Snow days rock!!!

Well, it's been a week, my parents were over! We were in Boston for a week-ish. You know, nobody knows you like your mammie! When I was in Boston, I thought of a thousand and one things to write about, about being with my parents after such a long time - it had been 11 months since I had last saw them - and the city of Boston; it is so beautiful, I could live there in a heartbeat; about visiting family, friends and of course, Maine! I'm gonna retire in Maine, it is so lovely.

Christmas for me, is really about family. Especially in the past few years, being in the US, I've always gone home at Christmas. I've always opened gifts with family, always had steak sausage for breakfast, always gone to church on Christmas Eve...they were my traditions. This year will be the first year that I will not wake up in my own bed, and I have to choose not to be bitter about it. (So much of life is a choice, my mammie and I spoke about that when she was over - while we do not have the choice of being a victim to situations, we do have a choice in being victimized - in most situations, NOT all. Being a victim is not pleasant, but we are all victims of something - you don't get rags to riches stories without victims, they just choose not to be controlled by them. My sister is doing a counselling course for work just now, and they keep telling her that she comes from the perfect family - nothing could be further from the truth - we have had our problems, maybe not to the extent of others, but still by no means small. The reason we are not all falling apart I truly believe is because we were not allowed to make ourselves victims. Life is perfect, we should stop making ourselves miserable searching for it - the guaranteed failure of that is more than we can take...seriously, stop! God knows your situations...if He made a world with all it's complications, your hassles are already being executed. Being that He is perfect, He is capable of perfection, and I think we would all be more than happy to wait for perfection, so wait...

Someone more clever than me once said, (I can't remember his name, which is why they are more clever than me, they probably remember their name!)

"Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have"

Well, I want my family at Christmas, but I have my friends and their are very good to me, so I'll be grand.

My dad bought me a cd player for my car, you know the type you play through the tape deck, and so I HAD to have a new cd to play in it, so I bought the new David Crowder (- I think... it has all the songs from SLMC on it, why I bought it, good stuff so it is, even though it might be Chris Tomlin...) Anyway, I am leaving Boston, I can see my mammie and daddy in my rearview mirror, and I am balling, who wouldn't be? My worry was that when I was with them, all I would be able to think about would be how much I was gonna miss them when they left. The greatest part of them being over, was not what they brought, but what they were, I loved just walking down the street with them and calling out after them and them being there... I was, I am so grateful for the time to be with them.

While I was driving home, I was praying, cause I need someone to talk to when I'm on my own, and I had such a peace, (ok, so don't get wierded out by this, or by the fact that I hear God, we all hear God, we either choose to ignore Him cause He is so loud and makes us uncomfortable, or He is gentle and we think we are making it up in our heads - who are we that He should speak to me? Ocht, it's tough to work out, but practise...see what happens!) and God said to me that this year was about Him.

Ok, so I'm 22, not what you would call old - but in all my life, Christmas has really been about one of two things, presents and Santa, or family, with a side order of Jesus, dressing gowns and dish towels. This year, I have had the family, I have had the presents, it's not time for Jesus yet. Hopefully when it is, I'll be more ready for Him than I have ever been, cause I have had all my idols removed.

I hope you are as blessed with your family as I am with mine.