December 2009
Heading up to Snoqualmie Pass for our annual tree hunt, sipping hot cider and listening to Christmas music, I was reminded of what a fun time of year it is – especially from a child’s eye. I ask the kids once in a while “What’s Christmas all about?” “Jesus!” they yell. Yes - It is all about Jesus!
2009 has been a roller coaster year, causing us to grow in trust and faith in Him. Even in times where we really couldn’t understand all that God was doing, we came to realize that nothing in this world escapes the awareness and redemptive work of our God. As a new friend remarked at Starbucks one day “There’s a reason God brings about our circumstances in life – nothing is without purpose”. As fickle people, we (speaking for myself) sometimes think God has no purpose just because I cannot see and understand it.
Some of our favorite events this year began with one week anniversary/Christmas gift trip to Florida – a cruise and Disneyworld, for Todd and Molly. We had a great time on camping trips with family and friends, Family Camp at Warm Beach, vacation at Lake Chelan, a visit to a water-park, visiting cousins in Pomeroy and several truly life changing conferences and seminars. We all enjoyed attending the wedding of Carlos and Manesseh, where Molly was honored to be one of the matrons of honor.
In October of this year, we began attending City Church in Kirkland. We love our new church family and the teaching from Pastor Judah Smith. After attending Trinity Baptist for 20 years, it was a difficult move and not easily made – especially with all the close friends we have enjoyed over the years. We are grateful for the teaching we had at Trinity and the opportunity to sit under Pastor Seim for all those years. At the same time, we are thankful for the Lord’s direction and know this move to be of God. We look forward to maintaining old friendships at Trinity and making new ones at City Church.
Some of our favorite books this year have been “Convergence, Confessions of a Charismatic Calvinist” by Sam Storms, “The Anointing” by RT Kendall, “You were Born for This” by Bruce Wilkinson, “The Blessed Life” by Robert Morris, “Extraordinary” by John Bevere, The “Enigma of the Cross” by Allistar McGrath and anything by Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, John Piper and John and Lisa Bevere.
Here’s a little “catch-up” on each of us – beginning with the littlest…
“Baby” Merry – While she doesn’t formally have a given name yet, it’s not for lack of suggestions. “Baby” is due at the end of January and is already showing signs of strength and vitality. Maggie knew all along that baby was going to be a girl and is so excited to share a room with her. Silas asks, “do baby, Mommy?” often, wanting to see her move or kick.
Silas (almost 3) continues to be the little man of the house. One of his favorite phrases is “I’m a big man.” When “Mr. Responsibility” isn’t tending to some job around the house, he’s talking to anyone who will listen about “mo-oh-cy-les”. For “buddy nights” with Dad, he prefers to frequent the local Harley-Davidson shop and try out some of their latest models. He is talking more and more and wants to serve, always running to open the door, or push the button or whatever task may be in front of him.
Maggie (5) loves to entertain the family and is truly the cheerleader. Her comments on life include: (big sigh) “I’m falling in love with Silas. He’s a good man. I’m going to marry him someday.” ”Mommy, when I get to heaven I’m going to play with the moon. I am going to bounce it.” She also spent time the other day explaining to Silas that Mommy had to go 60, not 9 on the freeway because we have to follow the “lemon speed” or the policeman will pull us over. Maggie can’t wait for school each day and passes on what she learns to her younger brother. She is a girly girl who loves dressing up, singing, dancing and going to plays. She recently had a special part in the City Kids Christmas performance.
Molly is so happy being a wife, mother and friend. Writing, reading, philosophy, spending time with God, photography, and theatre continue to be her interests and she sometimes feels like the most blessed woman in the world. She loves her home, family, Todd’s great work schedule and learning more about being attentive to the Holy Spirit and hearing from Him. This has truly been a year of excitement in watching God work and experiencing Him more deeply.
