I can hardly believe that today is the last day of 2009. This year has seemed to go by so quickly!

It has truly been a good year, with many new experiences, and many amazing opportunities to travel and see new places. It was not without its hard times and struggles, but God is faithful and good. Always! I can absolutely bank on that.

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The highlights of 2009 for me were:

• Working at the Nebraska Christian Home Educator’s Association children’s conference in March – pictures here and here (and spending several EARLY mornings at the church making scrambled eggs in our pajamas and taking power naps on the comfy leather chairs in the atrium!)
• Graduation from high school and my reception in May (and having thrilling wheelchair races down the hill in the church parking lot before my reception, and standing up on stage watching my relatives [dare I admit that I'm related to them?] make goofy faces at me and trying not to burst out laughing, and and listening to Pomp and Circumstance over and over and … :) )
• Being a counselor at camp for the first time in June (and talking to the Lord while standing out in the field looking up at all the lovely, twinkling stars, and scampering over to the basement of the chapel at 11 pm with my girls when the electricity in my cabin went out!)
• The Bright Lights conference trip in August (and practicing skit lines over and over, and tripping over camera men while dressed up as a horse, and late night snacks of yummy ice cream that was really frozen yogurt, so that means we could eat more of it, right?!)
• Serving at The Voice of the Martyrs in October (and frogs that didn’t have names and lambs named Felicia and crawdads named Bob, and fuzzy-wuzzy limey-green blankets, and sitting on gi-normous stacks of cardboard boxes, and throwing bouncy “world” balls to each other when the mail machine broke down!)

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My “theme verse” for 2009 was 1 Peter 3:15:

But in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord.

I haven’t found a theme verse for 2010 yet, but I’m praying that the Lord would give me one to focus on this year.

Tomorrow is a new day, a new year, and a new decade. And I can hardly wait to see what God has in store!

My sister and I had appointments at a new optometrist today. I was secretly praying that the optometrist would be nice, because nice optometrists are, well, nice, to be quite honest. :) And he was very nice.

On top of it, they also didn’t do those little air puffs on my eyes! I was so happy, because that is the one thing I absolutely dread about optometrist appointments. I do not like puffies. :) It’s so hard to keep still during them, and they are just generally not, well, nice. :)

Well, I guess that’s all for now. I just thought you might want to hear about those little random blessings in my day today … :)

Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him, for He shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders.

There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in His majesty.

The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

Deut. 33:12, 26-27

In Him, we have a purpose for the present – by bringing honor and glory to Him. In Him, we have a hope for the future – that no matter what happens to our earthly bodies, we have an eternal home we will go to, where we will live forever - with HIM!

He is truly The God Who is There.

He did not create us and leave us to live our lives trying to figure out what in the world we’re here for. He is there, and not out there somewhere. He is here and there.

And He has spoken … to us. The Almighty penetrated time and space in the form of a baby boy. As if His revelation of Himself to us in the form of written words was not enough. In His ultimate knowledge, He knew we needed more. It’s completion and fullness was wrapped in the dirty cloths that covered a baby’s tiny body.

And I’m amazed.

We had a beautiful little party for my Grandma on Sunday to celebrate her 85th birthday. She had a lovely time – we were so happy to be able to arrange everything for her. The weather threatened to cancel the festivities, but it cleared up enough for us to have our party!

We had a rather, ahem, interesting Christmas this year – as a winter blizzard swept through, bringing snow, snow, and more snow, we pushed cars out of snow drifts … multiple times!

Our car, which is pretty much like taking a ballerina out on ice, got stuck too many times to count yesterday, as we were out testing the roads to see if it was safe to drive around the little town where my grandma lives. I don’t think it really was safe, but we did it anyway! :) Then on our trip home yesterday, we turned a 1 hour and 15 minute trip into like a 2 hour and 45 minute trip – we could win some sort of award for driving the slowest ever on the freeway.

