Whaddaya know

Merry Christmas, y’all!

I think. I woke up this morning and I couldn’t believe it! It’s October and already the snow is flying. My favorite season is still hanging up there in the trees. One of the little kid’s school books was talking about the seasons and here’s how they divided them.

April/May/June – Spring (nice)
July/August/September – Summer (also nice)
October/November/December – Fall (*choke* what?)
January/February/March- Winter (ha, ha, ha, ha!)

They must not have had the far reaches of the north in mind when they wrote that. Granted, those are very neat and tidy boxes to put the seasons into.

These are my boxes.

March/April/May/June – Spring
July/August/September – Summer
September/October – Fall
November/December/January/February/March – Winter

I guess now October makes the slot for ‘winter’.

It’s been a weird year for weather anyway. Winter was mild (on my terms), we hardly got to spring; the summer was like spring, and then fall- who’s heard of fall- and now winter.

I digress. The snow has melted now, and though I haven’t heard the forecast, I hope it doesn’t include more snow.

Although I did wake up with the urge to sing Christmas carols. Wonder where that came from… Winter isn’t all bad. I rather like it; I was raised in North Dakota. You either love it or hate it. The cold season is invariably the coziest one, full of hot cocoa, fluffy sweaters, visible breath, warm quilts, candles, slippers, and delicious soup- and runny noses, frozen fingers, insane people driving during blizzards (none that I could mention by name…), and dashing across the Wal-Mart parking lot clutching jacket and hat to save them being snatched by the biting wind.

Well, by this post I guess you could say I’m in the winter mood but still hopeful for more of the autumn, which, as I said, is still hanging in the trees.

Moving on…

I used to complain (inwardly) that my life was not interesting enough. No one would ever write a biography about us or even an autobiography if I ever got the itch to make one.

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I don’t complain about that any longer. In fact, I try not to complain at all about something as general as ‘my life’. It’s too risky; you never know when life may begin to take some very interesting turns. I just might take up that autobiography after all. If I wanted to, the story could start two years ago. I think that’s when all the fun began. (If you hadn’t noticed, all the sentences in this paragraph start with an ‘I’.)

Take one year and add all these ingredients in order:

attempted adoption
trip to Las Vegas (edit: my mom went to my uncle's wedding, so for a week I was those two dreaded words- in charge)
remodeling
new baby
chicken pox
very sick brother
hospital stay
whooping cough
strep throat
deer + mini-van = totaled
icy highway + other van = rolled and totaled
goats
another trip to hospital
stitches
lice

Sprinkle on a generous amount of music, movies, books, school, activities, animals, friends, and all the other parts of life and I think you’ve got the makings of a first-rate autobiography. If not, then at least a nice journal entry.

Life… What is life? I’m studying chemistry this year (as well as biology, which I was supposed to finish last year…) and I can’t get over this ‘life’ thing. During Sunday ‘services’ at our friends’ pasture this year we watched a video about Life. Obviously inanimate objects aren’t alive, but technically, according the Bible, plants aren’t alive either. They’re simply ‘green things’ or ‘herbs’.

‘Animus’, the Latin word found in ‘animate’ or ‘inanimate’ means mind or spirit. Only people and animals have a ‘spirit’ and are therefore alive. Of course, animals don’t have souls and aren’t given a mind like man has to think and question and learn facts and aren't made in the image of God, and, and, and the list goes on and on.

Genesis 1:24, 25a, 29-30; 2:7-

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (emphasis mine)

So anyway, differences between animals and humans aside, as I was thinking about this, I realized that scientists have a pretty good grasp on matter. They know how to manipulate molecules, and measure the width of a cell, and count the chromosomes in your DNA- but this idea of life boggles them. (And me, hey, I guess I fit in the ‘scientist’ slot!)

Matter comes from other matter. Chemical reactions produce things with the same mass as their original form. Water and energy from sunlight makes seeds grow into new plants. Babies grow and are born to parents of the same kind (again, enter energy and chemical reactions). But where does life come from?

Only a Supreme Being, Someone who possesses all the ability to exist and to be alive could possibly provide the life for so many of millions of ‘living creatures’.

Colossians 1:16-17 – For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Farewell for a time.