Yesterday morning I had the honor of working with K church at Grace Baptist. These are the 3-5 year-olds. What fun we had! My friend Noah was not a happy camper, so he got to climb into my lap and learn how to do the wheelchair dance while we sang praise songs. A few of the songs were slower and not appropriate for dancing, so he held my hands and taught me the motions to the songs. He is a snuggler, and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Next week I get to tell the story, and then I get to go in once a month and be the story teller.

This week's story was about the annunciation. We got to the puppet show and the puppets talked about the fact that Mary was a little scared by the angel, so the angel had to tell her not to be scared. They also talked about the fact that Mary was probably a little scared about being a good Mommy to Jesus and wondered if she could do a good job. It occurred to me that Mary is the ultimate human example of completely removing SELF from the picture and surrendering to God completely.

As I spend this advent season preparing for the coming of Christmas and for the second coming, my prayer is that I will do a better job of surrendering self to God.

If thou could`st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, `This is not dead`,
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes, He says, `This is enow
Unto itself - `twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me.`

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)