.  No impact.  No great encounter with God.  No change in people’s lives.  Nothing Happened.

Don’t let nothing happen in your life…

We had our yearly Extreme Week lasst week and it was awesome.  With over 100 students from the Pickerington Area attending throughout the week, many of whom are students that go to our church but are not involved in youth ministry, I deem it a huge success (plus nobody had to go to the hospital this year, so yay!!!)

Anyway, I thought I would post the extreme week video here for you to see.  Since we did Extreme Week at night this year, we didn’t get as many awesome pics, but playing games at night was awesome!!!!  Enjoy the videos!  The first is pics from extreme week…and the second is a video of me swallowing a live goldfish from a bet Imade with our students.  Enjoy!!!