Keeping my focus

So this Christmas was an unusual one. It wasn't like other Christmases where life has been great and gone smoothly and I get lots of stuff. No, it wasn't like that at all. But even then, it came to my mind that Christmas isn't really for me, its for Jesus. Yeah, it's nice to get presents and I love everything I get and am probably going to enjoy it for a while, but that's not everything Christmas is about. It's about Jesus being born and everything that went along with that.

Christmas

It is almost one week until Christmas and on Sunday night our church is having our annual Christmas play. This year our Christmas play is very basic and we are having people say parts of Mary, Joseph, Shepherds and such. Well, I am Mary and it has got me thinking. Mary was my age when she got married and had Jesus. Besides that, her marriage was most likely arranged and so she probably didn't even know Joseph that well. To top that off, after they were betrothed - or engaged - she was told by Gabriel that she was pregnant with the Son of God. Imagine telling that to your parents, let alone your fiance. The law that people who got pregnant before marriage could be stoned was like a cherry on top of a sundae.

This whole thing just gets me to wondering if I could've been that faithful and withstood everything that happened before Jesus' birth and after it too. Imagine, holding Jesus in your arms, and then thinking that He is the Saviour of the whole world! But then, after looking at him as a baby, you'd remember the prophecy in the Old Testament that Jesus would end up dying for our sins. I'm glad that I wasn't in Mary's position. It'd be so difficult for me to raise a child, and love him with all my heart, knowing that he would end up dying for ME! I know I'm saying "imagine" a lot, but seriously think about it. You have a baby and then when He's 33 He'd die for you. I've heard people say how if I was the only one on earth that Jesus would've still come just for me, and I begin to wonder how difficult that must've been for Mary to watch - her firstborn son being crucified for the whole world's sin, knowing that He was dying for her sin as well.

I guess that I'm just trying to put things in perspective becasue I know that a lot of churches have Christmas programs involving the nativity scene and characters. All in all, Mary must have been strong in her life with God the Father, and strong emotionally to go through everything that she had to.

Lastly, I just have to say that it must've been humbling for Mary to hold baby Jesus in her arms. I would feel so unworthy.

Merry Christmas!!!!

It's Christmas time again!!!

I love Christmas time! It's so much fun to put up decorations and set up the Christmas tree and buy gifts. The best part is reading the Christmas story from the Bible about Jesus being born as a baby in a stable. I live on a farm with beef cows, and it's just humbling, I guess, to think that Jesus was born where the cows, pigs, horses, and other farm animals would be laying. It just goes to show that Jesus didn't need to have material royalty to prove His kingship! I also love Christmas music and all of the carols and songs that are reserved for this time of year. This movie is a really funny rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas." They play it on FLN a lot, and I always laugh every time I hear it! :)

It's been a while since I've posted. A lot has been going on! I got a new horse, his name is Preacher. He is about 15 hands high and he is a bay. He is very well trained and I love him! My brother-in-law returned home from Afghanistan after a year long tour of duty. We are so excited that he is home! My brother is also home from college for the holidays. Although sometimes I'm not happy about him being home, it is nice that the whole family is home for at least a little while. I've gotten a job and I love what I do! I work at my dad's personal care home. I love being around people! Sometimes it can get gross up there, but I want to go to nursing school after highschool so I'd better get used to it. Our family Thanksgiving was really fun. But because my bro in law got home we are having a big Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow at my sister's double wide, and we are going to fit like 17 people in there! It's crazy! I don't think it is going to work, but I'll have to post afterwards to let you know if we all fit or not!

The cutest version of Psalm 23 I've ever heard!

Sleep

This is way random, but I love sleep! It is one of the greatest things God created for us to do. Speaking of which, I got to sleep in really late today for the first time in a while! I didn't go to school, but I would've been a wreck if I had've gone. The weird thing is though that I am still tired even though I have gotten enough sleep. Oh well. I have a long weekend so I'll make it up some time this weekend. :)

Elections

I'm really concerned with the presidential elections this year. I'm praying that God will show our nation mercy and grace. I heard this the other night when I was at a dinner :

"Pray that God gives our country what we need, not what we deserve!"

I'm going to be doing that this election season and I hope you will too!!!

What God has taught me through my niece

So right now I'm typing real fast because I have my niece on my lap. She is soo amazing and I'm so glad that God has blessed my sister and her husband with a daughter because I love being an aunt. I get to spoil my niece and love a lot. In reality, she is more of a little sister because we are only fourteen years apart and for the most part I love it. Sometimes she can be a little bit out of hand, but that's kids right? I love watching Charity learn new words, and develop abilities to do new things. She's such a joy!!!! Anyways, I'm also glad that God let my sister have a baby because I've had to babysit, on more than one occassion, and it has shown me that even though kids are great, they are way too much for a 16 year old girl to handle on her own. So I don't plan on having any kids till I'm married. That sounds funny, but it's true! Anyways, I also think that God has given babies and toddlers the wonderful ability of cheering people up. Seriously! If I'm in a bad mood or just having a bad day, and Charity comes around I am encouraged by her sense of "carefreeness". (If that is such a word) Plus, kids trust you with everything, because they don't know any different. Like if Charity gets a cut or gets hurt all I have to do is kiss it to make it better, usually. Oh and they love to walk in your shoes too!!!

