I apologize for such a very quiet last few weeks on the blog – we’ve been busy elsewhere. ;) No baby yet (praying he comes SOON!), but we’ve had lots of time cleaning, cooking, preparing, and spending time with AG and LB. Yesterday we did the bulk of our Christmas decorating, so it seemed appropriate to repost our “Christmas open house” that I had shared last year – especially for those of you who are newer readers!

I trust you had a blessed Thanksgiving with much to thank Him for – thrilled to begin the advent season and prepare our hearts for the second coming by reflecting on the first!

NP and I always enjoy having people in our home, but especially at Christmas.  I can’t wait to open our home to you, blogging friends!!

So, come on in and grab a mug of homemade hot chocolate, and we’ll start the tour!

I want you to prepare yourself for the shock… we have no big tree this year.

Lots of little trees, but no big one.

We were trying to simplify, yet focus on the meaning of Christmas in our decorating this year.  I hope that you are blessed and “feel at home!” :)

I found these wooden snowflakes for 4 for $1 at a local craft store, NP painted them, and strung them up with leftover ribbon from last year’s wrapping supplies.   I love this Immanuel sign, which I found on sale in the “bargain room” at P. Graham Dunn for $7.50.  I love that place.

I mentioned NP’s transformation of some styrofoam wreaths which he was suspending with fishing line above our armoir… it was fun to watch him experiment with this and I love how it turned out!!

Our mantle was our biggest undertaking this year – it has been months in the making between my names of God ornament musings, NP’s mad creativity, and another visit to P. Graham Dunn where we happened upon this awesome “Be still and know” piece during a 50% off sale.  Yes, please.

Remember my Thanksgiving banner? I had so much fun making that and enjoying having the Scripture on display in my house, so I decided to make a Christmas banner. I love that it is not a “typical” Christmas passage, but is so meaningful. [And that border is nativity toile! So cool!]

Here are some parting glimpses of Christmas throughout our house…

[I must say... I love our new stockings! We found them last February on clearance for $5.00 each at Pottery Barn - much better than the original $30 price tag!!] :)

May you have a blessed, meaningful, and worshipful Christmas this year!

God has come to dwell among us – what wondrous love is this?

If you’re doing Christmas shopping, would you like to win an ipod shuffle for $5? My friend Sandra, who blogs with me over at Scripture Dig and also at her own sites (Heart for Him, Celebrate Every Day, and Today’s Housewife) is raffling off an ipod shuffle for $5 – additional entries are only $1 each! All proceeds will support their adoption – help bring Joel home from Ethiopia to his forever family, and perhaps you’ll win a great Christmas gift in the process! :)

My children are two and four years old, so we are in the stage of life where I am constantly reminding them to use “good words.” I am continually stopping them mid-sentence and prompting them to phrase their requests respectfully with an appropriately placed “please,” and it is an everyday occurrence for me to hold out what they asked for and not let it go until they remember to say “thank you.”

Human nature seems bent against gratitude and toward entitlement. It takes deliberate training to make “thank you” a habitual, yet sincere, response.

This isn’t just true of preschoolers or teenagers with attitude. Ingratitude and entitlement can sadly sneak into our own lives – today, let’s take a few minutes to search our hearts and ask God to point out what, and who, we have been taking for granted lately.

Read the rest of this post over at Scripture Dig today!

We’ve all been there. The waiting room.

After rushing and sweating and tripping over ourselves to get to an appointment on time, we find ourselves staring at the walls, counting the chairs, flipping aimlessly through magazines as we wait. Gazing at the door ahead of us wondering when it will next open, hoping our name will be called. Pondering what might be happening on the other side… what is occurring in the lives of others just out of sight that is causing us to wait. And wait. And wait.

My husband and I have felt for months, years, like we have been stuck in a waiting room. Knowing that God has called us to do and be certain things, taking fearful leaps of faith… and finding ourselves waiting.

From our very human perspective, we tend to think that life is going to happen once that door opens and we can move on to the next stage – but I think God often leaves us to live large chunks of life in the waiting room. It is in the waiting room that our hearts can be adjusted.

The Sermon on the Mount fascinates me. I have been reading through Matthew and once again find myself drawn to these chapters, pondering them, savoring them, longing to understand the heart of the Master. Matthew 7:28 ends this amazing section of Scripture with the observation that “the crowds were astonished at his teaching.” It is astonishing. Jesus’ view of life is so very different from our “natural” human view.

Jesus enlarges our understanding of God’s ways and shines a light on how far our ways are from His. We point to the fact that we have never murdered, He points out the anger simmering in our hearts and tells us that it is by meekness that we will inherit the earth.

We look around ourselves self-righteously as we mentally label “those” people as the immoral, the adulterers. He makes us squirm as He shows us that our very hearts are immoral, points out how prone we are to sin, advises us to painfully cut away and discard anything which might cause us to stumble even in ways unseen by those around us. To examine the plank in our eye before we take the scalpel to our brother’s speck.

We take delight in showing our “righteousness” to the world around us – trumpeting our giving as “setting an example,” praying long and showy prayers that others might notice our piety, making it public knowledge when we choose to fast or make some small sacrifice. Jesus tells us to have a vibrant life of walking with God in obedience and hiddenness – giving in secret, having a prayer life that is fervent and private before we pray to Him in public, sacrificing quietly and offering our lives as a gift to Him alone. He shocks us by saying that many who have prophesied and cast out demons and performed “mighty works” in His name will be cast from His presence, for He never knew them.

We tend to think that life is all about the big appointment – the active, obvious times when it is about us serving, us doing. Life is often about the waiting room. The times of quiet reflection, introspection, searching for the heart of the Father.

Because it’s not about us. It’s about Him.

Life in the waiting room is full of lessons – lessons that are often lost in the midst of hurry, angst, and worry. Is it any wonder that smack in the middle of this message we find this gentle reminder:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?… For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:25, 32-34)

“Lord, we need this… we’re waiting… why aren’t you opening this door?…”

So often, His answer is wait. Wait longer, my child. You’re still seeking your kingdom, your righteousness, your provision.

Seek mine instead.

So far through our series on true thanksgiving at Scripture Dig, we have pondered the fact that gratitude springs from a heart of humility, it requires that we stop in our tracks and recognize God’s goodness to us, it calls us to ponder and respond to the goodness of God in the darkest of situations, it is grounded in true faith, it is based on God’s character and not on our circumstances, it necessitates that we rest in Him and pray.

So, if we are to offer God a sacrifice of true thanksgiving in good times and bad… how do we do this? What does it look like? If you’re in a dark season of life what can you truly thank God for this Thanksgiving season?

Join me at Scripture Dig as we take a closer look at the “how’s” and “why’s” of true thanksgiving in Psalm 100!