This Christmas has surprised me. It has not been what I expected and yet somehow it has been what I had expected.
The overall feeling, looking back, has been a sense of God's favour on us and blessing. This has come from a mix of our families', total strangers, and people we just recently befriended. We were kindly invited to both a Christmas Eve dinner and a Christmas day dinner by some friends we only recently met. It was a strange feeling - to be sitting with almost-strangers on Christmas Eve - but there was this fellow sense of all of us being apart from family this Christmas and it created a strange sort of bond. The couple who hosted it are moving in February and will be going to Hong Kong for a flying job. It has been really cool to see how God just took us on that journey - moving somewhere completely foreign, away from everything we know, for a husband's new job. And I was encouraging the wife that Psalm 139:5 is a great verse to cling to - that God goes ahead to prepare places for us when he calls us into something new.
My favourite parts of Christmas were doing Skype with my family and Jay's family. Seeing all of your loved ones together is hard - because you feel the distance so strongly and you just so want to be in the same room with them. And yet, seeing them all crowded onto a computer screen, eager to see you and hear from you - you realize just how much it means just to connect with them on Christmas.
Sadie & Mr. D
Mom with the new gloves I gave her - they have little red chickens on them
And the whole fam!!
And ever later on - we skyped the whole Doner peanut gallery :)
The overall feeling, looking back, has been a sense of God's favour on us and blessing. This has come from a mix of our families', total strangers, and people we just recently befriended. We were kindly invited to both a Christmas Eve dinner and a Christmas day dinner by some friends we only recently met. It was a strange feeling - to be sitting with almost-strangers on Christmas Eve - but there was this fellow sense of all of us being apart from family this Christmas and it created a strange sort of bond. The couple who hosted it are moving in February and will be going to Hong Kong for a flying job. It has been really cool to see how God just took us on that journey - moving somewhere completely foreign, away from everything we know, for a husband's new job. And I was encouraging the wife that Psalm 139:5 is a great verse to cling to - that God goes ahead to prepare places for us when he calls us into something new.
My favourite parts of Christmas were doing Skype with my family and Jay's family. Seeing all of your loved ones together is hard - because you feel the distance so strongly and you just so want to be in the same room with them. And yet, seeing them all crowded onto a computer screen, eager to see you and hear from you - you realize just how much it means just to connect with them on Christmas.
Sadie & Mr. D
and then my fam...
Mom with the new gloves I gave her - they have little red chickens on them
And the whole fam!!
After that we skyped the Prices when they came over but I don't have a pic.
And ever later on - we skyped the whole Doner peanut gallery :)
I do have a couple embarrassing videos of them but it won't let me upload sadly.
All in all, this Christmas was an eye-opening experience for me. Christmas morning I started thinking about how all over the world there all people, kids, living on the streets who don't know Christmas day to be any different from the next. People who've never received a gift, who won't get to be with families and don't know the story behind Christmas. I just felt so burdened to pray for these people early Christmas morning and it took my attention of self-pity for Jay and I being away from home and gave me the right perspective. Just as people reached out to us this Christmas, so are we to reach out to others. It was kind of a release when Jay and I moved and decided not to do presents or stockings. We weren't swept up in the Christmas craziness - and the focus became the time we could spend with each other and friends and family and it was just so nice to shift our focus off ourselves.
We attended a Christmas Eve service in town and both Jay and I spent most of the service wishing we were back at our home church and comparing and contrasting. Sure it wasn't what we wanted in a service but it's one of those things that you have to just think - well I guess God was speaking to someone in those songs just as he spoke to me of HIs presence in 'O Holy Night.' Christmas morning I was also thinking back to that service and how alot of those people at that service either had lost a home in the fire or knew someone that had. Tons of families in Slave Lake woke up on Christmas morning in unfamiliar places. Traditions that were always done in their homes couldn't be done in their new homes and I just realized again how blessed Jay and I are.
We have a safe, warm place to stay, we have those material things that we don't need but have that sentimental value. We are able to go back and visit places in Ontario that mean something to us - that hold value - and we have our families most importantly in our lives, investing in spite of the distance. And for these things I am so thankful to God - especially for family and friends. Don't take them for granted, because when it comes down to the important stuff in your life, they are right at the top of the list. Merry Christmas everyone! xoxo
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