hope...

Hope.

We finally got a tree... okay not a real one - We are friends with a local fire chief... he said it wouldn't be the best idea, since we live in a building made out of wood.

I guess it is okay.

I even got LED lights (the lights that are from head lamps that are supposed to last a lifetime and don't start fires so that I could comply with NYS fire code.)

I spent 19.99 on this new tree - decorated with strings of popcorn and cranberries and of course the KNUHA favorite ornaments... cinnamin and applesauce stars and snowflakes.

Brendon and I went to Geneseo on Saturday night so that he could prepare his lessons for the following day... I read out of a book I got for my friend Dee last Christmas, "Girl Meets God" by Lauren Winner and drank my gingerbread latte with one pump of white mocha.

Lauren never ceases to encourage my heart in things I think - but don't communicate well - (sorta like Sara Groves in that respect of my life). She writes, "It is advent, the weeks before Christmas, which means we are waiting for Jesus. It is the season of expectation, of being primed and pumped, the season during which you are supposed to cultivate longing for Him, the type of longing you feel when your beloved has been out of town for three weeks but you know he is coming home tonight."

Hmm... that resonates with me this season... as I know I must cling to hope. Hope for the days yet to come that Jesus will once again reign... hope in the smaller things like knowing that he is going to be faithful to Brendon and I - no matter what comes our way. Children or no children - Minnesota or no Minnesota, Grad-school or no grad-school, job or no job, in fighting sin and in learning to love. We find hope in discovering places where we have been led by fear instead of love for another... instead of hope and fear in our Great Redeemer.

Lauren also wrote about the Jewish tradition of celebrating Sukkoh... a time that Jews walk through the pains of their ancestors time in the desert... in present day, the build rickety huts with grass roofs (similar to what they think the huts that the Jews lived in while in the desert 40 days. This symbolically reminds them to trust in their dependence on God as they eat meals and share laughter with friends.

How cool is that.

Dependence on God, in the midst of the good.
Dependence on God, even when you need every ounce of hope.

Brendon and I want to have a Christmas party in January... to remind us that we still anticipate the coming return of Jesus... even after Christmas.

now there is longing ... turned to reminders of hope.