So every year I wind up writing scenes for VBA, or Vacation Bible Adventure. I take bible stories and I adapt them to these vignettes that we do one a day during the week.
I have done this for years now, and it has been one of the best things I could have ever done. God has used this writing to do some tremendous things in my life. It has increased my love of storytelling, and even shown me that I could do it. Above all though, most of my “bible knowledge” is not from Sunday sermons, or even bible studies, but from the reading and pondering that I have done while writing these stories.
Sunday morning. It is always interesting to see what happens on a Sunday, and as soon as I got to church, it started. One of the songs we sang had something to do with the “power in His name”. I actually don’t even remember what the song was, because I immediately started thinking. I wondered, because that is what I do, if I really believed in that power? I am still trying to wrap my mind around that whole “love your neighbor as yourself” thing again. Just then it hit me. The whole problem wasn’t with the loving, but with trusting.
I have had a love affair with history since I was young. I have gone through different stages, where I have read everything I could about various eras. I hate to say it, but I am fascinated by war. To tell you the truth I am really not sure why?
So my husband was teasing me. I know that is not surprising, but he doesn’t typically get to tease me in this way. You see, I do not tend to use profanity. Actually, I don’t even use it as all, except on those rare occasions when it slips out under duress. Or sometimes to shock my children. Anyhow, he was giving me a bad time because I had used two cuss words in a small story that I had written. It was not a big deal, but I did it because it made sense for the character. That is of course, if sea otters could talk. 
through the gloom. It was early. Like those first moments when you wake up and are caught between the heaven of sleep and the hell of wakefulness. I always tried to get out before they came. Those strange creatures that walk upon the land. With their glowing white skin and strange seaweed hanging from their bodies. 
What happens when in one day, you are going from the mid eighties to the mid ninties, after weeks of the mid seventies? You head to the coast. And when your hubby wants to take sunrise pictures, you get up at dark thirty so that you can make it to the coast before the sun comes up.
At 3:30 this morning, I was really not in the mood to worry about my own camera, so I just decided to use my iphone. I snapped a good amount of pictures, but not too many. It had been a long week. My brain had been on overload and I wanted to spend some time just enjoying the beauty that surrounded me. 
His love is. I know that seems really silly, of course His love is important. I mean really, He so loved the world. This is Jesus 101. Where the problem lies is not if I “get it” or not, but if I really choose to accept it and just do it.
Cheryl Mendoza 