Merry Christmas, from our family to yours. Thank you for being part of our lives this past year and for letting us be part of yours. I am blessed by the gift that is each of you and I’m looking forward to where the Lord takes us in 2014!
For His Glory ~
I sit here, the room across the hall finally quiet. My heart hurts for a girl who chooses a harder path out of fear. And I think of our adoption as children of God and how our Father trains us, teaches us, disciplines us, in ways we often don’t understand. Ways that seem too hard at the time, but they are for a bigger purpose. And just like each new stage and event and transition in life bring struggles for this otherwise adaptable little one, we are daily presented with the temptation to revert to our old ways, to take on a survival mindset that says God cannot be trusted and my way is best. And yet, it never is and He always can.
As we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Christ child and exchange gifts and sit in wonder at the manger, I am thankful for the gift of adoption, the gift of being bought for His Kingdom, to be part of His family, and to have this child as part of ours. I am thankful for parenthood and how it gives the tiniest glimpse into the heart of God and His great love for us and that bigger picture mindset. And I am thankful for His gentle, but firm, hand that always leads, always guides, always hangs on.
May your Christmas be filled with wonder at the gift born long ago and the gift He gave everything to give to us.
Joy Find #13 – adoption by a perfect Father, paid for at the cost of His own Son
For His Glory ~
I knew this 25 days would take a while, especially during such a busy month. 🙂
Here we go with a few joy finds of late –
Joy Find #8 – home school choir singing carols in the library rotunda; beauty echoing, singing glory.
Joy Find #9 – trees that count gifts and that count down to the Ultimate Gift
Joy Find #10 – annual church lightshow, a favorite holiday tradition
Joy Find #11 – Christmas goodies sent by friends far away
Joy Find #12 – twinkle lights and falling snow
May you be finding moments of joy in the midst of the busy season.
For His Glory ~
One of the funny things I’ve noticed about “getting older” is watching those you love get older too. And so it’s a little surreal today to be celebrating my dad’s 70th birthday. I’m not sure how my dad is that old, and if you know him at all, you’re probably a little surprised too.
And the older I get the more I come to appreciate my dad just as he is. Probably because the older I get, the more like him I become. Our relationship has been marked by some very rocky years, but I’m thankful for a dad who led his family to Jesus and prays for us all like crazy, who is honest to a fault and generous to the same degree, who loves with his whole heart and is in turn loved by so many.
Happy birthday, Dad. I’m blessed to have a few really great men in my life; one of them is you. We all love you!
{Quite possibly my dad’s first “selfie”. 🙂 }
For His Glory ~
Joy came last night and this morning by way of the western horizon.
Last night….driving and looking westward and seeing the sky ablaze in red sunset – brilliant and breath-taking in its radiance.
This morning….walking with a friend up the hill to our cars with giant golden moon just sinking below the horizon – haunting and humbling in its beauty.
The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they reveal knowledge.
~ Psalm 19:1-2
A year ago, I sat waiting and wondering. I looked at pictures of a little girl far away. I walked daily by her empty stocking and empty bed. I wept, wondering when the process would ever end. And I grieved, knowing she would not be joining us for Christmas.
A year later, she is home and we are all together and the whole season has light and life again. I have new appreciation for those who grieve during the holidays, who feel keenly the absence of a loved one for any reason. And I give thanks for our family united this year and the chance to celebrate all together – to see all my girls faces every morning, to hear their laughter, to share in their joy each day.
A year ago I heard this song by Third Day. I had heard it many times before, but it was just a nice song. But in the midst of the waiting and the wondering and the longing, it became an anthem that was listened to often last Christmas, always with tears. And then I forgot about it when the season was over and the Christmas music turned off.
Until this year when it played again. And the tears fell again, feeling those feelings once more and also rejoicing that the wait is over and we are on the other side of that song.
Joy Find #6 – all my girls home for Christmas
There’s a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Cyin’ for momma’s arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
Where the forgotten are
But half a world away I hang
The stockings by the fire
And dream about the day
When I can finally call you mine
It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
So tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in His arms
And tell you from my heart, I wish you a Merry Christmas
As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I’m warmed by the fire’s glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white
And make angels in the snow
And half a world away you try
Your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven’s angels come
To carry you here
It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
So tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in His arms
And tell you from my heart, I wish you a Merry Christmas
And Christmas is a time to celebrate the Holy Child
And we celebrate His perfect gift of love
He came to us to give His life and prepare a place for us
So we could have a home with Him above
It’s Christmas time again and now you’re home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I’ll hold you in my arms
And tell you from my heart and I’ll tell you from my heart
I wish you a Merry Christmas
For His Glory ~
Joy Find 5 –
This weekend was not only marked by Emma’s twelfth birthday, but also by Ellie’s first Nutcracker performance. This sweet girl has loved ballet this year and was soooo excited to dance the part of a Cookie. I couldn’t help but have all kinds of joy as she just radiated her own joy at practices and all throughout the weeks leading up to last weekend.
