Back to normal

Well, I got home Friday afternoon from Convention in Washington, DC, and now I'm back at work - back to normal already. It was a great trip - meeting went smooth, Convention went smooth and was packed with a lot of beneficial stuff, and the siteseeing was fabulous. I've added a few albums on my facebook page.

On my downtime I was able to visit a few museums (and a seriously fun whirlwind tour with Moses, my driver). The Smithsonian is fantastic, but the Library of Congress blew me away. The architecture was amazing (that's it with all the arches), and the exhibits were really interesting. I think my favorite part was Thomas Jefferson's collection of books. Did you know he owned over 65,000 books! Not all of those books survived the years, but there is one gigantic room in the Library that houses what's left. And the whole bookcases are encased in glass.

One very interesting treasure I found was Jotham's ring. Jotham's story begins in 2 Kings 15:32, and also shows up in 2 Chronicles 26 & 27. This piece was unbelieveable.

Then there was the rocks! Oh my goodness! I don't know how many pictures I actually took of the gems, rock formations, and other geological stuff. It was amazing. And all I could think about when walking through this exhibit was how much the whole of creation gives God praise and glory! I had just been reading in John the night before and am still amazed how much

God loves us - me. He chose me (and you) to be his adopted CHILDREN. Not JUST his created-in-his-image-beings, but His Children! Seeing all the formations and colors of the rocks (some even glow-in-the-dark!) just made it very clear that God does not NEED us to be His glory. He CHOSE us to be His Glory on this Earth.

I want to be the best me possible - and with the Holy Spirit working in me, I can be (as I let him work!). I want to show excellence for God in everything I do including my relationships, work, creative projects, eating, play and rest and so on.

Then I get to this beauty - the Hope Diamond. This thing is huge and gorgeous. There's a history to it. But the thing I found most interesting was that it is considered imperfect. It's a crudely cut gem - and because of imperfections of other minerals in the diamond, it creates the blue coloring. And another God moment - we are SOOO imperfect, yet gorgeous in God's eyes through Jesus!