The Holidays

Don’t you just love this time of year? It is by far my favorite. Starting with the beginning of fall; all of the smells and sounds associated with it and the air gets a little crisper. I love all of it. This year was a unique one. It was a fall full of lessons to be learned about the wonderful mercy, grace and power of my Holy Father. If there was one thing my parents did especially well, it was to teach us the true meaning of Christmas. Since we were on the mission field most of my growing up years, we spent most Christmases with just my immediate family, and we established many traditions. One of those traditions was to begin reading the nativity story in sections each night for the week leading up to Christmas Eve. The younger kids always got to hold the piece of the manger scene that was being told that night. And then on Christmas Eve we would read it in its entirety and then sing carols. We opened our gifts on the 24^th and it always felt more authentic to me that way because I imagine the stable at night with the stars shining above. Christmas was then a family day. Luke and I are beginning to establish some our own family traditions (most of which we were unable to do this year,) but this year Christmas was a true reminder of the gift God gave the world of new life. I hope that in your precious prayers for my family this year, your Christmas was made even more special as well.

As the week went on and we approached 2009, I couldn’t help but thing of that hymn…count your many blessings name them one by one, count your many blessings see what God has done!... and I began to count. God has given me a wonderful husband who loves Him more than me. He has given us a ministry to serve Him in. He has blessed us with five beautiful, unique, healthy, irreplaceable children. He has given us a roof over our heads, a car to drive, food to eat, and clothes to wear. He has provided us with wonderful friends and family members who have proven themselves to be true prayer warriors and has used them to spread the news worldwide uniting the body of Christ in one cause allowing Him to display His unlimited grace and show His loving-kindness and power to so many believers and lost alike. He was in complete control every instant of my journey these past months, He brought mom home at just the right time. He gave many doctors wisdom on just the right decisions to make (not to mention the quality of doctor care He alone provided me with.) He spared me the majority of the pain by allowing me to be unaware during those first few weeks of recovery. He watched over my family better than I ever could. I could keep going and going and going because there is no end to His goodness, but I am aware that not everyone wants to read my blog all day J so I will finish with this…HE brought me home to my family before Lily’s birthday. He gave me the gift of watching them grow a little longer and for that I am eternally grateful. And He has let me understand that nothing He does is in vain or out of cruelty. Everything He does has a purpose and He has given my family the honor of being a part of bringing Him glory. May I never forget! (fortunately I have a pretty big reminder that goes from the top of my abdomen all the way down, it’s kind of hard to missJ)

I hope your holidays were as wonderful as ours.

In the way of an update; I saw Dr. Spak on the 29^th and he was very pleased with my progress. He still wants to see me in two months again at which time I’ll have to have another CT scan. This is just to continue monitoring the reduction of the fluid and hematoma in my abdomen. My lab work came back very good. All it showed was some borderline anemia so they have me taking iron. I know mom has already written some of this stuff. Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers. God bless you all.