Sometimes I feel very foolish. And then I am reminded that I'm in good company...

Seems I've imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind,
But if God's Holy wisdom is foolish to men
He must have seemed out of His mind.

For even His family said He was mad,
And the priests say a demon's to blame,
But God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane.

We in our foolishness thought we were wise -
He played the Fool and He opened our eyes.
We in our weakness believed we were strong -
He became helpless to show we were wrong.
And so we follow God's own Fool,
For only the foolish can tell.
Believe the unbelievable!
Come be a fool as well!

So come lose your life for a carpenter's son,
For a madman who died for a dream,
And you'll feel the faith His first followers had,
And you'll feel the weight of the beam.

So surrender the hunger to say you must know,
Have the courage to say "I believe."
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see.

We in our foolishness thought we were wise -
He played the Fool and He opened our eyes.
We in our weakness believed we were strong -
He became helpless to show we were wrong.
And so we follow God's own Fool,
For only the foolish can tell.
Believe the unbelievable!
Come be a fool as well!

~God's Own Fool, by Michael Card (now playing in my computer...)

Whoever invented Skype is a genius. Truly a genius. My favourite Christmas present of all this year was completely free because of that person (or those people...) - 3 conversations with my family in Brazil!!!!!!!!!!!! FOR FREE!!!!!!!!!!!! Myself, my sister Karen, my brother-in-law Brian, Aunt Jodi, Grandma, and my cousins Jillian and James gathered around a computer microphone in Michigan, sharing love and laughter and stories and news with my parents and my brother Ben around a computer in Sao Paulo. Truly a Christmas blessing beyond measure!

The coolest part, that made my day and made me smile and cry all at the same time, was when ALL of my immediate family was wishing each other Merry Christmas and saying I LOVE YOU, from 3 different locations in the world. Two computers and a phone, conference-called through Skype - us here in Michigan, my Mom, Dad & Ben in Brazil, and Laura and Walter in Dewittville, NY - love and joy mediated by amazing technology. Almost as good as a real full-family group hug. The arms of God truly cover very long distances!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas, my friends, with the new traditions that are being forged during your first Christmas on your own, first Christmas as married people, first Christmas in a foreign land. I am sending you all a Christmas hug, via blog and via prayer! And a few Christmas pictures, for fun. :)

Long-distance family Christmas - hooray for Skype!

This one's for all of you who didn't have a white Christmas! No, sorry, I can't take any credit for the making of that snowman...I just stole the photo opp :)

Someone once told me that dogs can sense our emotions - like fear and sadness. Moose was good therapy this weekend. I wish I could have a dog...

Someone, I don't really know who, once said, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

Losing is hard. But I think that person knew what they were talking about, whoever they were.

Here's to a Love that will never be lost! A Love that we celebrate this week, having come to earth enfleshed in the body of a baby boy named Jesus.

Help!!! I've been tagged!!!!!!!

OK, Katrina Joy, I am succumbing to the blog-tag frenzy...just because I love you...here goes...

Ground Rules: The first player of this "game" starts with the topic "5 weird habits of yours" and people who get tagged need to write an LJ/blog/xanga entry about their 5 quirky habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 5 people to be tagged and list their names.

1. I sleep with 3 teddy bears every night. I hug Honey and Nameless, and Snowball goes in between my knees to keep my back in a neutral position (the eternal physical therapist in me...). And, with the influence of Cherith Reynolds - oops! I mean Cherith Meeks - I have also started heating up a corn sack in the microwave before bed and keeping it by my feet. My feet always get cold at night.

2. I don't feel like paying a company to come pick up my trash for me, so instead I (sheepishly) take my garbage bags out of the can and tie them up, then place them in the trunk of my car for transport to Houghton College, where I surreptitiously deposit them in one of the many dumpsters around campus. For free. hehehe...

