I love it when He does that!

A lesson about Jonah ::

One of the things I love about homeschooling (besides that we can start early and stay in the a/c while it's too hot to be outside and then take a break when the wonderful fall weather comes) is seeing God's hand in our educational pursuits.

Not just that we study the Bible and pray - but that God is a wonderful conductor orchestrating our days to bring honor and glory to Him.

Yesterday was one of those days.

Seemingly insignificant events ... all came together for a great purpose ... and a Bible story came to life. It was a story about Jonah.

We started in the morning talking about Jonah and how he traveled by foot, by boat and by whale.

We made our whales with Jonah inside praying. I tweaked the lesson a bit so we didn't have to use paint. :-)

I didn't have anything else planned for the story and with the kids having taken a shorter rest time (and a storm on its way); we headed outside to play 'til supper.

I grabbed some chalk and thought about making our story of Jonah come to life. Elle was not enjoying the thunder in the distance, so Quintin went solo on the re-enactment.

"Jonah" taking a ship to put distance between himself and Nineveh.

"Uh-oh! Look at these raindrops and our ship is being tossed about."

OVERBOARD!

"I seem to have found myself inside the belly of a whale. What will I do now?"

"I know!"

Being tossed out to dry ground.

Our next move was inside as the thunder was coming closer and supper was soon ready. Here is where I marveled at God's work. I had already put the kids' supper in the oven before we went outside and I took a break during our re-enactment to prepare supper for T and me ... not even thinking about what I was making. As we headed inside, the kids asked what was for supper. Then it hit me - and I had to chuckle at how God put the events together - T and I were having tilapia and the kids were having fish sticks - or as I told them, "Whale sticks!"

As we sat down to supper, the rain began. I looked at each of the faces around the table and asked, "OK, which one of you was the cause of this storm? Who do we need to throw overboard?" The kids chuckled and I continued to marvel at God's hand in our lesson. It is my hope that the kids will remember our fun Jonah lessons and that it will bring a smile to their faces. Well, once Elle forgets about the booming thunder she heard outside! :D

So, yeah, I love it when He does that!