Quick breakdown of Christmas:

It was good.

I really am tempted to have a year where we isolate ourselves and do no presents and fast and pray all day long. Maybe not that extreme... but I don't like how no matter what you do, with kids, it's all about the presents.

I got called materialistic by an unnamed family member (though my guessing friends could surely guess). That was entertaining. Especially ironic coming from unnamed family member.

Chris and I have worked (and fought) really hard to build healthy relationships, especially within our immediate (us and the boys) family. Long exposure to non-healthy relationships throws us off of our game. We just seem to feel off until the exposure is over.

Onto the New Year!

I'm really thankful to be doing something for New Years this year. I think it's been 4 years since we did anything. Last year we weren't good enough friends with anyone yet, and the years before we were in Connectisuck. I feel blessed to have friends to hang out with and thankful that we get to bring our kiddos and celebrate with them as well!

I'm not a big resolution person. Never got what the big deal was. If I want to do something, I do it and don't wait for New Years, and I don't like making empty promises about things I know won't happen.

That being said, I am looking forward to my lighter schedule this winter. I hope to get some painting done around the house and I hope to have more studying time in the Word. I was recently asked to join a group that was reading through the bible in 90 days. I was tempted (because really, how can that not be good?) but I have been made aware of my faults when it comes to how I get plugged into the Bible. I'm a reader, I really could sit down and read the bible for an hour and love it. I could then look up all the things that intrigued me about the scripture, find their original greek or hebrew meanings, do some cross referencing, check out what the commentaries say... I love that stuff. However my weakness is slowing down, really processing one teeny tiny passage and praying and communicating with God on it. I often fall short on the prayer part and I really want to work on that this year. Here is a great post about being intentional with your devotional life this year.

I'm also super excited about this ministry within the youth I've been helping start up : The Compassion Leadership Team (CLT), We had our first outreach opportunity mid December and I was so blessed by getting to be a part of it. I felt even more proud as I saw the girls from my group (which had the highest attendance rate of all of our youth small groups, pretty impressive considering there are almost 40 small groups in our youth) not just show up to serve, but work hard, enjoy it and start asking more questions about serving and missions. Two of my girls are already talking about long term mission trips. Oh the joy I have!

Focusing on that, and of course my family, is where I want to be the most present this year. I have about 8 months before Josh starts school and I am excruciatingly aware of how precious the time I have with him is and how intentional I need to be with it. Jack is also at my favorite stage of early childhood and I want to steal all the kisses and hugs and giggles while I can. My husband does an amazing job of taking care of and providing for his family but I feel as though that weight has been heavier than it should be recently. While it may be something he's put on himself, I want to do whatever I can to help ease as much of as I can, and be more diligent about praying for him and encouraging him.

I have a few other plans for 2010, but we'll see how those pan out. I've learned to hold my plans pretty loosely.

I feel blessed to be on the forefront of another year. By His grace alone. Hope ya'll have a great New Years!

Final Christmas thoughts:

I must admit prior to this year, I haven't quite gotten the big deal about Christmas, don't get me wrong it's a great day to celebrate Jesus and all, but I've never really understood why it was such a big deal. I mean Easter is the day we celebrate our ability to have salvation and the sacrifice Christ made to pave the way for it, why don't we take a whole month to celebrate that? Isn't that what it's really about?

I think I'm getting it this year. Maybe it's because of some of the things we've been exposed to this year: 2 couples we are close to being on the brink of divorce, a pastor I adore having a brain tumor removed and finding out it was cancer, having several of our family members having extended hospital stays due to life threatening issues, friends who are hurting, friends who are dealing with infertility, job losses, finance issues... the list could go on and on. It's been a rough year, not necessarily in our own lives, but our exposure to it in others.

Which I think sometimes is just as difficult because you feel so helpless to do anything.

Anyhow, being in close proximity to an overwhelming amount of helping people this year has reawakened my senses to how foreign this place is. It's NOT home, and no matter how hard we try there will never be any level of perfect achieved here on earth. This life is rough, and we are surviving it to get HOME and to get to the good part.

Thinking of how hard this place is for me leaves me astounded at Christ coming into it.

He was LORD, King of All, angels bowed at his feet and He had close fellowship with God and the Holy Spirit. Communion like I have never known. He left it all, and came here. HERE. He spent nine (10 if we're getting technical : ) months in a womb that was probably a sanctuary compared to earth.

My mind cannot fathom the culture shock, not to mention the mourning for home. The closest thing I come up with as a comparison is for us willingly going to hell, and living there for 33 years.

So this Christmas I have a whole gratitude for what Christ did in coming to earth. This time of year the term "humbled" gets thrown around, but that is what He did, humbled himself. For us. For me.

Emmanuel- God is with us. Then, and now. That is most certainly a reason to worship!

Merry Christmas!

I'm not sure I know how to handle emotions in a healthy way. I have Josh to thank for that painful realization, one I've had glimpses of clarity about but haven't been able to fully own up to until now.

I have a few defaults for how I choose to deal with strong emotions: run away, yell and get angry, or ignore it.

My family usually gets one of the first two because they aren't very easy to ignore, and Chris won't let me ignore him.

Dealing with the situation with Matt Chandler (and thinking back to when Chris had melanoma and how I dealt with it) has made me aware of the third one. If I can avoid conversations about the situation or anything that triggers thought about it, then I can cope. Because at the first confrontation I'll break down.

In the last several years I have made leaps and bounds in the area. I used to be a hot mess with how I handled my stuff. Even though progress has been made this is still a pretty big issue in my life. I think it would be easy for me to brush it off or excuse it with explanations on how poorly I was taught, but I don't want to excuse it or ignore it, I want to continue to grow. And more importantly I want to try to teach Josh something different, and I can't teach him something different if I don't model or learn what that something different is.

