From a movie that I have now watched 3 times in the past week...About a Boy...

Marcus: "Suddenly I realized: 2 people isn't enough. You need a backup. If you're only 2 people, and someone drops off the edge, then you're on your own. Two isn't a large enough number. You need 3, at least!"

word. here's to backup!!!!!!!

Do you ever get that feeling when you wake up in the morning that you don't want it to be morning yet, but you know that you won't be able to get back to sleep again even if you tried? Well, I was in that state this morning. I didn't want to get up, but I knew that staying in bed would be pointless. Then I rolled over to face the window and I noticed tiny shafts of pink seeping through the cracks between my blinds.

So in a stroke of boldness, I gathered up my courage, threw off the covers, and yanked up the blinds, to find one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. Bright red across the whole horizon, blending into fiery oranges and softer yellows, against a purple-grey background - simply breathtaking!

The thing about sunrises is that, if you sit and watch them, the changes in colour and brightness are so gradual that you don't really notice them happening. But when you turn your back on it for even a few seconds, then turn to it again, the amount of change in those few seconds can be astounding! (I was thinking of using this as a springboard for some sort of profound illustration, but now I can't think of any...)

In any case, that spectacular sunrise was a great way to start off the week! I think it may make me smile all day. :)

I want to help!

If faith is being sure of what we hope for,
Certain of what we do not see,
How does one convey certainty?
Because I am certain.
But I don't know how I came to be certain.
How does one explain
Joy in the midst of pain,
Peace in the midst of trouble,
Life in the midst of death,
A Love that knows no bounds?
I can't convince anyone of these things
With words strung together.
But neither can I manufacture
The experiences by which certainty comes,
And so I sit by and wait.

It feels so small, so passive,
This waiting and watching while You work,
When all I can do is pray!
I want to help!
But I know that what is needed is deeper than words,
The way that is blazed by the Spirit
Through the hard grind of life,
The way of experience, of One who has seen and heard and felt it all,
The way paved with the blood from Your side
When You cried, “It is finished!”
Because only You can finish it.
You have let me help for a little while,
But now it is beyond my reach.
Beyond the reach of words or actions or reason.
For certainty has to be learned and seen and experienced,
Without intermediates,
The glaring beauty of Your holiness,
The merciful scalpel of Your love.
Straight from the source.
Pure, unadulterated, devastating Goodness,
That peels back and lays bare
And pulls out the cancer that is eating us up
From the inside out.
So we can heal.
So we can learn how much taller and straighter we can walk
Without carrying around this unnecessary weight.
We have no idea how much You sustain us.
You work even when we are sleeping.
The sun rises & sets at a word from Your mouth.
You do not need our help.
So thank You for letting me help sometimes. Even just a little bit.

Funny story of the day...

Last night, Amy, Katrina, and I went out to Ace's for dinner, where we talked and talked and talked until our food got cold (well, at least mine did...) and we realized that the whole restaurant was empty. Then I noticed that they were vacuuming the floors. And so we decided that maybe we should get up and pay our bill and be on our way - which we did, all the while still laughing and talking. As we were walking out the door, we asked our very obliging waitress what time they usually close, and she told us , "Mondays and Tuesdays we usually close at 7." It was 7:40!!!!!!!!!! AAAH!!!!!!!!!! We felt like very terrible, insensitive people who should have tipped more...even though she assured us that she would have stayed this late anyways to clean up (which she had done all around us while we ate into her evening free time.)

But wait, there's more!!! Upon arriving back on campus, Amy and I dropped Kat off at Paul's townhouse, and went to the campus centre to check our e-mail. Of COURSE, Amy got an e-mail from Sam, and so it is no surprise that she was a little flustered/distracted on our way out to the car, and I was on the phone with Michelle, and as we opened our respective doors to get in the car, Amy says, "Wait! This isn't your car!" She was right. As we were walking up to it, I thought it looked a little too clean to be Tallulah, but I figured it just wasn't as noticeable at night time. But then Amy realized that her bag of clothes wasn't in the back seat, and the light bulb in her head came on much faster than mine did, at which point we collapsed in hysterical laughter in the parking lot. We DID find Tallulah. I had parked her over in the ATM parking slot, and the other car wasmuch more visible, right under the street light, the first car you lay eyes on after leaving the campus centre. Only in Houghton! Where everyone leaves their car unlocked...Otherwise, we would have had car alarms going off and suspected theft... :)

WOOHOO!!!!!

My friend Karis, who went to school with me since 2nd grade, is getting a transplant today!!!!!!!! After a failed intestinal transplant over a year ago that put her into a coma for several months, and being in and out of the hospital for the past year, she finally got a phone call last night saying that they have new organs for her! I think this time she's getting new intestines, liver, and maybe even a pancreas. Amazing what technology can do these days...

For those of you who don't know her or haven't heard about her from me, Karis has been sick her whole life, but her testimony, and that of her family, is simply astounding. They have brought light and love to so many hospital wards, and to many people outside hospitals with whom they get a chance to interact. They have experienced the sustaining grace of God in sickness and health, in want and in plenty, and they will eagerly tell anyone who asks them about where their joy comes from in the midst of pain. Prayers are going up around the world right now, that the surgery would go well, and that the organs would take this time.

