Jonah and the Snowfish

Yesterday morning, Obadiah prayed:

“Dear God, thank you for this day.  Thank you for this food.  Thank you that you are always with us.  And please let there be snow today.  Even though we live in Greenwood, and no one ever knows if we really are gonna get snow or not.  Well, I guess you know, but we don’t.  Amen.”

His prayers were answered.  We did get some snow last night in Greenwood.  It wasn’t a ton of accumulation, but it is still cold and wet enough to shut the town down here in the South.

The boys wanted to make some type of snowman, but I was concerned since we didn’t have that much snow.  Three years ago, the snowfall allowed us to have an impressive Moses the Snowman, but we needed something smaller to the ground this year.

We decided to go with Jonah and the Snowfish.

I pitched the idea to the boys and they were excited.  This was Obadiah’s drawing on the whiteboard as we made a game plan. We decided to let the fish be made of snow and find a Jonah to put in his mouth.

This was Gloria’s first snow.  She was really impressed by it and thankful to have her snow boots as she watched the boys try to make a snowball and get ready for the build.

We decided to let Handy Manny play the role of Jonah.  The hardest part was getting enough snow together to make the fish.  We then stuck Handy Manny’s head in the mouth and starting building around him.

Obadiah found a Toy Story ball for the fish’s eye which worked really good.  We decided to make the fish look like his head and tail were popping over the water but the middle part of his body submerged.

Obadiah then had the idea for his shovel to be the tail of the fish.

Well, the creation wasn’t as large as we may have liked it to be, but we still thought it was pretty fun.  We got to enjoy playing together and talk about the Bible along the way.  As with most people, Obadiah thought Jonah was being swallowed because of his disobedience, but it was great to teach him that the fish was actually a symbol of God’s salvation.  Jonah was going to his death until this fish (that I affectionally have named “Grace”) arrived.

As a father, I am trying to be more present and more intentional each day.  God is teaching me this more and more these days:

Deut. 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.