3. I brush my teeth for 15 minutes before going to bed at night. All those who have ever been my roommates think I'm nuts because of it, but I bite my thumb at you scoffers of long night-time toothbrushings! I have never had a cavity in my life, and I plan to have such impeccable dental hygiene that I never have to pay for a filling or a crown! Well, maybe I'll eventually have to pay for dentures...but hopefully my excellent tooth-brushing habits will help delay that, too. :)

4. I talk to the drivers of other cars while I'm driving, generally calling them "Buddy," often chiding them for being stupid or offering them advice on how to be less stupid. For example, "Whoa, Buddy, stay on your side of the yellow line!" Or "Get off my tail, Buddy! You're not going to make the speed limit go up or make the double yellow line disappear by riding my bumper!" Or, my personal favourite, whenever someone passes me in a no-passing zone, or insists that they have to go faster than me even though I'm already going 65 in a 55, I smile a plastic smile and wave and say, "Have a nice day! Drive safe! I hope you get pulled over!" (no sarcasm at all...)

5. I love baking - it's cathartic for me - but I don't always get around to eating what I bake. I'd much rather give it away. For example, I made snickerdoodles and sugar cookies last week, and gave about half of each of them away, but only ended up eating about 2 of each myself. So I still have at least a dozen of each sitting at home. And I also have a little bit of hot fudge cake left, that I made for our office Christmas party, and 1/4 of a pumpkin pie in my fridge, and a few dozen more cookies that I just made last night - half of which I am taking to youth group tonight, and half of which I have no idea what to do with. Do any of you like gingersnaps? :) I bake for the sake of baking, not necessarily for the sake of eating what I bake..call me crazy.

There, I did it! The sad thing is, though, that since most of my blogging friends have already been tagged, I may have to resort to only tagging 4 people myself...Chuck, Cherith, Fuller man, and Ben Howard, YOU'RE IT!!!! :)

By the way, have a blessed Christmas, all!

A very eventful weekend...

Chuck and Cherith got married!!! It was beautiful, and now they are one. Crazy. Wonderful.

And DAN IS HOME!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

And cross-cultural transition is hard...especially when you're on the outside looking in. I'm used to being the one going through it, not the one watching, and I hate the feeling of having my hands tied behind my back, like I'm about as useful as a fire hydrant. Except fire hydrants can't pray. Or give backrubs. Or make Christmas cookies. On second thought, maybe I don't feel so much like a fire hydrant.

And I am very thankful for God's grace.

The countdown's getting lower every day...

Did you ever sing that song in Sunday school when you were a kid? I used to love counting down from 10 while progressively decreasing the space between my hands, until at the end of the countdown we would all clap our hands together really loudly..."The count(CLAP)down's getting lower every day!"

Well, for me, it's down to 2, and I can hardly wait until the part when I can clap my hands. Or better yet, when I can clasp one of my hands together with another hand that belongs to a very tall Daniel. In 2 days, 2 hours, and 20 minutes, there will be a big hullaballoo at the Rochester airport as Dan is mobbed by the hugs of a mom, a dad, a sister, a brother, and a girlfriend who are incredibly glad that he is home. Between now and then, I will go to Chuck & Cherith's wedding, sing in my church's Christmas musical, clean my messy room, and try to eat and sleep although I may be slightly too nervous for the last two...

Wow - the next time I sit down at this desk, I will be grinning to put the Cheshire cat to shame. Because the countdown will be over and Dan will be home. :)

Today's Advent reading:

No one can celebrate
a genuine Christmas
without being truly poor.
The self-sufficient, the proud,
those who, because they have
everything, look down on others,
those who have no need
even of God - for them there
will be no Christmas.
Only the poor, the hungry,
those who need someone
to come on their behalf,
will have that someone.
That someone is God.
Emmanuel. God-with-us.
Without poverty of spirit
there can be no abundance of God.
- Oscar Romero

I am keenly aware of how gaping my own insufficiencies are, of how much I need a Saviour to come on my behalf and do in me what I cannot do for myself - bring new LIFE! And even as we pray, "Come, Lord Jesus," we know that He has already come, that He is already here, dwelling in our midst, in our very lives - Emmanuel, God is with us. Hallelujah!

