Is it REALLY over?

Can Christmas really be over already? I can't say I'm suffering from any post-Christmas letdown or depression - but it sure seems to fly by faster every year. Is that a sign of getting older? Probably - everything seems to point in that direction right now..........;)

Here are a coupla pictures of our home this Christmas. We dont' have many - the kids love to use the camera for making their Lego stop-action movies, so most of the time, when I pick up the camera to capture the moment, the screen says "batteries need changing". So I seem to to be capturing fewer and fewer moments these days. Besides, it takes me so long to get up, and get the camera in the first place, that the moment is usually long over by the time I'm ready! Did I say something earlier about feeling older?

Corin licking the bowl - no - your eyes do not deceive you - he IS in the livingroom. Why is he licking the baking bowl in the livingroom? I don't know. A lot happens around here these days that I have no answer for..............

Our tree - which I think is beautiful and which has brought us many cozy times this Christmas! Don't you just love, on a dark winter afternoon, to make a cup of hot chocolate and plug in the tree lights? The kids love to play around it, to read by it, to chat beside it...........I'll be sorry to see it go!

Blessed New Year to all! We have no idea what this year holds for us all - but isn't it wonderful to know that the Lord holds all our times in His hands? And we can start a new year with confidence in that - and with the sure knowledge that He will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory.

Change in the life of a higher critic

Conversion story of a former student of Bultmann, Eta Linnemann.
http://www.gracevalley.org/sermon_trans/Special_Speakers/Eta_Linnemann_Testimony.html

Corin's Point of View

Corin is very excited about our coming baby. I'm not always sure he really knows what he's excited about, having little experience with babies in our home, but he's got his own way of showing love to his little brother or sister, nontheless. Here are his ways:

-he talks to the baby through my belly-button
-he wants my tummy bare when he's doing something exciting, so that the baby can watch
-he shares stuffed animals and his blankie with the baby - sometimes it gets a little much as all these things need to be stuffed inside my shirt :)
- he told the baby a long story about how God was soon going to come and cut a big hole in my tummy to let him/her out
-yesterday he told the baby he could hear God coming in His car.......:)

Help

This is NOT a plea for help - it's a HUGE THANK-YOU for the help we're getting!

This pregnancy was fairly smooth sailing until 6 months - when I started with SPD. Since then the pain has been getting progressively worse - till it's impossible to cope with all the "mom duties". But, let me tell you about the self-sacrificing people the Lord has put in our lives!

We've had meals coming out of our ears! I've hardly had to cook at all since the call went out for meal help - what a blessing! Late afternoon comes and we can just pop a ready-made meal in the oven. My mom does my main groceries, and my father-in-law picks up whatever else we need (while my mother-in-law teaches the kids piano). My mom does some cleaning every time she's over. My sister has helped with the kids - getting them out of the house for awhile and also kicking us out for dinner while she watched them. My s club duties were graciously taken over by some very competent ladies, and Rich takes up slack in EVERY area of home life - thanks, sweetie! And the kids are at my constant beck-and-call to run errands all over the house - they fill the laundry basket, take it downstairs and tote the clean laundry back up, they carry heavy items, they get me things, they pick up toys, dust, vacuum, they play with Corin, shovel snow, help me up :) - actually, the things they do are too many to list! I just know that they are in for a BIG reward when this baby comes :)

On top of this all is the "moral" support. We've been surrounded by concern and love and that is priceless. Phone calls, e-mails, and lots of caring talks and promises of prayer are upholding us and showing in such a tangible way that they body of Christ is truly just that - a body. That, for the glory of God and in thankfulness to His grace to us, we share in each other's burdens and cares.

Thank-you, all!

Always good for a laugh!

"Naked is not a word we use very often in everyday speech, is it mommy?" (Hmmm........no, I guess not.........) He turns to leave the room, still pondering. "Come to think of it, neither is xylophone."

That's our Caleb :)

Hmmmm

I know - a rather strange title for a post. But it was all that would come to mind as I tried to unwind all the thoughts that fill my pregnant mind. And I mean pregnant mind. Not "mind so full of thoughts it could be labled pregnant" - no, I mean, "mind of a pregnant woman". That's quite a different thing. It means I can't find the beginning of one thought or the end of another. It means that the very thought that made me laugh this morning, now makes me cry. It means the cheerful disposition that I purposefully put on when I got up, has dissolved b/c of toys on the floor and crumbs under the table. It means I so often say one thing, trying hard to mean it, while reality is something quite different. Like on Sunday.

Sunday I went to church only in the afternoon. That's the way it'll be from now on - my SPD is giving me more pain and Rich and I made some decisions about limiting my activities. But, back to Sunday. I was talking to some ladies about what was going on with me and after I'd finished my speel, I put a smile on my face and said glibly, "But it's all worth it - it's for the baby". Hah.

Now, don't get me wrong. The pain and the limitations have not, in any way, dimished my excitement for this child. I am seriously excited to have a baby around again - to have a sweet little thing to hold and to love and to nurture and to add to our family circle. But I'm not always cheerful. In fact, sometimes I'm downright grumpy about things. I can be terribly self-centred and self pitying. Do you know what I do sometimes? I'll allow myself to groan while turning over in bed just to remind Rich that it hurts. I care more about myself than his sleep. I'll make the kids feel guilty if, in their childish immaturity, they aren't especially happy about helping. I could go on and on. And yet I want others to think that I'm handling this well and that I'm totally relying on the Lord and that I'm cheerful through it. When I'm really a humbug.

I read good books, I read God's Word, I pray. Others pray for me. And it all helps point me back to faithfulness. To the straight and narrow way. To the way I'm struggling with - and not b/c my pregnant body is not particularily straight or narrow :) I'm sinful and ugly, but Christ came to make me beautiful. And so I come into this Christmas season with some extra baggage this year - feeling a little more desperate for God's grace. And I find it. And I can smile through my tears. Not a glib smile - but a smile that was once a frown. A frown that probed the depths of God's love and found it enough - yes, more than enough!