Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas...you might need a magnifier!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!


My apologies if our card missed your mailbox this year, and/or if you needed the help of a magnifying glass to identify who it was from!

That is *possibly* what happens when you 1) buy a Groupon for your Christmas cards, 2) proceed to create them on your iPhone, 3) with iPhone pictures, 4) all while waiting in carpool line one November afternoon. 

They looked much bigger and clearer and proportionate and even kind of cute from my iPhone that day! Eh. A deal is a deal and so that is how the Gibson 2013 card went down. 

If you squint closely and tilt it at a 57 degree angle you can see us when we were in Colorado for a wedding in late September. 

I do have a love affair with Christmas cards though. I love getting them and sending them...even hand addressing them. And the kids and hubby know they can only help if they promise to put the stamps and return address labels on squarely. Issues, I know!

We even have an archive of sorts...of past received ones. Just in case you are ever needing a photo card from days gone by, we should have it!! At least going back to about 2004 or so. Is that creepy?

If you are still reading, we do indeed wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I have never hosted Christmas in my life, but due to doctor ordered travel restrictions, everyone is coming our way. Should be a crazy kind of fun. 

All the food is being brought in and we told the girls last night that Santa didn't come to messy houses, so ours suddenly became much cleaner! We totally lied. Made up a story about how last year he tripped over a pair of shoes that had been left out by a kid and missed the rest of his deliveries while he was being treated in the ER. Oh their eyes! And then their labor! It was the most productive 30 minute cleaning I have ever witnessed.

We are so mean!

Seriously though...I pray that amid all of the craziness, that your heart can ponder the indescribable gift that we celebrate today. This year has given me some rare, perspective changing, soul moving, heart wrenching close encounters with our Lord...and I am left wanting more. I wish I knew how to hang on to the intimacy, but I don't. I clung to it as long as I could after surgery this spring...pretty sure that I was annoying everyone around me with "just one more" account of His faithfulness, but inevitably life comes for you. The busyness, the less obvious need of dependence, and the ability to once again meet the needs of others...can distance your connection to God.  And that's just Monday to Friday daily "life"...not crazy chaotic Christmas calendars! 

Well, I am rambling and unfortunately have got nothing! So I will sign off.

Just know that I am thankful that I have felt His presence (even in suffering) and am praying that you may also...(hopefully without the suffering part!) ;)

My precious BSF leader prayed these words over me (via text!) during my ER visit Saturday.

Psalm 116:1-7 
love the Lord, because he has heard
    my voice and my pleas for mercy.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
    therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
    the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
    I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
    our God is merciful.
The Lord preserves the simple;
    when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
    for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

What a beautiful passage!

Psalm 116

Merry Christmas!

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