…so far delightful. Cool and sunny. But, wait. What is this?
Maybe it will happen.
with every Christmas card I write…
SO late with my Christmas cards this year.
Stormie usually does all the payout and design work for me, including narrowing down the photos. But dangit. I am a grandma. I cannot hardly bear to leave a photo out of the line up, seriously!
Since I don’t Photoshop and I am woefully behind on Stephanie’s wonderful Gimp lessons, I am having to make do with the Monkey…which now charges me money to use it and I am not getting anything new that I wasn’t using for free just a week ago. Just in time for my card! Boo.. Watch out Gimp, here I come.
Anyway. I am such a novice. But I am trudging away. Sneak peek…
Waaaaay less words this year. Just a super-simple message from Luke 2.10,11. :)
Secrets about the shoot? The main, front & center camera had a disaster and none of the pics turned out. Two angels didn’t have halos until we were wrapping up. It was cold. It was in Ryan and Tredessa’s back yard. Hunter’s head tie came from his shepherd’s robe from 2008. I totally forgot to hot-glue the sides of Gavin’s robe. And yes, all the costumes were made from fabric and hot glue. What else? We missed Wrex. And all his animals. And oh, how I love that my grandbebes let me do this with them!!!
Finally – we thought it would be fun to just leave the kids outside to play in their costumes while we went inside to prepare a snack and hot chocolate for them. I told Hunter to feel free to “direct” a pageant, if he so desired.
As I was about to step inside the door, he was explaining that they would begin with the angels visiting the shepherd in the field. Hunter then yelled, “From the top!”
At which time Averi simultaneously announced, as she lifted her outer robe, “I’m gonna put this baby back up inside me.”
Hahhahahahahahhaha!!! Love these kids!
The shortest day of the year
Today is winter solstice. But the sun is blazing bright. It might not have many minutes, but it is going to shine-shine-shine while it can.
Kind of a good life lesson.
The Ghosts of the Merry Gentlemen
Merry Gentlemen, Christmas in Mediocrity was awesome!
It was funny and cute and warm and sweet and had a great surprise ending and even some ghosts of the Merry Gentlemen of WWII. It was supposed to be a little scary-spooky (but wholly Christmasy) in a darkened restaurant as the main character of the story came to some important conclusions about life. Ya know – classic Christmas story-stuff.
The “eerie” voices are Dave-the-husband, Dave-the-son-in-law and Rocky. It was really cool. LISTEN….
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
CLICK on the link, then click on it again when it shows up in its’ own window. It will give you a Quicktime screen for listening.
It’s an exciting day at the Rhoades’ house
First
We are, after all, getting a blizzard. Snow makes it feel more like Christmas today, than say, yesterday, when my car window was rolled down all day as I shopped.
Second
Road Rage has been officially released! It is available on Amazon right now (Kindle, soon), and you can get signed copies directly from Dave delivered personally the first week of January.
Mayberry Christmas
I love that Dave is teaching our grandbebes to like The Andy Griffith Show; not so much that he is also teaching them to like Gilligan’s Island. But I like that they like Andy and the gang and that Hunter gets, really gets Barney Fife.
Endless, timeless joy!
This one’s for Hunter! :)
Choose life
Until we decide, as a nation, to value life, really place a value on all God-given life – all the rhetoric and legislation in the world will not stop the murderous rage and rampages against innocent people. What does this look like – this giving value to life? And are we willing to pay the price? Because there will be one. Do I have enough love to give that kind of value, make the right choices?
I have no answers. I have arguments. But they have obviously been futile. God, help us.
He is our life
I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. Deuteronomy 30 NKJV
RT@RickWarren Lord, may I love you SO much it becomes impossible for me to not love everyone else. (See 1John 4:20)
To everything there is a season
Ecclesiastes 8.1-8 begins To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven…
And includes A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance…
Discerning the times takes the wisdom to know what this time, right now, is to be. Mourning doesn’t last forever, but let’s not rush it.
Pontificating will have its’ time. Polarized preachers and politicians will be heard. But right now?