So I'm trying to figure it out. And I'll tell ya, it ain't easy. We girls (admittedly particularly during certain times of the month) feel insanely strong emotion. So what do we do when feeling those? If it spurs us to act well, then it's no problem since lavishing affection on others isn't something most complain about. But what do we do when the emotion results in crying fits or yelling rages? I think the general key is self discipline, but I'm still mapping out what the logistics of that look like. I have general "no-no's" for how I allow myself to act, but I need to expand that.

Like I've been telling Josh it's okay to feel angry, but it's not okay to act ugly out of that anger. I need to become more self-disciplined about how I act in the midst of my emotion. I don't always want to have to go and apologize for how I've acted, and I certainly don't want my family to have to be witnesses of my lack of self-control. I need to be better about obtaining the self control in the midst of the moment.

This the hard part. I'm not really sure how to do that. I've got a couple theories, like taking a moment to pray, or memorizing scripture that pertains to what I want (namely the fruits of the spirit passage), but beyond that I need divine wisdom. Soon, because ya'll I don't want to pass any more of this generational sin on to my kids.

I was pretty much devastated when I read this. I'm not a crier and I cried. I don't understand, to me it makes no sense.

Then thankfully, God led me to this. Which was exactly what I needed to hear.

Now I'm trying to focus on the hope that I have.

My mind just goes to his wife, and his three small children (I think Audrey is 6, Reid is almost 4 and Norah is about 6 months). I'm praying for hope for them, and an a comprehension and peace that passes all understanding. Because this, this passes all understanding of our finite human brains.

And that is why we have hope.

I thought Beth Moore said this well on her blog:

"God has me home for the holidays for healing. For restoration. For a fresh return to the simple things. I've spent the entire year balancing the beauty and complexities of women's insecurities and the Book of Revelation. How's that for some whiplash? And I have loved every second of it. God is not miffed at me for working hard. He is the One who called me to the harvest field just as He called you. He just wants me to rediscover Sabbath rest amid the work and He's chosen to begin with a crash course. I am gradually taking the ribbon off the gift of simplicity that God is giving me for Christmas this year. I plan to unwrap it slowly and deliberately. 2010 will start soon enough and I'll pack a suitcase and be on another plane. But not the same. If I am, I will have missed something huge. Something vital. Something life-changing between Jesus and me. And I do not plan to miss it for this world. It's why He has me here."

This is what I am hoping to focus on with a more freed up schedule this next semester. I have worked hard and served well this past semester, but at the catalyst conference I felt God pushing the idea of a Sabbath on me and urging me to make it a priority. This semester I plan on doing just that.

On a side note, I think it's really hard for people not in a paid ministry position to do that. Not only do my husband and I have other jobs, but we are called to serve the church and our family amidst that and sometimes there just isn't enough time in the week. How does one balance and prioritize three incredible important things?

I have nothing scheduled from now until Christmas and I'm very excited about that. I'm going to try to be intentional about making memories right now and focusing on worship. That's the point of it all, Christmas, Easter, our very existence: to give God the glory he deserves. So I am going to focus on that.

Sorry for the randomness, my blog is reflective of my head right now; all over the place.

I have been blogging a lot about time recently. The need for more, the lack of enough, the feeling as though it is going WAY too fast.

Chris and I have been pretty overwhelmed this semester. For the last month and a half or so we've been talking and deciding on ways we are going to cut back. Prioritize. This is difficult for me, not only because I have so many passions and interests, but because I want to be able to serve well and be a good mom and serve my family well. It's very tough to do both and to have to sometime not be as good about doing one or the other.

There were a few things we decided to cut back on that I was a little anxious about because it involved saying no to people. I don't like saying no to people, especially people that need help.

However it has been really neat to see how all the areas of concern I had were taken care of by God. Conversations I was anxious about were either brought up by the other person or viewed as no big deal. God had already been working on their hearts.

Areas that I was serving in, and didn't want to stop or give up but were going to be a strain on my family cut their time requirements in half.

God is good, I am thankful that he is helping make it possible for me to be a great mom and take care of my home and family and serve him well.

We survived the trip. It was good. The kids did well, I was the only one that got sick, and it was an enjoyable visit. To be able to say all that is a huge blessing!

While I was there I heard that the pastor that I'm always quoting around here, Matt Chandler, had a seizure. Turns out he has a mass on his frontal lobe and is having surgery this Friday. They won't know if it's cancerous or not until they get in there.

He pastors a church of about 6,000 people and has 3 kids, his youngest not even six months old yet. He's in his mid-30's.

I'm not going to lie that it's shaken me up a bit. Not only as a reminder of how viciously and continuously our enemy is attacking us, but to have something happen to someone like this is hard for me to wrap my mind around.

I know the right answers, and I know I need to have faith, and that somehow God will be glorified through the situation. However that doesn't make it any easier for me to understand.

Sometimes this life just gets hard. Actually a lot of times. And right now I am tired of seeing God fearing and loving people being attacked. We are being attacked in our marriages, our families, our spiritual lives, our sexual lives, our finances and health. It's a full frontal assault and today I'm tired of fighting. Looking forward to the glorious day when the fight is over and I'm HOME.

This man is incredible. He pursues the Lord and has an unprecedented understanding of Him, he's a great dad and husband, he leads his church well and puts the Lord before all else. He has impacted mine and my husbands life as well as countless others with his message. I have a deeper understanding of God thanks to his obedience. Please join me in praying for him, his family and his church this week. He is also a highly publicized figure so please pray for the media and the people that will be affected through it as well.

Thanks.