Seeing The Unseen

Christmas is over! It was a crazy one! I mean Christmas in China is usually a little bit crazy, but this one takes the cake so far! We had the privilege of having the Masalin family staying at our house for the holidays. Having lost their son Levi earlier this year they were eager to spend the holidays in a new spot and make a new memory. They are an amazing family who we learned much from as we watched them firsthand live out God's grace in their lives. We gave them the house on Friday so they could celebrate alone together and Friday we spent the day with Rob's family celebrating Christmas. We had a great time, all the kids running around, eating Grandma's fantastic food, singing together, and celebrating Christ's birth. Christmas Eve morning found us at a 3 hour preschool "Christmas" program. A few weeks back the preschool asked Rob if would be the English host for the program. Since we needed to go anyways, he grudgingly said yes. Then the...

Today we did feel as if the windows of Heaven opened up and rained down blessings upon us. When we woke up it was SNOWING!!!!! Robbie has been asking me for weeks when it would snow. He doesn't believe it can really be winter without snow, and the thing He was most excited about for Christmas was......snow. Of course we live right next to the ocean and get like maybe 2 snows per winter so the chances of getting one this early are slim. I tried to explain that it doesn't happen very often here, and the best thing he could do would just be to pray and ask God for snow. But I told him it might be a long wait...... He was SO excited to wake up to snow, it was just flurries, nothing accumulated on the ground, but it was still snow. I watched it all morning, hoping just a little would accumulate so he could play. Finally right around lunch time it started coming heavy and fast. So we bundled up as fast as we could and ran outside so we didn't miss the fun. It wa...

The weather outside is gray and cold. There is no sun. Even my house which is generally a bit hot, feels a chill today. These type of days make me reflective. They are always a bit dangerous for me. There is now no doubt that winter is upon us. We've had a solid week of cold and gray. I talked to my parents, my grandmother, my sister & her husband today via Skype. It's a wonderful thing. I am so thankful that we have the ability to connect face to face in that way. It's a priceless gift when the distance separating you is so far. But today in all my melancholy, it just hurt. Sometimes the inability to really give a hug or to sit as one family without adjusting the screen or speech delays, or internet cutouts is tangibly painful. This will be my 3rd Christmas away from home, out of reach of my family, in a land that doesn't even know what Christmas is. There are no pretty houses decorated with lights, no Christmas music playing in the stores, no ch...

"God's promised Messiah was a merciful gift of love to a people who needed both mercy and love. He would come to them in all their pain, brokenness, and struggle, and make everything new. They were desperate for this, and the proof of their desperation was perhaps most evident in the fact that they couldn't bring themselves to live as though this promise was real." (Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative, by Russ Ramsey) Today is December 1st and is the beginning of our Advent celebration. Well......it should have been the beginning, but the kids and I were so excited that we started early. This is our second year to use the celebration of Advent as a way to entrench ourselves in the beauty of the Christmas story. We are trying to combat the usual craziness accompanying this season that tends to envelop us and push us away from meditating on the real meaning of Christmas. Of course we know the season isn't about decorations or presents, or parties, or...

We just finished our second Thanksgiving celebration of the week. We truly have lots to be thankful for. Our first turkey was shared with Rob's family. I am so thankful for the chance that my kids have to celebrate holidays with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It is a crazy strange blessing that we have been given to have relatives actually on the other side of the world with us. I don't know anyone else who has been given that kind of a gift, but He gave it to us, and we are thankful for it. Our second thanksgiving was tonight at our home. We shared our turkey with those who very recently were strangers, but we now count as family. A year ago, I didn't know 1/2 the people in this photo. Today I can't imagine not knowing them. We share the same heartbeat, and although we don't share the same background, or family history, or even nationality, we are forever bonded together by what HE has done for us. We've experienced quite...

Today I read a very real and very raw post from another blogging mother. I really appreciate the honesty and openness portrayed in HER STORY . The longer I am around, the more I realize that basically we all have the same internal struggles. Our backgrounds, our life stories, and our personalities make those struggles look different in each of us, but behind the surface our struggles are very common. I wish that we would be more open with each other, that we would let people behind the wall and tell them that they are not alone. I love when people can do that in an encouraging and uplifting way. When someone comes alongside you and says, "Hey I've been there, I've had that struggle too, and I made it through" it gives hope. It also stops us from believing we are the only one out there who has the terrible thoughts, who is hiding the awful secrets, and who is ready to fall apart. We've all been there, some of us hide it better than others, but at our core w...

It's Thanksgiving week! It snuck up on us very quickly this year! But we are looking forward for all the extra chances for us to express our thanks to God for some of His blessings in our lives out loud with our friends and family. There really are too many to number which I am realizing more and more as I make this small attempt to name them. I am struck again and again that this discipline of naming His gifts, of recognizing them out loud for myself to see, really gives me new eyes. It helps me to see clearly that His love is everywhere, in each little detail of my life. Even the things I initially perceive to be negative, when seen in this light look different. As I look back I can see His hand in the good and the bad alike, shaping my life into what it is today. What if I believed Him today, not just when looking back, that all of His gifts were good and I really could "rejoice always"? 1. Taking adventure walks outside with the kids to find "t...