St. Patrick's Day

March 17th is a big day around our house. We pull out all the stops...corned beef, cabbage, green everywhere, and Lucky Charms.

While Noah is totally Dutch, in all meanings of the word, I have a good chunk of me that hails from the Emerald Isle. The story goes that during the potato famine, so many grandfathers back left everything there was to leave and came to find a new life in a new land across the seas.

If you were to see my grandfather, you would think he was the one that came off the boat. My brother has a strong Irish look, and I was blessed with the bottom heaviness of the motherland...but I digress...

I love corned beef and cabbage, and I love the music, but I really love the fact that we get to celebrate a missionary who God used turned a whole group of people from paganism to Christ. Don't know how much you know of the story, but Pat was actually a slave in Ireland. He was captured by Irish raiders (there is a reason the Roman Empire didn't want them!) and after 6 years escaped back to Wales. He then became part of the church and went back to the very people that had enslaved him. Pretty cool!

So, tonight when you sit down to enjoy your soda bread and corned beef (what you don't have yours in the crock pot?), thank God for the missionaries He has, is and will use to reach people who otherwise would never hear the Gospel!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!