Christmas

Christmas was uneventful. I was extremely worried about facing our family. I was nervous, because our last visit was not a very good one. However, it went fine. I did not feel any tension. That was good for me. I think my oldest son, Jordan, was very worried. He is comfortable with our new "faith", however, family can be a little intimidating. He was much better after we got there and there was not problems.

We had an enjoyable visit with everyone. We arrived on Friday evening. We stayed with Rob's sister and her family. It was a nice stay. On Friday they cooked us a nice "traditional" meal. Ham, mashed potatoes, corn, salad, rolls, and of course lots of Christmas goodies. It was a wonderful meal. See, every where else, our holiday meals are things like pizza and chicken (take out), which is fine, however, it was nice to have a good rounded meal. Saturday was extremely busy, we started at Rob's parents, then to Grandpa & Grandma Myers, then to Grandma Balimans. We were gone from like 11:30am-until 10:30pm, and got in all those stops. It was nice to see people we don't see often though. Sunday was easy, we just had to stop at my brothers, then travel home. Overall, it was a great visit. The kids were well behaved, and there where no problems.

Now, our drive home was quit interesting. It took FOREVER!!! We had to stop quit a few times, which really extends the travel time. The first stop was for some caffeine, the second was for some food (the kids where hungry--we found an open McDonald's), and the third was for fuel. Okay let me tell you about the second stop. Jordan decided to run through a huge mound of snow, and lost his shoe. Okay, first we were extremely aggravated. We tell them constantly not to run through snow piles. Then as I am getting really upset, then it was like God just said, "okay, just last night you told Rob that you felt like I could sustain you through any circumstance, so what is the big deal", then of course I felt silly for getting so upset. Seriously just the night before, I commented to my husband that realizing the overwhelming sovereignty of God that I felt he would carry me through absolutely any thing. That might seem small to some, but coming from such works based religion, it is quit a big thing, because everything good and bad, was based on your goodness. God has shown us so much this year. Okay, back to the shoe story. This was a nice pair of shoes, pretty much new, so my husband shovel in the snow for about 20-30 minutes, to no avail. He gets in the car, and Jordan was so worried about the wrath of his dad, which did not come. It was like God let this crazy thing happen to show us how far from perfect we ourselves are. It turned into a lesson about the gospel. About how unworthy we are, and still he loved us so much that he gave his son to die for us, and no matter what we do, he is always there for us, his righteousness in imputed to us when we just believe. WOW! I could go on and on, but I won't. At any rate, we are now trying to buy the kid a new pair of shoes, just alike or similar, and continue this lesson about the gospel. See Jordan immediately assumed he'd need to spend his Christmas money on a new pair of shoes. We feel like the thing to do is buy them and continue about how our salvation is free, well to us it is anyway. However, he is in an awkward size, just between boys and men, and they are extremely hard to find. We looked the other day, and they was no men's shoes in size 7, and the women's were all too feminine. We will find them eventually.

I am just so excited about all God has shown us this year.