Some thoughts....

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2010&version=NKJV

This has been on my heart for quite some time, but I have never sat down to write about it. Over the past year I have struggled somewhat in keeping up my daily walk with the Lord. To be brutally honest, I basically didn't have any daily time with the Lord. I prayed and trusted in what He was doing, but devotions and taking time to grow were not in the picture. There is an online parenting forum that I like to browse (it's not a Christian site) and it never ceases to amaze me what people believe about Christianity. Every so often on the site there is a "discussion" about religion and when reading responses, it hurts me to see the hurt in our world. So a couple months ago I kind of hit rock bottom. I knew I had to get back to daily time with the Lord (as much as possible considering I do have a 10 month old who sometimes makes it quite impossible) so I started reading the Psalms. I got to Psalm 10 and was struck by the truth of that Psalm and our current world. I don't have the time to type it out now, but I have linked Psalm 10 from an online Bible if you want to read it. The truth is, no matter how hurt this world gets, no matter how tough it seems, God will prevail and in that we can rejoice.

To add one more piece to this, I have a friend who is living in southern BC serving at a church with her husband. In her blog she wrote today about the blessing of buying groceries for one particular man (http://moresweetthansour.blogspot.com/2010/12/grocery-list.html). It struck me that this is what Psalm 10 is also about. God is using my friend and this ministry to be a "helper to the fatherless" so to speak. It's compassion. It's understanding that God sees the bigger picture. It's knowing that when we do our part, God uses that for His glory no matter how small that part may be.

It's Winter!!!

We have now entered my favorite time of the year. It's winter and Christmas is coming. My house is wonderfully decorated with Christmas lights, greenery, the nativity scene and, of course, the tree!!!! We continued our Christmas tradition of heading out into the woods to get the tree and this time Maddison was with us. She did great and didn't complain about the cold at all. It was a great day and we had fun finding and decorating the tree. That said, once we had it up, it fell down the next day! So we had to re-decorate, but it was still fun.

Life has been truckin' along just nicely. We have probably 6 inches or so of snow on the ground and more falling as I type, so that's been good finally. We are doing some re-training for our dog Emily as she is not reacting to Maddison all that well at all, but we have seen some progress so that is good. Maddison is keeping us busy doing her baby things. She pulls herself up onto every piece of furniture and LOVES to play the piano. If the lid is open, she's there! It's quite cute actually and I've gotten quite a few pictures of her there. She's also crawling everywhere and basically discovering that the world is much bigger then the living room! She enjoys going out on the sled for walks, which Emily also enjoys, and will just sit there and look at everything as we move along.

Dan and me have been busy but not, if that makes any sense. We've had some sound stuff that we've done, the Ladies Tea and a couple of Sundays to fill, but for the most part it's been a little bit slower then usual in between his weeks of call. He goes on call again next week, so that will make for an interesting week I'm sure, and then the week after that is Christmas, so it's getting close! We are completely done our shopping for the year, so now it's just getting the stuff wrapped and under the tree, which won't happen until the 23rd or so.

Anyway, just thought I would pop in and update a little bit for you. Merry Christmas!!!!