Scriptures and Vomit

Now, that's a title to peek your interest!

Our kids have been pretty healthy all school year, but Morgan picked something up somewhere and got sick for a day or so.....and now Peyton has joined the club. Morgan loves when Daddy reads to her, even when she is sick.

We had a good Family Home Evening lesson on Monday. It was about how grateful we should be for the scriptures we have and to recognize the sacrifice that was put into us being able to have them.

We started by reading this quote:
On October 6, in the year 1536, a pitiful figure was led from a dungeon in Vilvorde Castle near Brussels, Belgium. For nearly a year and a half, the man had suffered isolation in a dark, damp cell. Now outside the castle wall, the prisoner was fastened to a post. He had time to utter aloud his final prayer, “Lord! open the king of England’s eyes,” and then he was strangled. Immediately, his body was burned at the stake. Who was this man, and what was the offense for which both political and ecclesiastical authorities had condemned him? His name was William Tyndale, and his crime was to have translated and published the Bible in English.

The kids were shocked to realize that the scriptures used to only be available in Latin to the church leaders.....and no one else. They couldn't even understand that.

Then I had the kids trek around the neighborhood with heavy pillowcases and see what it would have been like to be one of the men that kept safe these early writings.
When they got back, we read Jacob 4:4-5 to read how one of these men felt that had sacrificed to bring us these scriptures.

4 For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we ^aknew of Christ, and we had a hope of his ^bglory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also all the holy ^cprophets which were before us.

5 Behold, they believed in Christ and ^aworshiped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his ^bname. And for this intent we ^ckeep the ^dlaw of Moses, it ^epointing our souls to him; and for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a ^fsimilitude of God and his ^gOnly Begotten Son.

Then to appreciate how SLOW-GOING writing on the plates would have been, we did our own little scripture verse. I had wrapped foil around cardboard (the heavy duty foil) and they had to write their testimony on it using either a toothpick or the end of a closed pen. (Peyton flipped hers over and drew a picture too)
Short and sweet, but the kids definitely thought a little more about what we so easily take for granted. The fact that we have our own personal scriptures, in our home, in a language we can understand is something many people in history have not been able to have.

The best way to be grateful for them is simply to read them and make them a part of our lives.
As I mentioned earlier, I am heading to Cincinnati early tomorrow morning (like getting up at 3:30am) to visit with my oldest girlfriend (um, I guess what I mean is that of all the friends I have in my "tight circle" friendships, she has been there the longest. We met when we were 12.).

I hate to leave the family, especially when I will be missing out on some of this action:
But Christy has some amazing plans for us in Ohio. I don't think I have ever just left my family to go play with a friend. I am one lucky girl!!

(Christy and I two years ago when she moved from Oregon to Ohio)