This weekend, I finished 3 of the books on my list - Yancey, Nouwen, and the Advent reader. Following the suggestion of my wonderful mother (who has greatly influenced my love of books...among other things...), I have picked up Brennan Manning's classic The Ragamuffin Gospel as one of my next ventures. I first read it during the summer of 2004, with my beloved Godspeed team, and I'm picking it back up again at a very different place in life. Like any book, its contents must be taken with a grain of salt, but seeing as I've also inherited from my mother a penchant for analyzing EVERYTHING I come across (often to the point of being ridiculous...), salt very rarely seems to be lacking in my literary diet! But in the midst of my frequent over-analysis, something very refreshing jumps out from the pages. Honesty. And grace. What Manning writes in his introduction, regarding his book, I think could be expanded to describe the Gospel itself.

[The Good News] is not for the super-spiritual. It is not for muscular Christians who have made John Wayne and not Jesus their hero. It is not for academicians who would imprison Jesus in the ivory tower of exegesis. It is not for noisy, feel-good folks who manipulate Christianity into a naked appeal to emotion. It is not for hooded mystics who want magic in their religion. It is not for Alleluia Christians who live only on the mountaintop and have never visited the valley of desolation. It is not for the fearless and tearless...It is not for legalists who would rather surrender control of their souls to rules than run the risk of living in union with Jesus.

[It is] for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out. It is for the sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to the other. It is for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together and are too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace. It is for the inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker. It is for poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents. It is for earthen vessels who shuffle along on feet of clay. It is for the bent and the bruised who feel that their lives are a grave disappointment to God. It is for smart people who know they are stupid and honest disciples who know they are scalawags.

From one closet scalawag to another, my cheese has completely fallen off my cracker. I am in desperate need of grace.

I'm an incurable bookworm...

Lately, I have been having a hard time putting my thoughts & feelings into words. Do you ever feel that way? They seem to float and flit about in my head and in my heart like vapors, not quite substantial enough to be grasped onto but still undeniably there - felt, smelled, tasted, and their nuances affect me. And for someone like me, who processes things best externally, through journalling and conversation and prayer, a lack of words is a real problem. So, in the inability to put my own words to these things, I have pored over pages and pages of other peoples' words, trying to find someone who could flesh out these jumbled wisps, making them somehow a bit more substantial and concrete. And it has been a blessed venture, indeed! To find, in books and blogs and Scripture and sermons and songs, words from others that capture the aching in my own bones, the near-bursting joy mingled with heart-breaking sorrow, the words that I couldn't find for myself. Some of these sources are as follows:

The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey
Watch the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, by various authors
Christianity at the Religious Roundtable, by Timothy Tennent
Job
Psalms
Genesis
The Gospel of Luke
Acts
II Corinthians
In Her Words: Women's Writings in the History of Christian Thought, by Amy Oden
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
The Genesee Diaries, by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Yes, these are all simultaneous...The stack of books next to my bed is huge! I'm almost done with a few of them, though, so...do any of you have any suggestions? :)

(Thank goodness for libraries! That way, I don't have to spend a fortune to feed my habit...)

I wish I had pictures...

Pictures of a lovely weekend in Washington, DC, with Mike, Tegan, and Mike's sister Kimmie! Of the living room floor strewn with books that we all have been reading, the massive jar of Nerds that has been getting emptier and emptier every day (hehehe...), the Russian teacakes that we baked last night, and of course Tegan curled up for a nap in the papasan chair. Or in bed. Or on the floor. Or pretty much anywhere. :) Pictures of the four of us crowded around a computer screen watching movies late at night, or wandering around the DC malls on New Year's Eve only to find that pretty much everything closed at 6 pm except the wine & liquor stores...interesting... Oh, and pictures of Tegan taking over the world!!! That's right, we brought in the New Year playing Risk, and although I had control of all of the Americas and almost half of Asia at one point, everyone ganged up on me and I was the first one eliminated...and then Tegan took over the world...Maybe someday I'll develop a sense of strategy! Until then, I will fly by the seat of my pants as usual.

"Any New Year's resolutions?" you may ask. And my answer is no. I have a life resolution: I want to learn. I want to learn how to change my own oil. I want to learn how to play the guitar. I want to learn how to listen better, instead of having my first reflex be to open my mouth and blurt something out. I want to learn about grace, about trust, about hope, about love, about what kind of justice God wants, about sacrifice, about how to pray without ceasing. I want to learn how to make bread without a recipe (I still need to peek sometimes...). I want to learn how to hold tightly, tenaciously, to the things that matter, and learn how to let go of the things that don't matter. I want to learn to wake up every morning and face life head on, with my eyes wide open. This is my life resolution. I want to be a perpetual learner.

In other news, KATRINA AND AMY GET BACK TODAY!!!!! Woohoo!!!! I can hardly wait. (And, Amy, Tegan graciously bestowed some ginger on me, so now we can make ginger tea!)

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.