Cycles of Life

In my first grade teaching, we talk about the cycle of life in several forms. The cycle of the butterfly from egg to caterpillar to cacoon to butterfly is a favorite. And of course the children like to learn about the life cycle of the frog from eggs to tadpoles to frogs.
We also learn about the water cycle...clouds to precipitation to puddles to evaporation and back again to clouds.
I've been contemplating this cycle of life in regard to prayer.
The prayer starts with God, He gives us the "desire, the urge, the burden" to pray for someone or something. We then offer that prayer back up to the Lord, and at that point He is able to bring the answer to our prayer.
For the completion of that prayer, it must follow the "life cycle" of prayer.
Obviously, the Lord could do all this without out "help", but for reasons He understands, He has involved us in this life cycle of prayer.
In order for His work to be completed on this earth, He needs for us to participate in this spiritual cycle of life.
There are life cycles all around us, and it's exciting to be involved in one of the greatest cycles of life.

Generational Culture

This weekend, my husband and I had a lesson in generational culture. We were at a wedding dance with our two 20-something daughters, son-in-law and one daughter's new fiance'.
(There's no place I'd rather be than anywhere with the five of them.)

During the best man's toast, a phrase was said that made all the people under 40 all laugh and nod their heads in understanding, while the rest of us just wondered "what was so funny about that?" (My son-in-law said, "That is a line from Napoleon Dynamite".) Thus began the beginning of our inquest into our understanding of this generational culture.
As we were leaving the dance, one of our daughters said the bride and groom must have really liked Napoleon Dynamite, because there were a lot of songs from the movie played at the dance. My husband and I said, "Oh?"
We asked what that movie was about, anyway. And would we like it? Would we understand it?
They thought we would, so our son-in-law loaned us their DVD of the movie. He quoted some lines from it, and told us it was made by Mormons (I think that's what he said), and so there's nothing questionable about it...in fact, there's not even any caffeine used in it.

So, for our Saturday evening entertainment, we watched the DVD. And we enjoyed it!
NOW, we know...
why the younger generation were dancing with their arms outstetched on one another's shoulders during one song at the wedding dance, about milk tasting contests, and why our cousin danced in a certain way in a video he showed us at last new year's get-together. And I'm sure we'll now be in the "know" about hundreds of other comments and references made by the under 40 crowd.

And the next time we're at a wedding dance, we'll really understand what's going on. Unless, of course, there's a new movie by then that has broadened the generational gap once again!