Christmas

Today is Christmas Eve. It's been a great Christmas season so far. It's the only year I can remember teaching a series leading into Christmas, and because of that I've been thinking about Christmas a lot this year. One thing that has struck me the most in the Christmas story is the way in which it all happened. Let me explain.You know how every mom loves to talk about how beautiful the package, the wrapping paper, or the bag is that holds the present? They are so careful when they open the package so as to not disturb the beautiful paper. I always wonder about that. I mean, sure it looks nice, but are you really going to reuse it or something? After all, it's not the paper that has value - it's the present inside. But I've been thinking about this concept in terms of the Christmas story. I...

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Labor?

Twice now in the last week or so we've had labor scares. About a week ago after our refresher course on having a baby, the nurse suggested that Kimi get checked out because of her frequent braxton-hicks contractions. She was definitely having some contractions so they gave her a pill and that stopped things. Today Kimi called in tears saying her stomach was hurting, so I raced home and sat with her as we timed things and called the doctor's office. After a bit they stopped, so that's good. However, it really looks like this baby is wanting to come out. We really want her to wait until at least the 1st of January, because that's about the 37 week mark - which they say is ok. So two more weeks - that's all I ask!It makes me realize that despite the nine months of waiting for this baby (add to...

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Parade

Today was a nice relaxing day. We slept in this morning until 9 which was amazing, because Hannah hasn't done that in a long time. She sleeps longer when she comes in our bed, which is what happened last night. She tends to hog the bed, but seeing as how I got to sleep in, I didn't mind. After spending a couple hours around the house not doing much of anything, we remembered that the Yucaipa Christmas parade was today. Hannah has been looking forward to this for a while. Last year mommy went shopping and Hannah and I walked over to the church and watched the parade. They throw candy - which is what she really remembered and looked forward to. So even though mommy was driving, Hannah remembered that we walked last year, and wanted to walk again. She's a lot like me I guess - traditions are...

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Peace on Earth

I had a conversation this week with some friends about the gospel. We were talking about politics, about the church, and ultimately about the role of the Christian in the world. One of the questions we were discussing was in raising children - how much do you expose a child to in order to help them learn to live as a Christian in the world. My friend talked about how growing up in a Christian school didn't really prepare him for the reality of the world. I fully understand wanting to protect our children, particularly in the most formative times of their life. I protect Hannah from things like TV - I don't want her to see certain things. I don't want her to watch commercials even if I can help it, because I realize that the ads are attempting to feed her a lie about what satisfies in life....

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