Nine things I love about Christmas!

Isn't Christmas one of the most wonderful times of the year? Here are nine things (for the nine days until Christmas) I love about Christmas.

1.) Hanging out with family! When my older brother comes home for Christmas our whole family eats dinner and plays games and watches movies together. It's so much fun to be around them!

2.) The anticipation or waiting for months and months and then it's finally here!

3.) Yummy scents! Don't you just love the fabulous smells wafting through the house when there are pies or cookies in the oven? Isn't the smell of wood-stoves burning so comfy? and the holiday candles are amazing! :D

4.) The rush of Holiday activities . . . most of the time. :) I think I've booked my parents up until Christmas with all the things I have going on! The first couple of weeks in December were especially busy. I like to keep everybody on their toes! :)

5.) Hallmark channel's Countdown to Christmas. We don't usually watch TV during the rest of the year, but during the holidays our parents let us watch Christmas movies on Hallmark together at night. I do have some problems with their movies, though. Should I get into that now or later?? Probably later.

6.) Christmas shopping! Unfortunately, because of "thing #4" I didn't get much Christmas shopping (other than looking online) done until this week. Yesterday my mom and I went out shopping in the morning and then again later in the afternoon. It was so much fun to hang out with her and purchase some presents for the fam!

7.) Decorating the house . . . it's been somewhat later than usual in coming this year. We put up our tree last Sunday and by Wednesday half of the lights had been put on it. When we came home from our outings today, Jessica had the rest of the lights put up and the ornaments nicely arrayed on the tree. It was wonderful to come home to!

8.) The Christmas music. It's just so cozy! Need I say more? :D

9.) JESUS!! I so thankful that God in His love, compassion, and mercy sent His Son to earth to live among us for thirty-three years and then to die on the cross for us so that He could take away our sins and the sins of the world! He loves us so much that He gives us another option; instead of complete isolation from God and no purpose in life, He separated the veil between God and man and gave us Jesus as a sacrifice and payment for our sins. That has got to be the best Christmas gift ever! Isn't He wonderful!

I heard this song today and I loved it!!!  I'd encourage you to think of it as God saying it to you. . . instead of Josh Groban (it paints a better picture that way).  :D 



Well, those are the nine things I love about Christmas!  Merry Christmas nine days away!!!!

Okay, now for the quotes . . .

A few months ago my sister Jessica let me borrow a book of hers called "Stepping Heavenward" by Elizabeth Prentiss. (Prentiss also wrote the hymn "More Love to Thee, O Christ".) I read the first few pages and then lost interest. Finally a month or two later, I picked up the book again and started reading more. This time I was hooked.
If you're like me, most of the time when I read books I want to just skim over the parts that are "boring" and seem to be going on and on. In this book, however, I decided that if I was really going to read it, I probably shouldn't skip over some parts. I'm glad I decided to read it completely, because these few paragraphs really help me to see more clearly what Christ is doing in my life.

" . . . you must go to Christ Himself, not to one of His servants. Make your complaint, tell Him how obscure everything still looks to you and beg Him to complete your cure. He may see fit to try your faith and patience by delaying this completion; but meanwhile you are safe in His presence, and while led by His hand, He will excuse the mistakes you make and pity your falls. But you will imagine that it is best that He should at once enable you to see clearly. If it is, you may be sure He will do it. He never makes mistakes. But He often deals far differently with His disciples. He lets them grope their way in the dark until they fully learn how blind they are, how helpless, how absolutely in need of Him.

What His methods will be with you I cannot foretell. But you may be sure that He never works in an arbitrary way. He has a reason for everything He does. You may not understand why He leads you now in this way and now in that, but you may, nay, you must believe that perfection is stamped on His every act."   Stepping Heavenward, pages 85-86

Encouraging . . . Thought-provoking . . . I love how Elizabeth Prentiss words this. You can go straight to God and bring to Him your needs and your grievances, your joys and your pains, your smiles and your tears. You don't have to go through "one of His servants" to talk and listen to Jesus. He cares about you personally and wants you to come to Him yourself and ask Him to take help you. Meanwhile we have to be patient and wait on Him to do what He will with us in HIS timing. That's a lot easier to write than it is to do.

"He lets them grope their way in the dark until they fully learn how blind they are, how helpless, how absolutely in need of Him."

Have I fully learned how blind, how helpless, and how absolutely in need of Him I am?  May Christ teach me and cause me to understand this fact so that I will become more and more like Him until the coming day.

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure"                 Philippians 2:13

My First Post - Yes, a Generic Title

Hello Blogging World to whom I am new and inexperienced! I believe the blogging world is becoming extinct; at first popular and uncontrolled, and then slowing down as facebook and twitter became more and more aggressive. Texting is becoming even more rampant (according to the five o-clock news) than before as well, putting blogging in a tough spot. I began to feel sorry for blogs across the world, so I decided to add a bright new face to the Internet and begin to blog. Well . . . that's what I'd like to think anyway. :)
In all actuality, I am in the process of reading a fascinating book and I read some quotes from it that I felt were really convicting and I wanted some way to convey them to people. As one famous person said (namely my sister) "The worst quotes are convicting quotes."
Anyway, I'll write more about them later, but that's it for now!