On the Other Hand….(new title!)

I was the obnoxious, frustrating kid who used to get into all the Christmas presents in my parents deep closet to the left of their bed next to their porch doors. I was much younger when I got into all the gifts my Mom carefully wrapped and hid. I don't remember too many of them, except for the robe one year and the wooden instruments another year, and the books and art supplies the following year. Something like that - I guess I remember more than I thought. One Christmas when I was older, though, my Mom got me. She asked me to store this big, wide, nondescript cardboard box in my bedroom. She told me that it was a gift for my uncle. Over the weeks during December my clothes, shoes, books, and general teen clutter amassed on the top of this box. Perhaps it was so overcome with my junk that I forgot about it, but on Christmas morning after all the gifts were opened my Mom told me to get the box from my room. I proceeded to follow her directions and was informed that this was my Chr...

I don't stress over Christmas. Christmas should be enjoyed, but I don't get overly sentimental about it. However, I was thinking recently about how profound it is that God chose to reveal himself to the world as a baby. He actually had to be born-through a birth canal, no less. Jesus was considerate enough not to need a c-section; he wouldn't do that to Mary!(And I'm sure he didn't get stuck, either!) Besides, they didn't do c-sections back then and Joseph was a carpenter, not a surgeon. Birth was especially dangerous in those times, and yet God saw to every detail, even a warm, safe place for Jesus to be born. Apparently, the Inn was an open-air, very exposed place. The stable was much preferred for a laboring woman. Joseph, the unsung hero in Jesus' early life, actually delivered the Savior. This is quite astonishing if you think about it. I bet Mary got skin-to-skin contact right away and bonding with Jesus, with the sheep and cattle mooing and "lowi...

As I was getting dressed for another wearying day of washing laundry and combing my girls' lice-infested hair out this morning I asked God for wisdom about this daunting, seemingly unending situation I was facing. "Is there a better way to do this God?" I queried the Almighty. He made head lice (or was that the Devil?!!)and he knows the number of hairs on our heads (and so do I after combing each of my children's hair and checking every strand for nits dozens of times!), surely there might be a better way to go about this situation. Later that morning the school secretary called to inform me that Chloe and Leanne's school work was ready to pick up in the office. As I arrive in the office they inform me that now I'll need a doctor's note because the girls have missed so much school. "Huh?" I say. "I'll go talk to the school nurse." "We've just been talking about you," the school nurse tells me after I introduce mys...