Reunions...

Chuck and Cherith came down last night, and it is so refreshing to see them together again, after a long and very hard 6 months of long-distance! Spending time with them was such a blessing, but you know what? It was possibly even more wonderful just to sit back and watch them interact, watch them talk and laugh together and look at each other with love in their eyes, seeing them marvel at the rediscovery that they can actually reach out and hug each other if they want to, instead of instinctively reaching out to each other by reaching for the phone or the computer keyboard.

And then there's also the joyful news from Japan about the reunion of three sister-friends from Houghton College - Amy, Rachel, and Katrina - being reunited in a context VERY different from the Houghton in which they were used to living out their relationship. And yet, somehow, friendship is always familiar, even when transplanted from small-town America to Sendai, Japan. Rachel's hugs are the same, Amy's laughter, Katrina's funny faces in brackets - all reminders of how incredible the blessing of friendship is, and how amazing God's grace in giving us incredible people with whom to share this journey called life! People in whose company my heart is at ease, free to simply BE, knowing that as we ARE together, God moves in our midst and uses our together-ness to make us all stronger, more loving, more receptive to His voice, and ultimately better disciples of the Christ we all serve, through the Holy Spirit. The reunion of friends is something that brings a smile from the deepest part of me and sends tingles down to my fingers and toes. I hope you are having a wonderful time in Japan, sisters of mine! :)

Watching all of these reunions, I can't even begin to tell you how incredibly glad I am that my own reunion with a very significant friend named Daniel is only 6 days away!!!!!!!!!! Finally... Right now, the place where said nervous giddiness resides is right in the pit of my stomach, in the form of butterflies that just won't calm down. I feel like I'm in 8th grade again.

Today, I officially feel (almost) like a grown-up.

I set up and decorated my very own Christmas tree for the very first time last night! (With Sarah, of course.)

And to top it all off I also changed my very own burnt-out headlight on my very own car. Without instructions or an owner's manual. Just my hands and a flashlight and the analytical, problem-solving brain God gave me, tinkering under the hood of my car until the old bulb was out and the new bulb was in and the wires were all re-connected. So I'm no longer a p'diddle. And I still have some black grime under my fingernails from the whole venture, but it is a very fulfilling kind of dirty. Like the satisfying soreness in your legs after a long run, or the satisfying tingling in your fingers & toes as you thaw out over a mug of hot chocolate inside a warm house after shoveling a foot of snow off the driveway. Here's to having two functional headlights again! Booyah!

(Oh, the reason I added in the "almost" in the first sentence of this post is because I still sleep with 3 teddy bears. I don't think that qualifies me to be fully grown-up yet...)

Sometimes, I talk too much...and am so focused on making sure I say everything I want to say that I don't stop to think about whether or not what I'm saying is actually helpful to the person on the other end of the conversation. Sometimes, I forget to listen...to really listen to what's going on in people's hearts and lives, not so that while listening I can be thinking up the perfect response or solution, but simply so that in listening my heart may embrace them more completely, and love them more completely. Without an agenda.

And, sadly enough, I find that I do the same thing with God on a fairly regular basis. I rattle off my concerns, my frustrations, my problems, and even my joys, and then I say "Phew! Thanks for listening, Lord! I feel so much better now that I got that off my chest. Well, talk to You later!" Then I go about my day, and I forget to listen for His voice unless I'm in a bind, unless I'm lonely and need comfort, or I've fallen flat on my face and I need to be picked back up again. When in reality what I need is to be continually attentive to His voice, so that reliance on Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are worked into the very fabric of my daily existence, so that I don't have to run to Him when something comes up because I've been walking close beside Him all along. Open my ears, Lord, teach me to listen!

So, about that Christmas tree...

I got one for free!!!!! :) That's right. That's what happens when you have a wonderful sister and brother-in-law who are moving into a new house, and you help them paint and clean, and they bestow upon you the artificial Christmas tree that their pastor had bestowed upon them for their first Christmas. So I get to start my official Christmas decorating and cookie-baking this week! Hooray!!!! :) Once my arms recover from the incredible soreness of painting a dining room, bedroom, and study, that is...And I still don't have a nativity scene, but I'm working on it.