Praying your days are filled with joy as we prepare to celebrate the Giver of all Joy in just a couple of weeks!
For His Glory ~
Day 4 – this girl….
Twelve years ago, we were blessed with our second daughter. At 5-something in the morning, Emma Joy, entered the world and our lives were forever changed.
The past year has been a special blessing as we have watched her mature and mellow. As Matt shared this morning, she calls herself a “geek” (though neither of us knows when that became cool – but as a former geek, woot!) and loves books and a certain BBC series she’s not even been allowed to watch yet and camo and Duck Dynasty. She’s excited to play soccer in the spring and volleyball next year. She’s taken to baking this fall which has resulted in a variety of delicious concoctions, particularly her bacon butterscotch muffins. She sings beautifully and I could listen to her play the piano all day.
Emma is a gift to our family. She keeps us laughing and makes sure things don’t get too girlie. I’m so glad I get to be Emma’s mom. I can’t wait to see what God does in this next year of her life.
Happy birthday, Emma Joy!
For His Glory,
* photo credit goes to my beautiful and talented friend Chelsea Hudson
On the hunt for joy, I’ve found many things the past two days that have made my heart smile, but as I slouched through yesterday with the beginnings of a cold and a fever all day, I couldn’t string together a coherent thought. So I drank my lemon water and applied my Thieves oil to my feet and went to sleep. I woke up this morning still groggy (but who isn’t at 4:30?), but after exercising with a friend and time in the Word, I realized, I didn’t feel icky anymore!
And so my joy “find” for day 2 is this little bottle of wonder:
And I’ll be honest, I wasn’t planning to even mention oils during this exercise, but once again, the Lord has used these little bottles as a huge blessing in our lives. Not only has it spared me, so far, from the ick that’s trying to take hold, last week Ellie starting dragging at bedtime – flushed, fever, cruddy nose and chest. I diffused some of this magic elixir as she slept and by the next morning she was good as new. As always, I’m amazed that this one worked! One of these days, I’ll stop being surprised. 😉
Day 3 is carpeted floors. This one is so funny to me. I’ve had wood floors for most of the past twenty years. I love the look, feel, smell – everything – about wood floors. But nine years of vacuuming a whole lot of square feet of wood floors followed by moving to this house which has zero wood, very little tile, and a whole lotta carpet, I found myself giving thanks for carpet tonight. As I did finishing touches for house guests the next two evenings, I gave thanks and smiled at the fact that, because there isn’t wood, the girls are able to take on significantly more of the house work, making my job much less hectic. And that’s definitely a joy-giver!
What glimpses of joy have you seen so far this week?
For His Glory ~
As we enter into the holiday season, I feel the need to find my joy again. The Lord has laid this on my heart for a while now. My joy, it got lost somewhere in the move I think, when I had to just buckle down and keep going, one foot in front of the other, keep us all moving forward or else we’d fall apart. Just so much change so fast. And somewhere, in all that, I lost my joy. I stopped seeing God’s gifts. I stopped breathing thanks to Him. I stopped stopping in wonder.
And now I hear Him calling me back. My head clearer, my heart lighter, I long to find that joy again. And so that is what I am starting today – 25 days of joy. It would be fun if I could do one a day all the way to Christmas, but I know how I am here and that life gets in the way and I’m not a writer who can sit down on Saturday afternoon and punch out a week of posts. What I write is usually fresh, raw, and in the moment. Plus, it’s already December 2, so that plan went out the window before we ever got off the ground. 😉 I don’t know for sure how long the 25 days will take. But I will be on the hunt everyday for glimmers of joy.
Will you join me?
Joy Find 1 is this place and all of you…..I don’t write often and I don’t always write “pretty”, but you all have accepted me in my realness and let me into some of yours. I love to encourage women, help them see the beauty God is making in all the brokenness, and in this season of life, this is a place I have been able to do that from the comfort of my home. So, thank you for the joy you have brought to my life by being part of mine.
What joy can you find today?
For His Glory ~
My Ears Are Tired 