Anyway, Christmas 2009 will be a day to remember ( the second White Christmas in a row! ) … and we’re about to go out again into the Winter Wonderland to make some more memories. My dad left for work this morning, and proceeded to drive into a deep snow bank and get his car stuck … very stuck … in the entrance to our development. :) We’re all going to go and push him out. (… “We could take the ballerina car to pull him out … Oh yeah, then we would just have ballerina and little Honda stuck. Nevermind.” …)

I’m off into the Arctic! Tata!

:: and big girls and harps, too ::

I edited this picture that I took of the Wilderness Church in Silver Dollar City a bit, and it turned out kind of cool-looking - like an old photograph almost.

One of our Christmas-time traditions is making home-made caramels every year. They are so good, and we send some to my dad’s work for his co-workers, and they always enjoy them. We made two pans on Thursday. Yesterday I made pumpkin bread and cranberry bread ( even though we didn’t have any orange zest. I left it out. :) ). Then, we made wreath cookies, with the cute little Red Hots that look like holly berries. 

What are some of your Christmas traditions in your family – maybe special sugary concoctions in the kitchen, or decorations that you always do “just so”, or special events with family or friends?

After recently witnessing a lively and rather interesting discussion on the topic of Chai lattes, I decided I must give one a try. I had heard from one person that they are simply marvelous, and from another that they are quite disgusting, and I was puzzled at how such opposing descriptions could be embodied in one simple mug of this sweet and creamy drink. ( Probably akin to how a hotel breakfast can be both “wonderful” and “not very good”, at the same time, depending on who you ask. )

Now, I tried a friend’s Chai latte one time, but I don’t quite remember if I liked it or not.

So I had one today … it was good, though very rich, not something I could have very frequently without feeling some discomfort afterward, but very enjoyable nonetheless. So there you have it, my humble opinion on the topic of Chai Lattes. … now where was I going with this …

Oh, yes, now I remember, the incommunicable attributes of God. And what, you might wonder, does this have to do with Chai Lattes? Well, I’ll tell you.

For you see, I drank my Chai while reading about the aforementioned attributes, one of which is omnipresence, which, (of course) means that God is present everywhere, at the same time. Amazing, I know, but He’s an amazing God!

Anyway, I was reading a chapter on this very topic ( God’s omnipresence, not Chai Lattes … confusing, I know ), and happened upon the following passage. Even though you might have to read it several times to get it (I had to, and I place the blame for my murkiness of mind squarely on the murkiness of the delightful drink I was enjoying), it is quite a lovely little read:

When you wish to do something evil, you retire from the public into your home, where no enemy may see you; from those places of your house which are open and visible to the eyes of men; you remove yourself into your room, yet, even in your room you fear some witness from another quarter; you retire into your heart, there you meditate: He is more inward than your heart.  Wherever, therefore, you shall have fled, there He is. From yourself, whither will you flee? Will you not follow yourself wherever you shall flee? But since there is One more inward even than yourself, there is no place where you may flee from God angry, but to God reconciled. There is no place at all whither you may flee.  Will you flee from Him?

Flee unto Him.

Herman Bavinck
The Doctrine of God

Beautiful, is it not?! 

So back to Chai Lattes, if you’ve never had one, you really must try one sometime … be adventurous! :) You might like it … and then again you might not! [grin]

What’s your favorite winter-time drink for chilly days?

I made this baby quilt for a preemie baby in the NICU unit at a local hospital.

Ordinarily, faith means trust or confidence you put in someone who has given good evidence of his reliability and willingness and ability to provide what you need.  But, when Jesus Christ is the object of faith, there is a twist. 

He Himself is what we need. 

If we only trust Christ to give us gifts and not Himself as the all-satisfying gift, then we do not trust Him in a way that honors Him as our treasure.  We simply honor the gifts.  They are what we really want, not Him. 

So Biblical faith in Jesus must mean that we trust Him to give us what we need most — namely, Himself.  That means that faith itself must include, at its essence,

 a treasuring of Christ above all things.

John Piper
Don’t Waste Your Life