Family at Christmastime

It doesn't surprise me that I'm uninspired to blog lately. My own personal journal has 3 entries in the last two months. Especially this past week I've just sat here and wondered, why is this even important? This is so minimal, so trivial, just not even worth it, in comparison to recent events. But despite pain, despite the suffering and questions and wondering how something like this could possibly happen, our lives don't stop. And I really can't bring myself to say much more on the topic or I'll be reduced to tears. Many other people have said it all already, so on that note...

Yes, life is still happening around here. Rob's mom and grandma came into town on Sunday evening. It is always a tremendous blessing having family around. We've loved having someone to take care of Josiah while we spend some much needed time out with each other and with friends. And Josiah is loooooving the tons of extra attention from his grandma and great grandma (or GG, as she has rightly been named).

Tuesday evening Rob and I had a little Christmas celebration of sorts with our friends Emmie and Chris. Chris baked the MOST delicious homemade cookies, with a glass of milk of course. And I dominated humbly won a game of Farkle. At the end of the evening they blessed us with sweet, thoughtful Christmas gifts. Truly thankful for such wonderful, lasting, deep friendships.

Last night we took our Canadian relatives out for some authentic Tex Mex dinner ;-) Great Grandma had her first EVER margarita. She agreed she's missed out her whole life. If that wasn't enough, we went to Target after dinner, which GG has ALSO been missing out on her whole life. Ha. We were going to head over to Grapevine afterwards to see the beautiful Christmas lights downtown, but Josiah was on the verge of epic meltdown, so we called it a night and will try again on Saturday.

More adventure, and pictures to come, hopefully sooner rather than later.

The Yellow Chair

This little yellow chair. Left as trash at someone's curb. Worthless, useless, no good anymore.

Until.

Someone noticed its beauty.

Saw its potential.

And picked it up out of the trash pile to give it new life.

I'm a little like that yellow chair. Picked up out of the muck and mud, made clean and given new life. Redemption. A beautiful new purpose in the hand of the Lord. I wasn't qualified, I wasn't even calling out for help, but He noticed me, He came, and now I'm a powerful tool all because He chose me.