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Hi! I’m so thrilled you are here! Let’s be friends. I live for friendship and adventure! I'm Riley and I'd love to hear from you. I think this is where I’m supposed to be witty and cute about trendy things, but I have no experience with coffee, wine is gross, and I have no dogs. I know, what’s wrong with me? I’m seriously just showing up with my best yes offering my story as my worship and creating space for others to do the same. I'll try not to use too many exclamation points!!! ..but I'll start keeping that promise a little later. I believe we can live our days fully awake, full of truth, and full of beauty. I believe our stories are filled with the voice and presence of our creator and as we explore them we meet him in a brand new way. Join me on the bravest adventure into truth and uncover the mystery for your life.

Seder and Social Distancing

Day 1: 


Study or just consider that there have been pandemics throughout history.  

We are in a time of being flooded with messages of safety and precaution, like these:

Google says: Stay Home. Save lives. Help stop coronavirus. 



In the grocery store, over the intercom, “please keep a six foot distance from other shoppers...we’re here for your safety” I mean, am I the only one creeped out??

Can you tell me some things in your life that have been impacted?

Schools are closed, stores are closed, some restaurants are doing curbside pickup. Amazon had to pause deliveries of non essential items for a while. We are staying home all the time. We can’t see our extended family members or our friends. 
It seems a little boring and strange!



Everyone is walking around wearing masks and gloves. It is unnerving and surreal.  It feels like a movie.  There was another time long ago that probably felt similar to the people living it! 

A very long time ago, there was a pandemic, of sorts, in Egypt. It was a series of several really wrong things, called plagues.  It was completely “out of this world” and unlike anything they had seen before.

Before I tell you about the plagues let me give you a little bit of back story.

Joseph’s journey: Remember Joseph? He got a beautiful coat of many colors from his dad. His brothers became angry and jealous and sold him to slavery.  He moved to Egypt and through a few interesting events, including interpreting the king’s dreams, he became really important.  It is a long story!  God redeemed Joseph, but eventually God’s people did become slaves in Egypt.  300 years later Moses comes along.  Moses and Jospeh are both Israelites, sometimes called Hebrews, but Moses and Joseph didn’t know each other. These are God’s people.  God promises to take care of them. So this is a story of God's people, the Hebrews, versus the Egyptian's and their leader, Pharaoh. So our first dude is Pharaoh and he's mean!!! He wants Egypt to have all the power and so he uses the Hebrews as slaves.
 Our next dude is Moses, even though he isn’t Egyptian, he was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter so he grew up as an Egyptian, in the palace.  The problem is his own people, his birth mom, are the slaves!!  When he grows up, he decides to fight for his people and God invites him to help them escape from Egypt...out of slavery.  Who better than the Pharaoh's grandson to fight against him??  Yikes!  We will see that Pharaoh chooses his own power over everyone else! 
So a lot happens to set this up.. Moses sees a Hebrew slave being mistreated by an Egyptian.  Instead of stopping the mistreatment he kills the Egyptian and has to flee the country so he doesn't get in trouble.  He runs far away for a while and while he is away he meets the God of the Isrealites, his own people!  He hears God speaking from a burning bush. God tells him to go ask Pharaoh to free the Isrealites from Egypt.  
Before this Moses didn’t know God---he grew up an Egyptian.  God meets him exactly where he is and gives him clear directions for his life. So Moses goes back to Egypt to see Pharaoh.   Well Pharaoh denies him the request to let his people go. Pharaoh says NO WAY! so Moses leaves, and God sends him Aaron.  Now the really really cool thing about this is that Aaron is Moses’ brother from his birth mom, a Hebrew.  So God reunited their family.  I wonder if Aaron was guarded against Moses. They are so different but they learn to trust one another and work together for this good plan.

It says when the Isrealites learned that God was thinking about them and wanting to free them from slavery and was concerned about them, they bowed down and worshiped.  I wonder if they thought God had forgotten about them.  They felt all alone and worried and tired. They were ready to be free and able to move around and worship the way they liked to. I hope they get what they want!!!

Day 2
Okay so Moses talked to God about Pharaoh saying no.  Aaron was sent to help Moses. So much better with a brother! You’ll learn today that God sends Moses and Aarton back to Pharaoh over and over and over until Pharaoh says yes! 

