All creation sings

7:14 p.m. Today's project was to go to Long Beach's Aquarium of the Pacific with Steve, Heidi and Pavel. After giving out Christmas presents to the hairdressers who have been so helpful with my Mary Kay business, and sampling Irene's dynamite spicy deviled eggs, I was ahead of my 10:30 deadline to be home. Steven, who had arrived from Fresno during the night, called, asking me to stop off and get him several dozen eggs and some chicken. Since Pavel hadn't arrived yet, I went to Ralphs.

All went speedily and at amazing prices, until I got in line behind two tatoooed, bald, mean- looking young guys. "No problem,they're customers like anyone else," I thought. Was I wrong! The shorter of the two was trying to use "my kids' mom's credit card," he told the clerk, who replied that even if they had ID and it was his card, it had a zero balance when he ran it through the machine! Then out came the F-word and whining to the effect of, "It's for my kid!" but the burly clerk held firm, pleasant, but not budging. A female clerk probably would have called over a manager, but this gentleman had the situation under control, and the two guys left. I prayed for the safety of all concerned, and checked out, headed for home.

It's a shame to see bullying, whether in families or by hoodlums, but God's justice won't stand for it: "God is an honest judge. He is angry with the wicked every day. If a person does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He will bend and string His bow. He will prepare His deadly weapons and shoot His flaming arrows." (Psalm 7: 11-13, NLT)

A more enjoyable aspect of our loving God is one that the four of us reveled in today at the aquarium--Creator of the universe! From the great blue whale pictured on the brochure cover above, of which a life-sized replica hung from the ceiling) to minute jellyfish and newborn seahorses, all of the biomes spoke of God's detailed and beauty-creating hand. Genesis 1:21 says, "God created great whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind..." I said to Steve as we watched tiny sharks squirm inside their bone egg cases, with one side made of CLEAR bone, enabling us to see them, "You cannot look at this and tell me there is no God!" The huge variety of creatures displayed in this relatively small aquarium was mind-boggling. Think of what kinds of life, discovered and still undiscovered, are in the vast oceans!

Amazing as the creatures of the oceans may be, varied beyond human comprehension, think of the even vaster heavens! Psalm 19 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork."

Yet God has time for me, for Psalm 20:6 says, "He will hear from His holy heaven, with the saving strength of His right hand."

God has time for you, too!