On another note, today is the day when I am all grins and smiles for my dear friends Chuck and Cherith, whose long-distance countdown ends TODAY!!!!!! :) Cherith and I have been in pretty much the same boat ever since June, with both of us staying behind here in Western New York while the men in our lives roamed the country together in a purple minivan, visiting 26 states and 18 national parks (did I get that right?) in one summer. And then, after a very brief teaser of time together, those men once again headed off into the wild blue yonder, this time to study abroad - Chuck to Australia, and Dan to Costa Rica. So now, after months and months of ridiculously difficult apart-ness, in which God's grace has sustained us all, and in which His love has carried us when ours felt shaky and inadequate, the time for love expressed through words over long distances, spoken or in writing, is now becoming the time to flesh out those words in actions, in the sharing of day-to-day life, and in sharpening each other daily to become better disciples of the Christ who has called us His own. My joy overflows for you two today!!!! May God's grace continue to carry your love, always. See you at the wedding! :)

For me, the countdown is down to 13 days! 13 days until I will share the backseat of the Fuller family minivan with a tall, handsome man named Daniel, on the way home from the airport, along with his parents and Jonathan. 13 days until we can talk for however long we want to or need to, in person, without having to worry about how much the long-distance phone bill is going to cost. 13 days until Dan will once again be surrounded by Houghton snow (hahaha...) instead of sub-tropical heat, which will give him ample motivation to stay inside where it's warm. With his family. And with me. :) (P.S. -We still have 5 1/2 books left to read in the Chronicles of Narnia, in case we ever run out of things to talk about! Although I seriously doubt that is going to happen anytime soon...) 13 days, baby!

You know you work in the Athletic Department when...

...you decorate the office for Christmas and still have a sports theme. For example, we have a string of Adidas sneaker-shaped lights (you know, those classic white ones with 3 blue stripes and the rubber of the sole coming up over the toe?)...And we have a whole bunch of "Air Santas," little plastic Santas flying through the air pretending to dunk basketballs. (They used to be on a string of lights, too, but then that string of lights broke, and now we have a dozen identical Air Santas stuck to the windows and mirrors and picture frames in the office.) At least we didn't have to decorate with the Highlander purple & gold theme! :)

Decorating the office for Christmas reminds me that I haven't gotten any of my own Christmas decorations out of their boxes yet at my own house...much less put any of them up. This is the first time I'll have a house of my own to decorate!!! Too bad the only decorations I own are a few strings of lights and multi-colored glass balls to hang on the tree that I don't have...I didn't have the wonderful genius of Tegan & Michael Kroening Diercks, to buy one after last year's Christmas for 7 dollars. So I guess maybe Sarah and I will decorate the hanging house plant in our front window instead. Or maybe we'll splurge on a real tree, or buy a little artificial one because then you don't have to remember to water it. :) But the most important Christmas decorating element of all, I don't have - a nativity scene. (Well, my landlady has a very cheesy light-up set for the yard, which she made sure she showed to me before they left...But I don't think I'll be putting that up anytime soon!) Note to self: find a nice nativity scene soon. We had one in every room growing up. Well, except the bathroom. :) And we had one that we would stick to our windows, too, kind of like a flannel-graph except all white and made out of plastic/rubber so it stuck to glass, not flannel. We always had a tree, but there was only one tree, and Jesus was everywhere you looked! I loved that about Christmas in our house. I want to make sure that I have at least one baby Jesus in a manger in my house this year, with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and sheep, and angels, marvelling at the Great I Am, who created the universe, shrinking Himself down to the size of a crying infant who needed diaper changes, in order to draw us back into the heart of the God...simply astounding!

And you know what else is astounding? In exactly 17 days, I will once again be swept up in the arms of a tall and handsome man named Daniel, whom I love, and who astoundingly loves me back! How blessed I am, indeed. Phenomenally blessed.