Study the plagues of Egypt
  1. Snake: Turn the staff into a snake, but the Pharaoh used sorcerers and wise men and they did the same thing!  The enemy is powerful too, but we will learn he isn’t as powerful as God.   Aaron’s staff/snake swallowed up theirs!  I bet they were so mad!  They were not used to other people being as powerful and knowing their secret tricks.
  2. Blood: Pharaoh isn’t listening. His heart is hard and he won’t let the people go because he likes having slaves. Who will do the work if the slaves leave?  Will Pharaoh have power?  So Moses and Aaron turn all the water to blood.  There is no water to drink and the smell is wretched!  Pharaoh’s heart did not change. He turned and walked away.
  3. Frogs: 7 days later, “Let my people go that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs on your whole country.” The sorcerers were also able to produce frogs. I’m not sure why they would want to, but it prevented Pharaoh and others from believing this was from the one true God. Frogs came in every space. They were in the ovens and on the tables and even on the people.  Pharaoh agreed to let the people go if Moses made the frogs go away.  Moses cried out asking God to take the frogs away and so he did. All the frogs died and were piled in huge heaping piles. Then Pharaoh changed his mind. His heart was still hard.
  4. Gnats: God told Moses to tell Aaron to stretch out his staff and strike the dust of the ground. Gnats  came on people and animals. All the dust turned to gnats! I know the few gnats we have because of our fruit drive me crazy! Can you imagine? They were probably breathing them into their mouths.  Pharaoh’s magicians could not reproduce this phenomenon.  They said, “this is the finger of God,” but Pharaoh didn’t care.
  5. Flies: The Lord tells Moses to go to Pharaoh again, meet him early in the morning, at the river, and say, “Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies (I just want to include here that my computer self corrected this word to selfies, as if that is the most logical explanation. please)  on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses.” Yuck!!!!!  You know flies pee and poop every 4 minutes so you know they are peeing on you! They also carry lots of bacteria.    
    1. Interesting detail here.  Pharaoh doesn’t want to let his workers/slaves go so he agrees to let them “worship” in town, which means they have offer a sacrifice, because Jesus hasn’t died for our sins yet at this time. This is really important to know for later on. Well killing an animal in town is against Egyptian law and Moses knows Pharaoh is tricking them into getting stoned and in trouble. He doesn’t trust Pharaoh’s word.
    2. Pharaoh asks Moses to pray for the flies to go away, but we know his heart is still hard, so even though he says he will let them go, once the flies are gone, he changes his mind and doesn’t let the people go, AGAIN!  Come on already!
  6. Livestock: Here we go again. God isn’t giving up fighting for his people and Moses has agreed to help God, but I bet he is tired and worried it is just making a huge mess. Moses is really having to trust God.  Hopefully he is also a little excited to watch God do amazing things!  “Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back , the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field- on your horses, donkeys, cattle, camels, sheep, and goats.” So that happens but he saves all the livestock of the Isrealites.  It says Pharaoh investigates this..he checks it out and knows what God says will happen did happen. Still, guess what?  Unyielding..that means he won’t change his mind.  I’m wondering what WILL make him change his mind?  
  7. Boils: He asked that the people be let go but when Pharaoh said no they threw soot from fire up in the air and it caused sores and blisters to be on all the people
  8. Hail: It’s getting worse and worse.  This time Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and say, “let my people go..or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you so you will know there is no one like me in all the earth.  I will send a hailstorm worse than you have ever seen before. Bring your slaves and your livestock inside.” So the people who feared the Lord did bring their slaves and livestock inside but some didn’t. Some rops were ruined but some were spared because everything hadn’t bloomed yet.
  9. Locusts: The locusts destroyed the rest of the crops, but Pharaoh kept saying no.  This is hard to understand isn’t it?  
  10. Darkness: it was dark in Egypt for 3 days.  I bet that created some social distancing and quarantine since they didn’t have any power!  Listen, Pharaoh is getting really mad.  He is sick of the Isrealites. Almost frustrated enough to let them go! If he lets them go he loses everything..every livestock and slave. 
  11. Firstborn: It says the people of Egypt really like Moses.  Is that because he grew up there and they liked him then?  I imagine this next part was super difficult for Moses to be a part of.  God told Moses that this is the plague that will work.  Pharaoh will want the Israelites to leave Egypt.  Every firstborn son of Egypt will die. Some of these were grown up sons and some were baby sons..either way it created deep sadness all over the country.
    1. There was a special plan for the Isrealites, God’s people.  They  were given instructions to sacrifice a boy lamb and use the blood of the lamb to paint over the door of their houses.  They would feast together using the lamb, thanking God for his provision and plan.  They were trusting Him and his plan. They were told to dress for travel, with sandals on their feet and a staff in their hand.  
    2. When the plague of death went through the land it passed over anywhere there was blood of the spotless lamb on the door.  All God’s people were protected from the plague and their firstborn boys lived.  
    3. That night Pharaoh called to Moses and Aaron and demanded they leave right away.  He said to take everything with them, the women, the children, the livestock, and all their belongings.  The people also sent lots of silver and gold with the people. God’s plan prevailed.  That means he wins!

Extra thoughts to use as your kids are attentive: 

 What do you think was the reaction?  We always think of it as a way to rescue God’s people from slavery, but today I spent some time thinking about how it felt to just try to live and eat and have a family while all of this took place. We don’t know exactly how long they took but it was months!!! I hope we aren’t quarantined for months!  

What are we slaves to? Is God saving us from something?  I’m not saying God brought this but He will use it for good.  That is a promise.  
God pushed the Israelites to the wilderness to test their hearts and determine if they would obey. Deut 8:2.It is not a punishment or an angry wrath. It is discipleship.  It says he covered them. He provided the food they needed.  Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.  It goes on to say God is bringing you into a good land.  A good space. So when you get there remember what He has done for you and do not be filled with pride that you accomplished something on your own.
  When Jesus was in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1, Satan left him and the angels came to care for him there...in the wilderness.  
God meets us exactly where we are.  We will walk ourselves into valleys. We will go through times where everything is not poured out for our comfort.  Whatever that barrenness looks like for you can be called wilderness.  We don’t always know if God “caused it to happen” but we can know that God will meet us there, care for us, and use it for our good.  Rom 8:28.  Everything is used to refine us, bringing us into likemindedness with Him. 



Day 3: Seder..Sadar..Cedar!!! I don’t know!!! I think I’ll just call it a Passover Meal.  Listen I know nothing about this, which is why I decided to figure it out. We needed a new thing for this unique year of celebrating at home. 

So this gorgeous table is what inspired the whole thing!  I realized in order to do this dinner well we would need to back it up a few hundred years. I’ve never had a seder meal but with Easter being a full time at home situation I decided we’d change things up and go all out! I’m keeping the meal simple and yummy. I think Jesus would approve.  

I love this table arrangement! Isn’t it beautiful? 

This is a super simple presentation of a sedar meal, which represents all the components of passover.  

Here is Ann Voskamp’s more mature version and I adore that lady but the preschool version fits me better. Truth.
https://annvoskamp.com/2020/04/the-secret-key-to-easter-at-home-the-hardest-holy-week-getting-through-any-mess-pandemic/ 


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