I compare that to God a lot. I should be just as trusting and relying on God as a Charity is to me. Doesn't God say to have the faith of a child? Plus, we should be wanting to always walk in Jesus shoes. Maybe not literally but still we should want to be more like God every day. We can even take our problems to God to fix. We don't have to carry them around and let them burden us to the point of hitting rock bottom. It's just not worth it. What I learn the most from Charity is that I should be excited to be his child. I should be telling everyone and not be emabarrased about being in God's family. Plus, when Charity is away from her mother, she cries. Do you and I cry when we are away from God? Do we hate it when we are separated for a point of time? And when we sin, and our relationship with God isn't what it usually is, do we not like it? Most of the time we don't notice and are oblivious to the fact that our relationship with God is falling to pieces. Charity also loves to stay close to people. Do we love to stay close with God? Most people have good intentions and try to stay close to God, but then they mess up and get frusterated. I know that that is an area to work on in my life, what about you?

So I'm going to stop now because I'm getting my hair brushed, even though it is up in a pony tail, and it kinda' hurts... Lol! Plus she's sitting on my shoulders!!!!!! Which makes it very difficult to type.

Frontier err.... Pioneer Day

Our school had a frontier day this past friday. What it is is the whole school is split into twelve or thirteen groups and these groups are directed by a group leader. Then the groups and their leaders go to the station that is specified on the leader's schedule.

I was the leader in my group and it was quite an experience. Even though there were only three girls including me, it was still very fun. We did activities ranging from making homemade cinnamon tortilla shells to designing and making a paper machè ball for our fiesta to playing field hockey with a stick.

Lunch was very interesting as well. We had venison, chicken, venison stew, corn on the cob, and a variety of types of bread. It was very delicious, minus some of the corn, but that's besides the point.

All in all it was a great day!!!

Fall

I must be in a bloging mood tonight because I just have to write - or rather type... whatever. So this fall has been the most beautiful one that I remember. Of course, the ones I remember only account for 3/4 of my life, but that's besides the point. The colors of the leaves and sunsets have been more beautiful than I have ever seen. I just think to myself how much I love the fall and how it's so amazing that God gave us these things - beautiful sunsets and wonderful colored leaves to show us how much He loves us.

Gettysburg

This Tuesday and Wednesday our class along with the sophmores went to Gettysburg, Pa. We had an AMAZING time. To begin, we had to meet at school by 6:45 a.m. which is earlier than some people got up, but most everyone came though. Then we had a four hour long bus ride down to Gettysburg, which was joined with donoughts along the way, thanks to our teacher. When we got there we walked around for a little bit and ate lunch. Then we went on a tour of the battlegrounds of Gettysburg. We got to see where Pickett's charge took place, Little and Big Round Top, Devil's Den, and many more places. We also got to go to a viewing tower where you could see the entire valley where most of the fighting took place.

After we were done we went to our campground and started setting up our tents. Then we just hung out for a while until supper was ready. Then we ate and hung out some more with people. As it was getting later we played card games and talked and had devotions before going to bed.

The last day we were there was the best, I think. We got to do a reinactment of Pickett's charge. We got to walk where his men would've been and we were each given a name of a person who really participated in the event. It was somewhat sobering to be walking along and think about the South's perspective of the whole war on top of knowing that people were being shot and killed where you were standing. When we finished the charge we got on the bus, filled our water bottles because we were all really hot and thirsty and headed for home.

I'd do it all again if I could. :)

Be smarter than the carpet

My sister is getting new flooring and in order to get the new floor down we had to get the old floor up. Well it was a big room and we had to get this humungous piece of carpet out. Let me tell you it was funny. You see, we got it off of the floor and then we had to roll it out of the house. This is where it gets funny. The roll of carpet was sooo big that we couldn't really get it out of the house without rolling it into a ball, so roll we did. We got it into a ball and then it didn't fit out the door. We were pushing and using all of our strength to get it out and FINALLY we got it out the door. The next obstacle was getting the humongous piece of nasty smelling carpet over the railing and into the grass. My sister and I were trying to throw this thing over the railing when Charity, my neice, comes out and starts yelling "MOVE IT! MOVE IT!" It was really funny! In the mean time, my sister gets the bright idea of putting her body underneath of the roll of carpet to get it to go overtop of the railing. Well she ended up getting stuck underneath of it and almost going over the railing with the carpet roll. Finally, after a while of hard work we got the rug over the railing without anybody going over with it or getting tangled up in it.

Wisdom teeth

So I got my wisdom teeth out and it was really weird. I was like kinda awake but kinda not. I could hear everything, and some things that I didn't want to hear. Now, I'm in pain (of course) and my face is kinda swollen, but not badly. And the laughing gas they gave me made me do weird stuff. Like I started sticking my tounge out and moving it back and forth... yeah, weird!