December 16 – “Flat Stanley comes to call”

Well, the Flat Stanley bug has finally made it to South Carolina.  At least to the second grade classroom of some friends of ours there.  Seems Hannah Grace’s class read the story of the boy who had a blackboard fall on him and squish him flat as a bug (or something along those lines ... I’ve never read the book).  Now he can slide under doors and travel in mailing envelopes.  And Flat Stanley of Columbia, South Carolina, showed up in our mailbox the other day for an extended visit to Galveston.  We have to be good hosts and show him the sights around town.  You know, the beach, Moody Gardens, the fire station, the Pleasure Pier (well, maybe near the Pleasure Pier).  We’ll figure something out.  I did have to make him some new clothes, though.  Bathing suit.  Island shirt with lots of big flowers on it.  Gotta say, it’s a lot easier to dress someone who is so … flat.  And he doesn’t wiggle much, either.  Oh, and I think we might be related to Stanley.  My grandmother on my father’s side was Olivia Stanley before she married a Vaughan.  Her dad was from somewhere out there in South Carolina, too, I think.  Small world.  TeeHee.  “Small world.”  Get it?  Flat Stanley is only eight inches tall. 

1 Peter 2:5 says, “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Father, thank you for fun tools like the Flat Stanley craze to encourage kids to learn about their world.  Amen.