"...And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again...." This song seems to be in my head a lot lately. I wonder why that is....

I'm about ready to put my computer in the dishwasher--I keep getting these INFURIATING popups!!! And that is Chris' domain to fix.

We've been letting Peter Rabbit roam around the house during the day. Can you believe it? His cage is so small, and he looked so bored in there. It's just a matter of cleaning up his small, dry "backfires" from time to time. He hasn't eaten all the electrical cords or torn into the couch, Garfield style. He's surprised us with what he's been interested in devouring, though. I was just finishing up an apple, when somebody brought him over to me . Well, he smelled that apple and went crazy! So I gave him the rest of the core, which he loved. He also nibbled on some dry bagel on the ground and some raw oats. When I brought home the groceries last night, he was in the kitchen checking things out and got very excited over an open bag of tortilla chips in one of the bags. So I gave him one of those! He's also nibbled on the cat's food and enjoys radishes, carrots, and lettuce. Oranges--no.

Last night, on the Christian channel, I actually caught something really good. Often, if it's opulently dressed pastors shouting about prosperity or something, I quickly change the channel....but this was about the reality of Heaven and Hell. There were testimonies by some men who had taken a "break" from their body when they were in the hospital and where they were when they were in limbo. These were not Christian men at the time--they were mostly atheists, actually. One guy, who had been run over by a vehicle driven by the KGB and was pronounced dead and in the morgue's freezer, with collapsed lungs, actually was not quite dead and came to as they were about to do an autopsy on him. His experiences of pressing darkness and terror caused him to turn to the Lord and be saved! One of the weirder ones was of a man who was in the hospital, very sick, and when he went outside his body for quite awhile, he went to stand beside his wife and talk to her. He felt very much alive and actually got mad at her for "ignoring" him! But then he was called away down a long, gray, blurry tunnel by some blurry people, who seemed syrupy nice at first, but then got ruder. Eventually, after walking forever with these people, he got severely abused and injured by large numbers of them for a long time. He said they really derived satisfaction from it, and although it was horrible, he kinda knew that was where he deserved to be. He was finally left alone on the ground, scratched, emotionally and physically battered. He was there for quite a long time, when something told him to "pray to God." He didn't even know how to pray, and struggled to remember the simplest things to say even from being a tot in Sunday School. But whenever he could manage to say anything prayer-like or about God, it was like boiling water on all those horrible people--they couldn't stand it! He drove them all away calling out to God. And Jesus came down and gently lifted him up. All the filth and shame and injuries, inside and outside, evaporated. Jesus hugged him like a Father, patted him on the back, comfortingly. They had a wonderful conversation! They reviewed the man's life, and he learned that whenver he had been kind and good, it made the angels, God, and Jesus happy. But whenever he had been selfish and bad, the opposite. I'm getting a little fuzzy on some of the rest of the details, but the man had to go back to earth. He didn't want to leave at all and wanted to know Jesus and the angels would be with him. Jesus said they always had been and something about the value of repenting, casting our cares on him, and all the good things that matter that are supposed to be coming out of our hearts and mouths towards God and man. The man hosting the show said that there is a dangerous trend afoot, where people who nearly died and experienced a bright light and comfort, will come back and preach comfort and "everyone goes to Heaven, it's all good after this". They try to discourage people from believing in the sin, the Hell, the salvation aspects!! Another atheistic physician, who was dying of some acute illness, barely held on through the night waiting for his Christian friend to show up and show him how to be saved. This man had been witnessing to him about the love of God for 5 years and had endured some arguments and ridicule from this Doctor. But who did he desperately want when he was dying? It was an endless night of hanging on. He kept slipping into horror and coldness and deep darkness, but in the morning,He did pray the sinner's prayer, and experienced God's salvation and peace!! I really love these stories! There are really good to remind us about the realities of Heaven and Hell, sin and salvation, and to pray for those around us!