Cinnamon Rolls and Testing

Today was a great day. Seriously. We're doing the government required testing so that we can continue to homeschool. Plus, our family consists of a fairly wide range of ages (6 - 13), so whoever is not testing at the moment gets to hang out quietly upstairs doing almost anything. They can watch TV (Leave It To Beaver!) and read and play with Legos and train tracks and (my personal favorite) write.

Which is what I did. I wrote. All Day. Can you believe it? All day. Doesn't that sound like a fantastic day? I think so. I also baked. Cinnamon rolls. The really good kind that are huge and gooey and nutty and homemade. Can't you just smell them?

So, baking is another thing that I love to do and it consumed about 5 hours of my day to make these cinnamon rolls (yeah, they're that good). Then they sat on the counter, filling the house with their rich smell for a good two hours.

Unfortunately, us humans weren't the only ones to smell them.

My mom and I were outside viewing tree forts when disaster struck. "You better come inside, quick!" said Will, one of my younger brothers. Someone said something about dogs and that's when I started despairing.

I entered the kitchen, only to find the expected. The plate of now-demolished cinnamon rolls was upside-down on the floor, half-eaten. I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh or cry. I did neither at the time, still trying to control my thoughts.

The really funny thing was, that the strongest reaction came from my dad, who was not happy that tomorrow morning's breakfast was destroyed in such a short time by someone other than himself.

The mutts did not get to everything though.

Imagine the scene: I come in to the room and stand for a moment, shocked. Eventually, I am able to pick up the plate and set it on the counter, then begin picking up the pieces off the floor. Once the floor is clean, I see the cinnamon roll pieces that are still stuck to the plate. I see no reason to waste good food, so I peel off the parts that touched the floor and the dog's mouth (not that I would have minded eating them, but people would have made a big deal out of it) and I share the salvageable bits with my mother and the brother that attempted to rescue them.

So that was it. My great day. I only have one last thing to say: they were good. :)

Searching

I read this book about a year ago called Do Hard Things: A Teenage rebellion Against Low Expectations. It was written by Alex and Brett Harris when they were 19 years old. The twins decided to write this book about how teens today are "shackled" by the low expectations of today's culture and how that needs to change.

As is pointed out in this wonderful book, teens less than a hundred years ago were working to earn money for their families and were treated like adults from a "young" age. Now, we are expected to sit around and goof off for years then suddenly be able to recover and gain some immediate work ethic - yeah, right.

Since going back to the "Rebelution" blog, as it's called (started by the same people), I have been restless. Restless to do something for God - and that's another thing. The Rebelution isn't about doing hard things just to do them. No, the point is to do something to glorify God. That should be our goal in life anyway. The Westminster Shorter chatechism even says it in the first question: "What is man's chief end? - Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

So that got me thinking. What on earth am I doing to glorify God right now? How am I working to further His kingdom? The answer is, I am doing nothing. And that needs to change. As in, now.

This brings up the question, what should I be doing? That one's hard. What work does God have for me to do right now? And is it more than what I'm already doing? Maybe God wants me to just put everything I have into what's going on in my life now. I honestly don't know right now.

So in conclusion to this short blog post, please pray for me and let me leave you with a few questions to torture your mind for a while: where does God want you right now? What should you be doing to serve the Lord? And what are you going to do about it?