We are coming upon a fabulous day, when we celebrate the closing of one year and the beginning of another year! What a great time to think about all the blessings God has poured out on us all. This past month, as you have read here on the blog, we lost Randy’s dad. A friend of mine sent a card to us and it went something like this. “In spite of our circumstances, we still have that unexpressible joy deep down in our hearts because of what Christs has done for us. We know that this parting will be just for a short time. We know that God has given us joy when we have had sadness. He has given us peace, when we have had times of unrest. He has given us comfort during times of pain. He has given us hearts of thankfulness in times when we felt we didn’t have much to be thankful for. He has given us love, when we were going through times of feeling alone and unloved. He has given us strength when we were feeling so weak and helpless.”

If we think back throughout this past year, I’m sure you, like me, have had days, maybe months when all we could do was cry out to our Lord because we just did not know what else to do. It was during those times when He leads us beside the still waters. He upholds us with His Righteous Right Hand. He carrys us when we just cannot walk another step. He lifts us out of the pit we are in, sometimes put there by the choices we have made. He is our Rock and our Redeemer. Let’s commit this new year, 2010 to Him and give Him our lives, our hearts and our talents. I pray that I won’t just give Him my agenda and expect Him to bless it. That I will trust him, allowing Him to lead me where He wants me to go.

I Kings 19 tells us that Elijah dealth with self-pity, but also loss of physical and emotional strength, but…….God in His mercy came to Elijah and gave him rest, food for strength and also showed him the plan  in which Elijah was to  prepare. It wasn’t until Elijah got away by himself, surrendered his heart and his will that God came to him in a gentle whisper. That is my prayer for my life this year. That I will step away from all the unnecessary “have to’s” of my life and “be still and know that He alone is God” and allow Him to show me in His own way, His will.

Well, what a fabulous Christmas Eve. It is cold here, rain will be turning to snow, we are told and the kids have begun to file in. Am home by myself for a couple of hours while some are at the show, Frosty is working for a few hours at his office, friends have dropped over today to drop off goodie bags and it has been a wonderful reminder of what Christmas is truly about. I have printed out Luke 2 so the kids can take turns reading the Christmas story tonight after dinner. We are going to Christmas Eve service and then come home to Italian food. This will be a great year. I love having the house full of laughter and craziness, it makes the tiniest bit of quiet time so very special. It also reminds me of when they were little that the house was always full of noise and how I dreamed of one day having a quiet house to sit by the fireplace, watching the lights on the Christmas tree and reading a novel, listening to Christmas music. What world did I think I would be living in. Not this one, I’m sure. One adult child is always running out to get Starbucks for themselves, AND hot chocolate from Starbucks for the kids, because they don’t like just the hot chocolate that comes in the little packets anymore, AND I find 2 hours later, that each of the hot chocolate cups are still half full, because they ran out to go to the mall. We had planned on seeing a 1:20 show, but the kids were bored walking around the mall, so they go to the noon showing. The italian restaurant calles me to tell me that I need to pick up my salad at 3:30 because if I pick it up at 5:30, 20 other people will be there to pick up orders and we will have to stand in line. One of the grandchildren threw up on our comforter last night. One of the grandkids is entering the “teenage” years, and doesn’t talk, she just texts. So I have to go retrieve my phone from it’s charger, because one grandkid keeps my phone drained playing games on it, so I can text the teen to see what she will eat. She goes back and forth between being a veggan or eatting only pizza or chicken nuggets. The lights have gone out on our prelit tree in the kitchen. Our garage now smells like throw up because the comforter has been thrown out there, because it is too big to wash and the dry cleaners are closed until Saturday. I fixed my “famous coconut cake” only to learn now that one of the familes is not eatting coconut anymore. I have listened to Brittney Spears sing Santa Baby, so many times, that I am now walking around with ear plugs.

So, two days after Christmas, we will be alone, again. We will sit by the Christmas tree, with the two strands of still working lights on them, get out our novels and our Barry Manilow music and talk about the last week. Then I will get tears in my eyes, because everyone is gone and the house seems so quiet. But…….how blessed we are that we have adult children who love us and are so good to us. God is so good to our family. I pray that we will honor Him in this season of Christmas by making Him the honored guest in our home. Merry Christmas and don’t forget to share with your family what God has done for you. Let’s share with  our children and the grandchildren the truth of God’s Word to carry in their hearts for generations to come.

Thought I would pass on to you something that I have been doing this year for some friends. Frosty and I had gone into Z Gallery and found these beautiful trays which were embellished with rhinestones around the edges. They sold for almost $40.00. I told him, “hum, we could make those and certainly a lot cheaper than that. ” So that is exactly what we did. We went to Hobby Lobby where they have beautiful red, silver, gold trays and black, red, gold and silver chargers which you can use for cake plates. Then I bought some rhinestones there in the craft department and came home and put different disigns around the edges. They are just beautiful and we have made about 20 of them for gifts. Everytime we give them, the recipients are just so excited. They make a beautiful tray for candles, cookies, cupcakes, etc. Thought you might want to try your hand at this. A very inexpensive gift to make, but look so expensive. Only 2 more days to our day we celebrate the Savior coming to live among us. Merry Christmas.