Yet another awesome week of this Christmas season. I have to take a minute and remember I have friends who are going through things right here at Christmas and I know this is not their perfect Christmas.....that being said, most of my friends who are going through things are still rejoicing in the fact that God sent his only son to save us from our sins and that as they are seeing loved ones go through painful days, they know that Christ has his arms wrapped around them. I know of one family this Christmas season whose dad just accepted Christ as his savior, this dad also has cancer and I think the most touching post was from his teenage grandson who was elated with the news. He made the statement that he knew now, no matter what, he would get to see his granddad someday and that now, when his granddad does pass, he knows he will still be able to watch over him. Through the tragedy of illness, God is still good.
Wednesday evening was our AWANA Christmas program, how fun it was to work with the littles! All the kids did an awesome job though. One of my favorite things was on Sunday night, when we went Christmas caroling, Heath, one of my high schoolers from last year asked me to make him Oreo balls for Wednesday night. I did, he was happy and I brought home a totally empty plate from the fellowship time afterwards. Yes, I am one of those that gets hung up on people eating or not eating my food, clean plates always equals good.
Friday we had our catered in lunch and office party at work. I am trying really hard to get ready for vacation but I ran in and played a couple of games, funny, the very first one I did, I answered all the questions and then had to leave to take a call. When I got back I had won the game! It was a trivia game about Christmas movies, OLD Christmas movies, go figure.
Friday evening my guys and I did our regular Friday evening meal out at Puerta Vallarta, after that we truly just came home and vegged.
Saturday, oh Saturday.....Robert was supposed to go help with Christmas play practice at church, then he and I were going to head to Chicago. We had originally planned on leaving really early, like 6 am, but he does the soundboard at church and he was needed and so we just decided we would leave afterwards. We were only going for two reasons, to go to IKEA and to goof around together for the day. In the process of the morning, Robert's Droid had an accident and no longer worked. I hate one of us not having our phone so we decided just to run to the Verizon store and pick up a new phone, it wouldn't take us that long, right? An hour and a half later we were finally ready to head to Chicago, it was after noon but we still knew we had no time constraints so away we went. We went through the drive through at McDonalds, and ate on the road, so that cut some time too.
We got just north of Champaign and started seeing ice on the trees. Oh, by the way, TONS of STUPID, CRAZY drivers were out there, all needing to get someplace and not being sensible or even nice for that matter. When I started seeing the ice, I started thinking it was time to forget it. By the time we got to Paxton, there was lots of ice and still lots of bad drivers, Robert even decided it was time to head back.
When we got back to Champaign, we ended up with just rain again so we stopped at Prairie Gardens and then just came home and kicked back.
Funny how things happen, I had tried so hard that day to make that trip work eventhough things (and God) kept telling us it wasn't meant to be. I am so glad we finally listened because at 8:45 that evening, Robert's phone rang. It was Adam, Adam that Robert had his car, flew across the country to see and did a 4 day tour of the US to get his car safely back to Illinois. Adam had a surprise, he was sitting on his mom's couch in NEWTON!! Of course, Robert was out the door in about 3 minutes.
I cannot tell you how I would have been had we been north of Champaign when we got that call. Thank you Lord for changing our plans and thank you for making me finally listen!!
That brings us to yesterday and our church Christmas program. What can I say? It was great, and the perfect time to just soak in the real meaning of the season. Cherilea was in charge of the kids and they did a cantata, complete with parts....it was amazing!!! I had "Not That Far From Bethlehem" stuck in my mind since Thanksgiving, Cherilea and I have sang it together before and I asked her to sing it with me yesterday. I hated that it was over so soon. We used to sing together a lot and then life and kids and jobs got in the way and hopefully one day, we will get back to doing more. I played my flute but now it has to make a trip to the shop, yesterday morning a pad started coming loose so I prayed all the way through my song that we could just make it without it coming too loose to let me play the correct notes. Ashley Butler sang and Makenna Kuhn played the piano. Mya played for us during our opening song of Sunday school, it was just a perfect day. Our pastor Ben had a short devotional but mainly shared with us how God made his own sermon from the week before very real to him this week. I love seeing God work and especially when he just seems to pick somebody and says, "Today, I'm going to give you the opportunity to change a life, up for it?" Hopefully every time he does that we shout "YES!" but I know in my own life, I have let plenty of those times slip by. As I get older, and bolder, I hope it doesn't happen as often. Very proud of our pastor though for getting to make a difference.
Yesterday afternoon, Andrew and I ran to Olney and then to Effingham in search of his biggest Christmas present, a pair of insulated bibs to work on the house in. We finally found them after 4 stops, now everyone will have some things under the tree.
Last night, Kim had us do our Sunday School lesson from yesterday morning instead of our regular Bible study. It just made the day perfect, of course our lesson was on Luke 2.
So today, HOPEFULLY my last day of work this year, I have tons to do and am bound and determined to find the actual wood grain on my desk tonight before I head out the door. Looking just as forward to this week as I have the past weeks, I am loving this Christmas season.
Merry Christmas and Happy Monday!
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