An even more joyful birthday celebration

Merry Christmas (eve) my friends! 

As you eat delicious food and spend time with people that you love remember the reason that we do this.

Celebrate the birth of our Savior with Joy!

 

I will pray for the blessing of Joy to pour over you and out of you. 

Remember that you are loved, by me and even more so by our Savior!

 

A birthday celebration (a few days late)

 My baby is 15 now. 

  Old enough to get his drivers permit in a few days. Old enough to be almost as tall as his dad and have a voice that is almost as deep as his dad’s. He has been taller than I am for several years now. Both my young men have been protective of me always, but my younger one, my Zion, has had a lot of responsibility for me now that his older brother has a job and college classes. He follows through. I want you, anyone reading this, to know how amazing he has been. My children have matured early, with a diabetic, epileptic mother, and they have done a wonderful job. 

 The greatest early Christmas present I ever received!

There are some adorable blogs about him in the years that I was writing often. 

2007, 2 days before his 2nd birthday and barely surviving. 

2008, I wasn’t very good at arranging a blog yet, but Zion was adorable. 

2009, some pictures.

2011, the story linked to in the center of this one still makes me cry every time. 

 He protests against pictures most of the time right now, and took time to deliberately avoid the camera for gift time, but this gift was a surprise and that threw him off enough for me to get a picture of him actually smiling. :) 

Re-using those candles from some other birthday cakes. Poor kid- this mom never wastes and never throws away something that could be used again, lol. 

See what I mean about trying not to smile? 

But... 

I can get him to laugh!

 Take time to celebrate my friends. Remember that. Time flies and before you know it your baby is ready to drive!

If we do not grow weary...

This first verse expresses my greatest desire. It sums up what I hope to be.

I want to be that tree. 

 Branches that reach out and bring shade and protection to others, while producing fruit quietly in the background. Waiting, patiently, with strength.

 I'm not there yet though. I mean, some days I can offer some shade, I hope. Some days I am capable of producing a little fruit, maybe. But I am not the tree that I want to be. 

 I think the main thing I keep having introduced to me over and over is that we are all, every single one of us, less than perfect. 

  Stop and absorb that for a moment please. 

  I am not perfect. 

  You are not perfect either. 

  The people we know and respect and love, well, they are not perfect either.

 

 Sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we ask more of people, and think more of people, and expect more of people than they are capable of being. Then my friend, like every other human for all time, those people we know and respect and love, well, they live their humanness. They mess up. They are less than perfect. Just like us.

 I have had more than a few stories come to my attention over the last year that break my heart. I wish I didn't know them. I wish they never happened. But they did happen. People messed up. Sin was lived out and left it's damage behind.

 Now we, the humans living in the middle of it all, have to figure out what comes next.

 I think I might feel like Elijah did when the brook dried up. I am sometimes afraid that the bad is bigger than the good. I am sometimes afraid that the evil is winning.

This next verse though, oh this next verse!

We are not left beside the brook that has dried up. We are not left in the desert to die. We are promised fresh rain. HIS Words fall like rain, giving us the renewal we need, if we will just seek them. Sometimes they aren’t as clear as we would like, but they are always there. Gentle showers on young plants. 

 Which leads me to this...

 We might feel, some days, that we are growing weary. 

 Don't let that feeling win. 

  Please my friends, keep being the voice of love. Keep being the hands that offer help. Keep being the heart that offers forgiveness, even if the relationship has to change and perhaps the human trust can not be earned again.

 Do not “lose heart in doing good." That is harder than it sounds sometimes, but please, keep trying. 

 I am heavy as I write this, which is why it has been so long since I wrote, but the truth doesn't change. We fail. Every single human one of us. 

 So, every single day get up and try again. Ask Jesus for forgiveness and help. Ask the people you fill your life with for forgiveness and help. Then, tomorrow do it again. 

 Join me in continuing to try, every morning, to make that first verse real.

 Let us "bring forth our fruit", our hope, our joy, in "due season."

 Be blessed my friends, and please, remember to see those blessings. Choose to see the blessings!