Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Christmas 2015


  What a wonderful Christmas it was this year celebrating the birth of our Savior Jesus! The past few Christmases I have intentionally avoided taking pictures to be more in the moment during the holiday, but this year I wanted pictures to remember it in future years.


  For dessert my mom made chocolate cupcakes, I made chocolate chip mint cookies, and my sister made no bake cookies only using sunbutter to replace peanut butter because of her allergy.



  It is tradition for my sister and I to get a new ornament every year, always signifying something important about the year. Above is my 2015 ornament. On the back my mom wrote "51 pages" because that is how many pages of my novel I wrote this semester for my independent study. I was so excited to not only meet my goal of 50 pages, but exceed it! My mom asked me how I was going to reward myself, and I didn't know how, especially in the middle of finals. But I think this ornament is perfect. 




  When I think back on this Christmas, it is in flashes. It is the chocolate chips I intentionally loaded into the cookie dough falling out as I try to scoop them onto the cookie sheet. It is Nana telling me about all of the writers on both sides of my family. It is listening to my dad read the story of Jesus' birth in Luke. It is being crowded in our small kitchen with my mom. It is hearing my sister squeal after opening the present I gave her. It is the uncertainty I feel about my future, but the hope I have all because a baby boy who was fully God and fully man came to earth to humble Himself and die.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

7 Things I Am Thankful For This Christmas


I know it's past Thanksgiving, but I often need to remind myself of all that I have to be thankful for, so here are seven reasons why I should be joyful during this holiday season.

 1. I am thankful that I am able to be home for Christmas with my family in my favorite state.

 2. I am thankful that I have people in Michigan that make it hard to leave.

 3. I am thankful for all of the cooking and baking that will take place during this week.

 4. I am thankful that this crazy semester is over and that my mind is now free to wander and daydream without being reminded of all the homework I have to do.

5. I am thankful for all of the opportunities God gave me over the last few months, including a wonderful internship and an independent study where I was able to write 51 pages of my novel.

 6. I can't honestly say yet that I am thankful for a certain hardship in my life that only seems to get worse whenever I think it is finally managable, but I am thankful for all that God is teaching me through that and that He is bringing me closer to Him.

 7. Most of all, I am thankful that Jesus humbled Himself and came to earth as a baby in order to die for our sins on the cross. I am thankful that it is not about me and what I have and don't have this Christmas, whether it is presents under the tree, my gpa, or that one thing in my life I desperetly want. It is all about Christ and his birth as a baby and his death and ressurection on the cross.