SATURDAY.

I woke up this morning thinking of what Saturday must have felt like for Jesus' followers the very next day after He was crucified.

I wonder if it felt even worse than Good Friday.

Endurance.

I don’t know about you, but the word “endurance” is not a word that’s at the top of the list of virtues I am pursuing intentionally. I think it’s safe to assume that not many of us has that one penned down in our prayer journals as a top prayer request.

We pray for resolution, for a quick and prompt exit from hardships. We long and pray for closure, for relief. All our S.O.S.’s have a sense of urgency because we know we need rescue and a quick one at that. Let’s be real, who likes to stay under the strain and weight of whatever is burdening or afflicting us?

Emmanuel: God with us.

That's what I'm allowing to sink in this Christmas. I think I'm "getting it" a bit more each Christmas that passes.

I don't know of another faith, ideology or religion that makes it this personal as this.

If we really believe the Christmas story, we are believing in a God who not only created us, but a God who engaged us. We're believing that God is not this disconnected deity that looks upon us from afar. He didn't just breathe life into us to then just leave us to figure it out on our own.

For many of us, God with us is a hard one to accept because if God was truly with me, how is it that so much seems to go under His radar? We tend to question God truly being our Emanuel:God with us when we don't see Him intervening the way we think He should be.

Last week officially put me in the "late 30's" category. Thirty-seven still kind of felt like it could continue to belong in the "mid-30's" category, but thirty-eight? It's definitely closer to forty than to thirty-five. Truth is, getting older doesn't really bother me. To me it just underlines the fact that I am still here.

Life, I believe, can taste a little different to those of us who know how fragile it is. To those of us who have lost loved ones, we are left to face that absence each day. I'm not saying that we are a sordid mess everyday, but we are aware of their absence on this side of eternity. As much as we can envision them in a Heavenly place where God's presence makes all the wrongs right, we still miss doing life with them.

I'll always miss my Daddy.

How did 5 years fly by so fast? Every parent I met seemed to warn me about this and I get it now. I get how the days are long and the years are short. I am still getting it. Our eldest turned 5 last week and it feels surreal! I don't know why 5 just feels up there in a category of older kid. Maybe it's the combination of our middle son, Noah, turning 3 and who also feels like he's lingering at the edge of "olderness" camp with great eagerness/frustration to join his older brother.

The other night as I was putting the boys to bed, I was telling Seth "I love you. Papa loves you. Noah loves you. Baby Evan loves you. 'Abela' (grandma) loves you.", as I continued to name as much of the family that I could get in there. "And. Jesus loves you more than all of us combined! That's a whole lot of Love!"  He looked at me with a little smile and said, "Like 1 trillion minutes?!!!" (Minutes is Seth's reference for amount these days). "More than 1 trillion!" I said attempting then to come up with the biggest number I could find in his 4 year old vocabulary.

We have heard it may times, haven't we: God loves you! Sometimes, so much so that it's lost on us. It can become just another Christian cliche we say. A mantra of sorts.

"Be still and know that I am God." -Psalm 46:10a

I've been trying to let this one sink in lately. I think we could all agree that being still is not something that comes easy to many of us. Add to that being a Mom. We don't really see stillness as something that really applies to us, do we?

We're the ones usually wanting our little kiddos to be the ones doing the being still thing so we can do everyday things like: getting them dressed, changing their diapers (thanks my Squirmy Noah cakes), brushing their teeth, or cutting their hair (yikes! Yes I did...) and the list goes on.

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2Corinthians 5:22

Easter is really all about us. Now, before you roll your eyes, let me expand on why I'm saying this.

The reason behind Easter is us. It clearly says it was for our sake, not for His sake. He didn't have to have a rescue plan. He could've given up all together on the notion of us and wipe us all out for good.

But He didn't.

A year ago I got the blogging bug which led me to begin this blogging journey. A journey that was short lived when I became pregnant with our third baby. Those first 17 weeks that took me past my first trimester were a little challenging with how sick I was feeling. Needless to say, blogging was the last thing on my mind!

I was up the other night reading a blog post by Ann Von Kamp and I felt compelled to share this article  with you regarding the effects of ISIS as well as write my own thoughts on why we need to be more informed and involved. Please take the time to read her post, just copy and paste the following link.

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/05/into-iraq-2-what-the-news-isnt-telling-you-why-we-cant-afford-to-pretend-its-not-happening-sozans-impossible-choice-and-our-very-possible-one/

Trust is a fragile thing- it isn't easily earned nor easily given. Yet when it comes to trusting God I think we all would say that we do trust Him. 

However, when the unexpected happens or when the unknown still stays unknown, when we are are treading in over our heads, when things are out of our control- that trust gets put to the test. 

I have lived just long enough to know that trusting God is not about my trusting that things will go my way.

I find myself going done memory lane quite a bit lately.The other day the lane I went down took me way back to when I was about 9 or 10 years old and we would go to the main downtown park in front of city hall and as a school we would do evangelism.

EASTER.

I don't think there is another holiday that embodies the cuteness factor as much as this holiday. The saggy eared bunnies, the fluffy chicks, the fun shaped chocolate, the pastel coloured eggs - all warm-and- fuzzy material for sure. 

It also can gloss over the reality of what we are commemorating, overlooking the gritty part of what Easter is about. 

Not to dismiss the beauty of Easter but what beauty can we really see and hold on to if we don't see the cross first? 

How about seeing Easter in red before we see it in pastels.

The other morning my oldest son, Seth, got ahold of one of his Bible story books and opened it up to look through the pictures. It was the same story he had picked it out the night before - the story of David and Goliath. I had read it to him unsure of his understanding of the concept of good guys and bad guys at such a tender age and tried keeping it as G-rated as possible. 

Seth went to the picture where Goliath laid defeated on the ground and David was celebrating the victory. "Scary ouwww!" he said with a sad tone as he pointed to Goliath.

I wrote this during the Christmas season and though I posted it on Facebook, I wanted to repost it here as my first "official' blog.

Why did I decide to blog if the online world is already filled with awesome and interesting bloggers? And what would I have to say that would be worth reading? We all know the online world can be quite intimidating, especially when you are putting yourself out there for all to see. 

However, I feel this is something I would really enjoy and honestly, it just feels "right". You could say I have the blogging bug.