Todd has been thoroughly enjoying studying and listening to good teaching. He is now homeschooling and is thrilled to watch Maggie and Silas learn and has found a strengthened relationship that comes from one-on-one time spent together. He continues to lead a small group that meets in our house for dinner and study. Todd loves his job and considers it a blessing everyday to be at Maple Valley Fire. He spends some of his time off working on our rentals as well as cooking, baking and being creative with food, especially when friends come over. He gets plenty of good tips from his fellow firefighters.
We continue to do a lot of writing and journaling. We love having friends over, entertaining, talking about the Lord and lots of happy kids and laughter in our home. We are excited to have all of the Grandparents retired officially as of this year and are relishing the time we spend with them, as well as the time we have alone while our kids get “Grandparent time”. We consider ourselves very blessed and do not take it for granted.
This year we have been thinking about themes of forgiveness, the cross, the “easy and light” yoke that is ours and the kingdom of God, which Scripture defines as righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We continue to see that true joy comes from dependence on the personhood of grace Himself, Jesus Christ. Grace being both His favor towards us and the changed life that comes with this gift. We love realizing that we do not have to strive ourselves for the fruit of grace, but instead learn dependence on the Person and power of grace. This is what makes the yoke “easy and light”. And the miracle is that this power is in us because His Spirit is in us.
It is exciting to watch God display this grace in our lives and in the lives of our family. This very evening, Maggie came up the stairs and told us how she started to take a candy, knowing that she didn’t have permission to do it, and then changed her mind and threw it away instead. We told her how glad we were that she obeyed and asked her who helped her to do that. She enthusiastically replied, “God”. When we told her that were proud of her for resisting temptation and choosing obedience and that it was God’s grace in her, her response with a huge grin on her face was, “It’s a miracle!”
What a powerful picture of what God does in us. This is truly why Jesus came as a baby. That He can take people like us who do not naturally want to obey, and move us, by His grace to obedience – not just dutiful, “heavy” obedience because we have to, but joyful obedience because of our relationship with Him – and give us His righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit truly is a miracle. Living by duty, willpower and self-effort is no miracle. But watching our own hearts and the hearts of those we love actually change from wanting to sin to loving to obey and to enjoy our relationship with Him is truly miraculous. We agree with Maggie!
As this year draws to an end, we truly wish you the best this Christmas and a reminder that “It’s all about Jesus”!
2009 has been a roller coaster year, causing us to grow in trust and faith in Him. Even in times where we really couldn’t understand all that God was doing, we came to realize that nothing in this world escapes the awareness and redemptive work of our God. As a new friend remarked at Starbucks one day “There’s a reason God brings about our circumstances in life – nothing is without purpose”. As fickle people, we (speaking for myself) sometimes think God has no purpose just because I cannot see and understand it.
Some of our favorite events this year began with one week anniversary/Christmas gift trip to Florida – a cruise and Disneyworld, for Todd and Molly. We had a great time on camping trips with family and friends, Family Camp at Warm Beach, vacation at Lake Chelan, a visit to a water-park, visiting cousins in Pomeroy and several truly life changing conferences and seminars. We all enjoyed attending the wedding of Carlos and Manesseh, where Molly was honored to be one of the matrons of honor.
In October of this year, we began attending City Church in Kirkland. We love our new church family and the teaching from Pastor Judah Smith. After attending Trinity Baptist for 20 years, it was a difficult move and not easily made – especially with all the close friends we have enjoyed over the years. We are grateful for the teaching we had at Trinity and the opportunity to sit under Pastor Seim for all those years. At the same time, we are thankful for the Lord’s direction and know this move to be of God. We look forward to maintaining old friendships at Trinity and making new ones at City Church.
Some of our favorite books this year have been “Convergence, Confessions of a Charismatic Calvinist” by Sam Storms, “The Anointing” by RT Kendall, “You were Born for This” by Bruce Wilkinson, “The Blessed Life” by Robert Morris, “Extraordinary” by John Bevere, The “Enigma of the Cross” by Allistar McGrath and anything by Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, John Piper and John and Lisa Bevere.
