Merry Christmas!

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shouder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

And of the increase of His government and peace, There Will Be No End!

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

What a wonderful gift God has given to remember this season and always. I hope you feel His love and peace as you have celebrated with loved ones and friends.

Milestones!

This past Saturday, Chris and I were home to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday. We hosted an open house for her and then went out to dinner as a family. We also had a mini-Christmas celebration on Saturday with some gift-giving. 

It was a really great weekend. Achieving 80 years of living is quite an accomplishment, especially now as it seems people younger and younger are moving into assisted living or nursing homes for various reasons.

I am so glad my grandma is still so healthy. She has slowed down considerably and does mix up names now that so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren have been added to her family but she still gardens every summer - producing enough tomatoes to feed a small country! She also has an award-winning lawn full of tress and flowers that is peaceful and relaxing as a backyard retreat. 

Thinking about my grandma reaching 80 years also made me think about my own life. Reaching the ripe old age of 25, I still have a ways to go before hitting 80. But I really want to make it. I guess that means, I need to be making good life choices now to enable that to happen. But I definitely want to see what life will be like 80 years from now! Could be interesting.....

I'm Still Alive!

Wow, I just realized that I have not blogged in almost 2 months....that's a record! Between Chris using the computer for school, my working hours and all the traveling we have done these past couple of months I guess i just left time for e-mail. Then, the Internet we were so happily "borrowing" from a neighbor with an unsecured network stopped working! And since we don't know who it is we can't tell them that they are having a problem. So now it's up to the coffee-shops of Pullman to suck our wallets dry while we check our e-mail and sip on lattes and mochas.

Life really has been crazy these past couple of months. I don't know how I would have survived without God and our family and friends. Chris' health problems certainly made us realize that just because we were newlyweds or everything was going well for us did not make us immune to problems.

I really think that the biggest thing God was trying to teach us (especially me) was TOTAL dependence on Him. My usual pattern is to pray and ask God to provide for me in some way (usually financial), He comes through for me, and then I take the credit. This has not always been the case, but most recently that is what has happened. I thought to myself quite frequently that, "I've got it under control" and "look how well we're doing just starting out in marriage. No bounced checks, no maxed out CC's, no going hungry." I have not been giving God the credit for doing so much for us after we got married as he did before we got married. In a way, it was easier to give God credit before because it was so much more public with so many people being involved in our wedding.

But now I am realizing that I cannot control it all - I can't control any of it really. It's a wall I hit over and over again, but I feel that now I'm beginning to make progress towards the top and one day overcoming this wall and totally depending on God in everything that Chris and I do. The picture I had in my head when I was so stressed out about Chris having a job and knowing our future was that I was jumping off a cliff into a black abyss. I knew that God was down there somewhere with his net ready to catch me and place me where he wanted me but it was so scary to take that leap off the cliff because I could not see anything. I felt like we were walking into darkness and God had not illuminated the path yet. But I realized that even though the path had not been lit God was still leading us and He could see where we were going. The illumination of the path was really an illumination of God never leaving us or forsaking us - no matter how contrary it felt in our lives at the moment. 

I'm still muddling over all this in my head so thanks for reading my scatter-brained thoughts that are slowly becoming more concrete as I process through all the events of the past month.

I think this post more the made up enough for my absence and I hope to be more consistent in the future (especially if we get our own Internet!). But for now, if I don't post again before - Merry Christmas!