Two things for you readers today.. 

     First and most exciting are dumpling!!!. We have a new person around the house called a Tobster. His real name none of us can pronounce and his family came over for dinner before going back to china. While they were here the grandma just happened to decide to make dumplings. Even though she couldn't speak English and had never been to America before I don't think it was hard for her to figure out how to successfully win over every single Lagan at the house.  Food is a universal language and she new the language by heart..

So here she is teaching her son, the Tobster's father how to make the dumplings.

Here they are just before being fried. We knew she was good when mom asked if she wanted to put broccoli in them and she refused via translator by saying, "only meat"

     Second is something I've been thinking about which some of you might find interesting. Yesterday I was sitting out in the woods with a pot of tea and some books. I leaned back and looked up and started looking around me. It's amazing how reaching a new level of introspection allows you to see the world around you differently too. Anyway, I don't usually notice specific leaves, I usually miss the leaves for the forest and see the beautiful tree without noticing the hundreds of thousands of leaves who sacrifice to make the tree beautiful. As I mused over these things I thought the leaf a fitting analogy for the Christian. The pictures aren't very good but if you look closely, not many of the leaves are perfect, most of them have some sort of blemish some hole or tear. These are things the leaf had no say in. As Christians we also have many things keeping us from being the ideal person because of things we are not responsible for. I can not help being dumber then Blaise Pascal, I can work just as hard as he did and read the same books and study the same bible but his mind was simply more powerful then mine will ever be this side of eternity. He was in essence a bigger leaf not because he made himself bigger but simply because he was made that way. Other leafs have whole pieces torn off. Many Christians have entire portions of their lives torn from them. Many Christians because of poor parenting, or inept church leadership, or any number of other things have had great parts of life destroyed and now they must somehow struggle to harvest the light of the sun with only a portion of their former strength.

      I know the analogy can be broken down and made to look foolish pretty quickly but the point is this. The leaf doesn't stop giving nutrients to the tree because a caterpillar decided to snack on him, or because "that leaf over there is so much bigger then me" Each leaf no matter how small, torn up, disfigured, mistreated or unloved continues to take in as much sunlight as its resources allow without bothering about the other leafs and how they are doing. Basically they don't stop working because they got the short end of the stick. (hehehe see what I did there?)

      As Christians we are leaves attached to the Body of Christ or the Church taking in nutrients and energy from God.. Its often the trouble in church that we bother about what the rest of the church members are doing instead of getting down to business and using what God has given us to give back to the church. We think, if only I was higher up on the tree, or if only I was a bigger leaf, or if only I didn't get covered in frost last night and thus are dissatisfied and rendered useless for godly work. We think this way because we don't realize that God put us where He did for a reason. He wanted you lower on the tree so you could be the beauty that inspires the person walking beneath. He wanted you to be a small leaf because he knows you can only bear so much responsibility and were you bigger He knows you'd fail. He let you get covered in frost to protect all the young leaves behind you.
     It's all a matter of perspective and when were willing to see from God's perspective; when we look at our lives in the light of eternity, the things of this world do in fact grow strangely insignificant and life takes on real meaning and value. To work then, each man to his chores. From the headmaster down to the lowest maid let idleness cease. For the hardworking household is the happiest of groups and proud will its members be when the Master returns and finds His lands well kept.