Ichabod

"She named the boy Ichabod, saying, "The glory has departed"" I Samuel 4:21

It. You got to have it as a ministry. You can't buy it, you can't earn it, you can catch it, you can realize one day that you've had it, or you can realize that somewhere along the way you lost it.
That's where I find myself. Having just read It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It, by Craig Groeschel. I find myself having lost it.
I've been flying by the seat of my pants, stressed out, missing appointments with God and I'm flat out grounded and broke. I have tried for the last two years to read through the Bible. I made it about half way through. I've decided that I will press on, I hope to read the second half in half a year, but even if I finish in a year, I've done it, straight through once.
I feel as though the creative juices have dried up, but I know that's not entirely true. They're just drier in the desert, the well has to be cleaned out and dug deeper. The past 9 months have seen a lot of struggles and changes in our lives and I'm just starting to get a handle on some of them. I plan to write something each week in each blog. Our photography studio is off to a slow start, but I am hopeful with some of our unique marketing, we'll grow our market share.

Snowmen

As another snow event comes through and I contemplate shoveling its good just to stop and reflect: We love and hate the snow. It's beautiful and has a calming action in our life. Things tend to slow down. We hate because we have to go and move, we drive slower, we have accidents, things get canceled. The kids love it, they whiz down hills on their sleds, pelt each other with snowballs and build snowmen.
We are a lot like snowmen. We are short lived, temporal beings. We are stubborn (ever try to move a snowman?). We let the world around us make us who we are, and put the smile or frown on out face. We can be looking good on the outside, but we're still dirty on the inside, a snow flake forms around a tiny speck of dirt.
Snowmen have all different personalities, short and fat, tall and lean, large and small, straight and crooked. Some hat top hats, some baseball caps, some long pointy noses and some short squatty noses, some where sun glasses and scarves and some just a pair of mittens.
We are like snowmen in how we are all different in shape and personality. We are all unique and special to God. Next time you see a snowman, remember were a lot alike. Maybe when it snows round up the kids and build a snowman or two.