[We] mourn with those who mourn. Romans 12.15
Charlotte Bacon (2/22/06), 6 years old, female
Daniel Barden (9/25/05), 7 years old, male
Rachel Davino (7/17/83), Staff member, 29 years old, female
Olivia Engel (7/18/06), 6 years old, female
Josephine Gay (12/11/05), 7 years old, female
Ana M. Marquez-Greene (4/4/06), 6 years old, female
Dylan Hockley (3/8/06), 6 years old, male
Dawn Hochsprung (6/28/65), Principal, 47 years old, female
Madeleine F. Hsu (7/10/06), 6 years old, female
Catherine V. Hubbard (6/8/06), 6 years old, female
Chase Kowalski (10/31/05), 7 years old, male
Nancy Lanza, 52 years old, female (mother of shooter)
Jesse Lewis (6/30/06), 6 years old, male
James Mattioli (03/22/06), 6 years old, male
Grace McDonnell (11/4/05), 7 years old, female
Anne Marie Murphy (7/25/60), Staff member, 52 years old, female
Emilie Parker (05/12/06), 6 years old, female
Jack Pinto (05/05/06), 6 years old, male
Noah Pozner (11/20/06), 6 years old, male
Caroline Previdi (9/07/06), 6 years old, female
Jessica Rekos (5/10/06), 6 years old, female
Avielle Richman (11/17/06) 6 years old, female
Lauren Rousseau (June 1982), Staff member, 30 years old, female
Mary Sherlach (2/11/56), Staff member, 56 years old, female
Victoria Soto (11/04/85), Staff member, 27 years old, female
Benjamin Wheeler (09/12/06), 6 years old, male
Allison N. Wyatt (07/03/06), 6 years old, female
God, help us…
Mary – Did you know?
Consider the Mother of God
“Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”
But…Could she even have imagined, when the angel came to tell her she’d been chosen by God, that her heart would, could ever hurt this badly? Could she have comprehended when she obeyed and received the invitation of God Almighty that it would not exempt her from agony in raising this son to watch him die for the sins of the world? Did she realize that the honor of carrying the Light-seed of God, His very Glory, could also bring anguish and despair, could break her heart into a million pieces, too?
How can this be?
“How can this be?” she had asked the Angel, Gabriel, when he’d announced to her that she, though a virgin, would conceive and bring forth a Son. It must have been awe-inspiring, mystical, with trepidations – a decision had to be made.
Later, I wonder, as she watched Him arrested and beaten and hanging on a cross, was she asking that same question again? How can this be, my sinless Son?
Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”
Did it feel like favor when all seemed lost?
My low-church Protestant background eschewed anything that could remotely be considered “Mary worship” and we have missed the beauty of this admirable woman.
Last Christmas, I had a renewed regard of Mary and what she represents for us. She was a girl who was called by God and she struggled to understand and comprehend – and was troubled by it, perhaps sensing it could hurt her and would be beyond overwhelming. But she said yes. She said yes to the gift and blessing of God in her life, yes to whatever will be, yes to the joy of His birth and the mystery of His life and the agony of His death before her very eyes.
Mary, did you know? And if you had foresight, would you, for the Glory, do it all agin? Yes, I think she would.
I don’t worship her, I am not praying to her, but I am of the generations who call her blessed (Luke 1.48), and I wholeheartedly do. She was humble, she was obedient, she said yes to God.
May it be said of us, too.
Let it be to me according to Your Word, O LORD.
We rejoice and we mourn
We just found out this week that we are getting a new grandson in February! Dave and Tara were “matched” with a birth mom this week and they met and they just love her. And she has chosen them to adopt her baby. And they have chosen him. And it is wonderful, delightful, shouts-of-praise good news. The long-awaited promise of the Lord coming to pass. Hunter is 8 now. We have been asking God for a baby for a long time. Tara is such a good mommy and Dave is a really great dad. The proof is in the puddin’.
Plus, this new grandson of mine (which will make us 4 girls and 3 boys) will only be about 6 weeks ahead of his cousin, a baby girl being born the Rocky and Jovan in late March (which will make it 5 girls and 3 boys).
And Stef and Wrex are having a baby boy come April, too. Happy dance.
Babies everywhere, New life. Fresh starts. Hope renewed.
We rejoice.
Yet, in the midst of it, our nation continues to reel from the devastating shooting in Newtown, Connecticut yesterday. We cannot, even in our mostly-hardened hearts, not feel this agony.
Then today, Dave’s dad, my father-in-law, Raymond Rhoades, was heading out to breakfast with Ray and Sharon (Dave’s older sister and her husband) in Yakima when he just fell almost directly into the arms of Jesus. A quick trip to the hospital via ambulance and his heart stopped here while his soul began its journey of rejoicing in heaven.
In those few minutes, when we weren’t sure across the miles whether he would live or die, it was hard to know how to pray, but most of us (Dave and I and the 6 grandbebes and some mommies and daddies) were gathered (there had been a certain little Nativity photo shoot today at Tredessa’s house), we stopped and recalled that just this past summer, when we’d gathered to celebrate his 90th birthday, he had spoken of being ready to be with his Savior. So we prayed for peace and we prayed for him not to suffer, either way. Within minutes, he was gone.
He adopted Dave 53 1/2 years ago as a 5-day old boy in a hospital in Topeka, KS. And now here we are, about to watch Dave and Tara adopt. Full circle.
We celebrate. We rejoice. We laugh and we dance. But we cry and mourn, too. And we have lost and we will miss the man who was just here. Just here this morning…getting ready to go to breakfast.
Life is unpredictable. And a vapor.