Thank Goodness God Gave Us Instructions!

When I took the position of Children's Pastor at New Hope Christian Assembly, the Pastor excitedly told me that the church had a puppet stage. So, this week, with eager anticipation (since I am teaching this Sunday), my son Matthew and I went to the church to put the stage together. However, after an hour of looking at all the different pieces, most of which were unlabeled, some of which were broken, with no diagram and no screws, we gave up. Then the Pastor walked into the church, saw what we were up to, and tried to help. Unfortunately, his attempts were also unsuccessful.

However, yesterday morning, I woke up with a new ray of hope because Brian was coming home soon. When he did, both he and I went to the church to see if he could put the puppet stage together. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. He did glue the broken pieces together and bought screws, but he became so irritated with the mess, I had to take him home to calm down. To torment him more, I took the pieces of the stage home with us. My husband was hoping I was taking it to the dump, but I was taking it home in hopes that my son Tim, the mathematical genus, could figure how to put it back together again.

After four long hours of both Tim and Matthew working together to figure how the stage was initially put together, I took these pictures. I thought the pictures would tell the story better.

The end! They both finally gave up, but it took them the longest of anyone. If only the creator of the puppet stage took the time to make instructions . . . .

Many times people become fragmented and their lives lay in pieces because of problems, hurts, and sins, but thank goodness we have God and His Word to put us back together again!

"For whatever was written in earlier times

was written for our instruction,

so that through perseverance

and the encouragement of the Scriptures

we might have hope."

Romans 15:4 (NAS)