Jonah and the Whale

You know the Bible story about Jonah? The one where he disobeys God's instruction to go to the people of Nineveh, instead going in the exact opposite direction. Ending up in the belly of a whale that eventually spit him up on shore. Know that one? Well recently, my girls have really been into that story! We even found a Bible story CD for them to listen to in the car..."Do #10 again!! I want to hear about Jonah!"

So yesterday, I utilized their interest and told them the story in a little more detail over lunch. Stressing the points of Jonah's disobedience, God's choices not always making sense to us at first ("but WHY did he tell the fish to swallow him?!"), and the fact that Jonah's obedience to God in going to Nineveh (on his second try) ultimately saved the city from death.

Charis was riveted. She wouldn't take her eyes off of my face. I knew she was listening. Selah, on the other hand, was bouncing around. Distracted by anything that happened to come into her line of sight. To be honest, I sort of wrote her off from our little Bible lesson. But I had just finished saying "So Jonah wasn't obedient to God" when Selah sat up in her chair, looked me in the face, and said "Like we need to be obedient to you?"

Score! So Selah not only was hearing me, but she was applying it to her own life! And all while suffering from a sudden-onset of ADHD and apparent lack of interest! Who knew she could multi-task?! appear disinterested, yet learn all at the same time?!

After lunch, I walked into the family room and there on the floor I found two budding actors, playing out the story of Jonah!!

This is Selah, designated to be the whale that's swallowing Jonah.
Jonah seems to be intrigued with the size of the whale's mouth. and that isn't even as big as it can get!' Director Charis' changed Selah's acting role half-way through. Announcing that Selah was now playing the part of Jonah and that she was taking over the part of the flesh-eating fish. This is Selah getting ready to jump ship into whale-infested waters.Only she wouldn't do it. So Director Charis, once again, did a role change and dubbed herself part of the ship's "man-overboard" crew. Only she wasn't strong enough to throw her off the ship. So I was drafted. I was successful in throwing her off, but apparently this Jonah can walk on water. Run, actually. Because she hit the "water" and ran off before the whale knew what happened. :)

Makes me wonder what kind of acting jobs they'll be doing when we talk about all the different battles scenes in the Bible. Maybe I should wait until Daddy has a day off before reading those stories, eh?