One year ago...

One year ago yesterday we had the most wonderful day as a family creating this cozy little winder wonderland!  We tromped through the snow (I actually ended up carrying two 2 year olds while Handsome took care of the tree!) and found the most beautiful perfect 13 foot Christmas tree.  We tied it on top of our Suburba.n and drove 'home.' It was a crazy day, princess had dance class that morning and we hurried home so we could get up the 'mountain' and get back in daylight.  The kids went down for a nap when we arrived home, they were so tired they slept straight through the night!  After 6 years, our tree lights gave up and I made a 8 o'clock trip to Walmar.t for new ones.  We decorated the tree as a couple and while Handsome worked on his message for the next morning, I wrapped gifts for under our Black.Hills.Beauty. 

After he finished we discussed a meeting that was to take place that Sunday evening and how the outcome could be unfortunate.  I even told him that we might need to find a new place to live!  You see it had come a time when part of the church had ideas to go one direction and part of the church had ideas to go another direction.  We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning praying and talking and praying some more for Gods direction and wisdom.  We are a family that takes a stand no matter what the cost may be...God should be first in our lives and that is the bottom line.  We do not want to get to heaven to find be reminded of all the times we 'sold out' when it was conveinient for us.  Anyway, we woke up that Sunday morning and went to church as usual...but that Sunday evening, things turned out the way I feared they would...people came with preconceived ideas and however it played out my Handsome was no longer the pastor of the church and we needed to find a new home....in 30 days!  As my F.aceb.ook status read this morning, "All things work together for good to them that love God." This is true in this situation too...to our amazement some now wonderful freinds had a home they hadn't been able to sell who were willing to allow us to have a contract for deed and take it over right away without all the paperwork being finished!  We started getting up to daycare standard and were able to move in a week before our deadline was up!  That time between our notice and being moved into our new home was amazing, God provided in ways that still just amaze me!  Someone heard about us having two young children, loosing part of our income and our home right around Christmas during a VERY cold snap and gave us a quarter of beef we just had to pick up from the locker...she wanted to give us half, but we didn't have room for it!  Another family gave us $350 to help with moving expenses....another gentleman that we didn't know put in time during the day helping paint or do different jobs at the 'new house' to help us meet our deadline!  The list could go on and on...but it was amazing and we are blessed to have been through it.  It made us stronger.

This year our number one goal for Christmas was to keep it about Christ and be able to sit back and enjoy it.  Last year was a blurr...except for the pictures I do not even remember the tree, we didn't get to enjoy it.  And honestly I do not even remember a single actual Christmas gift....sorry to those who blessed me with them...my mind was somewhere else! 

Merry Christmas...and please take time to remember what it is all about, the Savior born in a manger that came to bear the sins of the world...that includes myself, what a gift that is!