Servant-Teachers

While doing a Bible study about false/good teachers I realized that it's not just referring to those in formal teaching situations.  I am a teacher to my kids in the way I act and present information.  This helped me to pay attention while reading through one of those lists-that-I-normally-skim-over in 2 Cor. 6.

"but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, ⁵ in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, ⁶ in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, ⁷ in the word of truth, in the power of God;"


Now that you have skimmed over it, let's go back and notice a few.  I'm not currently enduring beatings or imprisonments, so it's easy to write off most of the list for other people. But what about sleeplessness and labors?  Or hardships and distresses?  I guess reviewing our childbirth class info has put the upcoming labor and delivery on the radar again.

In all of this I should act as a servant of God, not a servant of Lori.

As our kids get older, will they see me complain about losing sleep while caring for kids?  Or will I preach myself as their bond-servant for Jesus' sake? (2 Cor 4:5)

"I've had it up to here with these kids!"

Blue Bell Fun Run

We revived a Jones family tradition by running in the Blue Bell Fun Run for the first time in about 10 years.  Lori declined to run the 5k due to pregnancy and pushed Jenny in the 1 mile kids run.  As you can see, the course was not set up friendly to stragglers.  I was not the last one in, but apparently everyone headed to the longer races didn't realize it.

Having completed our physical exercise for the day, Jenny and I treated ourselves to some Blue Bell.

Or rather, Jenny treated herself to my Blue Bell.

 Either way, we cheerfully passed the time until the others started to come in.

 Timothy (who hadn't trained at all) pulled in first...

 with Joseph not far behind.

 Katie and Stacie came in together.

 Jonathan finished his first 10k in about 1:05 (he would like to point out that it was 3 seconds faster than that)

We all celebrated with ice cream treats.  I didn't get a shirt this year, so I wore mine from 2002.

After all the excitement, Jenny started to get cranky about her Blue Bell.  

Not sure if there was too much or too little

When we got back to the car she took two minutes to show us what she really wanted.