Here’s a little “catch-up” on each of us – beginning with the littlest…
“Baby” Merry – While she doesn’t formally have a given name yet, it’s not for lack of suggestions. “Baby” is due at the end of January and is already showing signs of strength and vitality. Maggie knew all along that baby was going to be a girl and is so excited to share a room with her. Silas asks, “do baby, Mommy?” often, wanting to see her move or kick.
Silas (almost 3) continues to be the little man of the house. One of his favorite phrases is “I’m a big man.” When “Mr. Responsibility” isn’t tending to some job around the house, he’s talking to anyone who will listen about “mo-oh-cy-les”. For “buddy nights” with Dad, he prefers to frequent the local Harley-Davidson shop and try out some of their latest models. He is talking more and more and wants to serve, always running to open the door, or push the button or whatever task may be in front of him.
Maggie (5) loves to entertain the family and is truly the cheerleader. Her comments on life include: (big sigh) “I’m falling in love with Silas. He’s a good man. I’m going to marry him someday.” ”Mommy, when I get to heaven I’m going to play with the moon. I am going to bounce it.” She also spent time the other day explaining to Silas that Mommy had to go 60, not 9 on the freeway because we have to follow the “lemon speed” or the policeman will pull us over. Maggie can’t wait for school each day and passes on what she learns to her younger brother. She is a girly girl who loves dressing up, singing, dancing and going to plays. She recently had a special part in the City Kids Christmas performance.
Molly is so happy being a wife, mother and friend. Writing, reading, philosophy, spending time with God, photography, and theatre continue to be her interests and she sometimes feels like the most blessed woman in the world. She loves her home, family, Todd’s great work schedule and learning more about being attentive to the Holy Spirit and hearing from Him. This has truly been a year of excitement in watching God work and experiencing Him more deeply.
Todd has been thoroughly enjoying studying and listening to good teaching. He is now homeschooling and is thrilled to watch Maggie and Silas learn and has found a strengthened relationship that comes from one-on-one time spent together. He continues to lead a small group that meets in our house for dinner and study. Todd loves his job and considers it a blessing everyday to be at Maple Valley Fire. He spends some of his time off working on our rentals as well as cooking, baking and being creative with food, especially when friends come over. He gets plenty of good tips from his fellow firefighters.
We continue to do a lot of writing and journaling. We love having friends over, entertaining, talking about the Lord and lots of happy kids and laughter in our home. We are excited to have all of the Grandparents retired officially as of this year and are relishing the time we spend with them, as well as the time we have alone while our kids get “Grandparent time”. We consider ourselves very blessed and do not take it for granted.
This year we have been thinking about themes of forgiveness, the cross, the “easy and light” yoke that is ours and the kingdom of God, which Scripture defines as righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We continue to see that true joy comes from dependence on the personhood of grace Himself, Jesus Christ. Grace being both His favor towards us and the changed life that comes with this gift. We love realizing that we do not have to strive ourselves for the fruit of grace, but instead learn dependence on the Person and power of grace. This is what makes the yoke “easy and light”. And the miracle is that this power is in us because His Spirit is in us.
It is exciting to watch God display this grace in our lives and in the lives of our family. This very evening, Maggie came up the stairs and told us how she started to take a candy, knowing that she didn’t have permission to do it, and then changed her mind and threw it away instead. We told her how glad we were that she obeyed and asked her who helped her to do that. She enthusiastically replied, “God”. When we told her that were proud of her for resisting temptation and choosing obedience and that it was God’s grace in her, her response with a huge grin on her face was, “It’s a miracle!”
What a powerful picture of what God does in us. This is truly why Jesus came as a baby. That He can take people like us who do not naturally want to obey, and move us, by His grace to obedience – not just dutiful, “heavy” obedience because we have to, but joyful obedience because of our relationship with Him – and give us His righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit truly is a miracle. Living by duty, willpower and self-effort is no miracle. But watching our own hearts and the hearts of those we love actually change from wanting to sin to loving to obey and to enjoy our relationship with Him is truly miraculous. We agree with Maggie!
As this year draws to an end, we truly wish you the best this Christmas and a reminder that “It’s all about Jesus”!
Cruise to the Bahamas
Lake Chelan
