Priceless Beach Time

There's something special about beach combing with a child, especially a grandchild.  My little guy loves sports, so he likes to be on the run.  Walking the shoreline, though, with our heads down looking for treasures, everything slows down, and we can truly enjoy each others' company.  To make it even more fun, we assigned point values to different fossils.  The lightning stones were five points each, along with the pipe organ coral, but we decided that crinoids and anything containing them would be ten points.  The horn coral and Petoskey eye were also ten, but the glass, quartz, basalt, and anything that we couldn't identify were all worth one point.  After about an hour, our combined total with this collection ended up at 174, but the time spent together was priceless!

This Week's Inspiration for Protection
found in Romans 8:31

For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. 

Four Days of Beach Blessings

Between today and my last post, I was able to go hunting for beach blessings four times.  This is the combined collection.  Would you believe there are 262 pieces of sea glass?  And just look at that magnificent chunk of dark green near the middle!  Whew!  I'll be making something out of that one!

From the bottom of the pile and heading clockwise along the perimeter you'll see: five ceramic shards, a heart-shaped rock with favosite fossil "wings", a crinoid-filled heart-shaped rock, an unidentified fossil that I initially thought was Cladopora, four really pretty granite rocks, a perfectly pendant-ready clay rock, two small pipe organ coral fossils, a honeycomb coral, a piece of horn coral, and above the corals are 16 crinoids with one tiny piece of horn coral.  Continuing around, there are three petoskey stones, a Fern Creek tillite, and a beautiful amber-colored quartz.

Today's Inspiration  (a promise from God to help you live a long life)

Children, obey your parents in the Lord,  for this is right.  "Honor your father and mother"---which is the first commandment with a promise---"so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth."
 Ephesians 6:1-3  (NIV)

Coming off of Mother's Day and heading into Father's Day, I felt this was the perfect reading, especially for anyone who is estranged from their parents and would like to have peace regarding them.

Tuesday's Week-end Pile

My school year is almost done, just three more days of teaching Title One, and then I'll be free for the summer!  Knowing how busy I would be, I photographed my collections from the week-end.  This rather large pile is the result of my Saturday morning walk.  You can see almost 50 pieces of sea glass, four varying sizes of crinoids, and two rocks that are full of some smaller ones.  The fossils between them are a horn coral on the left and a chain coral on the right (Although, the chain is straighter than I usually see, so I could be wrong.).  There are two rocks in the pile just because they're pretty!

Today's Inspirational Message   (From 2 Peter 3:8-9)

But you must not forget, dear friends, that a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.  The Lord isn't really being slow about His promise to return, as some people think.  No, He is being patient for your sake.  He doesn't want anyone to perish, so He is giving more time for everyone to repent. 

2016 Today's Catch, April 15

It was my first time to the beach since my spine surgery.  Hoping that my tailbone would be able to handle the repetitious bending and standing pattern, I was both excited and a little leary.  Thankfully, all was well.  No pain, and I found more treasures than I had anticipated.  I was especially excited about the seven crinoids! (The oldest record of crinoid fossils stands at 350 million years, but there are some types of crinoids still living, so I have no idea how old these are!)

Scripture for the Day
For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down---when we die and leave these bodies---we will have a home in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.  We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long for the day when we will put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.  For we will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies.  Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and have no bodies at all.  We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life.  God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 5:1-10 (NLT)