Sunrise, Sunset

That Ellie is alive is a testament to God's grace. And that God badly wants her alive. This is a woman whose babysitter read as she drove. The babysitter didn't talk on the cellphone or put on makeup, she read novels. This is also a woman who had, in one semester, been hit by a car, had her room broken into, narrowly missed a hurricane, and also escaped when random stranger tried to drag her into an alley. And have we mentioned that she believes in Superman?

This morning, there was a lot of snow to clean off of Ellie's car so it'll be of use for transporting us to church. It just so happened that her car was prepared for winter conditions in Maine as she produced a lacrosse stick and a small broom for clearing the thick, packed, inches of snow off of her car. Awesome.

Not as awesome, of course, as the Sunday School advent candle lighting. Honestly, the Sunday school kids should go on tour, visiting college to college with their wondrous blend of wry and physical comedy. They have perfected the art of aloofness. Hope has, at least. Today, when it was the Sunday schoolers' turn to light the advent candle, she gave an angry pout throughout the whole reading of the passage and mostly wandered away from the group to play with the tinsel decorations. Girl #2 joined Hope and soon, they ruined the display. At that point, Mother of Hope escorted the two girls back to the middle of the stage and there they stood quietly, but not nicely, as both looked incredibly bored and unimpressed by the congregation staring at them. They mostly spun around in circles. While all this was going on, of course, Sunday School Teacher was reading about Jesus. But I wasn't paying attention. I was too busy laughing at the random boy who dashed offstage for no apparent reason and ran through the pews until he reached the back door of the church. And stayed. Then there was the actual candle lighting itself. (At CBCGN, the pre-lighting prep itself was a challenge as no one had matches or lighters with them and everyone assumed 'the church' would just have one. Many frantic calls were made and drawers rummaged through. Who would bring matches to church? Why else would you ever use matches if not to light candles?) The entire class of girls (as boy had run off into the woods) all held the candle together and lit the purple ones, then rose, one by one. During the entire lighting, Girl #3 kept whispering, "Can we light the white one?" The white one- as in the Christ candle in the middle reserved for Christmas eve. No, girl, you can't. And each girl was all too enthusiastic about blowing out the lighter candle and in their great excitement, kept blowing out our hope, peace, and joy. But they were not saddened by the loss of such virtues, as it provided the chance for them to once again light the candles. Then blow them out. Then repeat the process. Over. And over again. Thank God that his hope, peace, and joy for us are way more consistent than the candles.