We've been so busy with Christmas activities outside our home this year that we've had very little time together here in our home. All of us have been enjoying our whirl of activity but it seems odd to be going like crazy to act in and prepare the set for the live nativity, sing carols, make a special meal for teens, help with a birthday party for Jesus, teach the story of Jesus's birth to kids, make ornaments, give away gifts, give away cookies, enact a puppet show version of the story of Jesus's birth and not do the normal in the house things that usually mean Christmas here in our home. But we've been so happy whirling around doing what we have done that it's ok to have scrimped on our time here.

Now we will have time with our family exchanging gifts, singing songs and enjoying special foods as we celebrate our Lord and Saviour's birthday. This year hubby's dad is with Jesus celebrating Christmas in heaven. We've done some talking trying to imagine that and of course our imaginations are not able to stretch far enough to cover that scene. No more sorrow, no more pain, no fear, no tears, no trembling, no boredom only pleasure,joy, and love. The way we picture pleasure so often is in contrast to pain so we struggle to try to grasp no opposites. Just purity. That is what we look forward to some day when we also will be celebrating a Christmas without end and without regrets.

                       Merry Christmas to All of You!

Saw God answer many prayers in connection with the final illness, death and funeral for my father in law. Many stories were told of his perseverance in a lifetime filled with challenges during which he turned his life over to God following an accident which resulted in his becoming a quadriplegic. He and his wife are great examples of a committed Christian couple who wove together with God into a threefold cord which was not easily broken.

The funeral was yesterday and today we are doing some of the day after kinds of things. Then we will head back to our place and dive into the reenactment of the birth of Christ our congregation does each December. Several family members will be acting and I am responsible for the set props in one scene.

Well I've been reading the same Max Lucado book about Psalm 23 this week. It's been so busy that the week whizzed by as I've been reading a section or two each day. I find myself thinking about it all day as I go about my day which typically starts with prayer with hubby for our assorted offspring and their offspring, each other and then I pray by myself, read a bit of Max, get up get dressed, go downstairs, wash dishes, pick up clutter, talk to Song and or son about their days, plans, needs and what I just read, feed fish, water plants, shake the doormat, sweep or vacuum, clean a toilet, make breakfast, lunch and supper or make somebody else do it, wash more dishes, put away some clean dishes, make a few phone calls, listen and try to be encouraging, bring in firewood or make somebody else do it, feed animals or make somebody else do it, start fires in one or the other stove and feed the fire periodically or make somebody else do it, wash dirty clothes, dry, fold, put away or make somebody else do it, clean off dirty surfaces ranging from toilets to doorknobs and incuding cars, fill bird feeders, feed chickens or make Song do it, collect eggs or make Song do it, water chickens or make Song do it, teach Algebra II to Song, help with her other subjects, help Son with college classes and problems of life he can't figure out what to do about such as 20 questions he has to ask inmates at the county jail tomorrow which have to line up with the theories of why some folks do deviant behavior and just what is deviant behavior anyway?, cheer him on as he demonstrates new song he learned on guitar this week, help hims figure out how to solve an embarrassing problem and cheer for him when he does it successfully, teach two preschoolers about God making babies, animals and them and sing with them, hop around the room with them and encourage them to crawl back anf roth under the table on Wednesday nighta as well as make them sit in chars and politely cooperate with the directions I have for them
  This week I also made bread, moved the furniture in my bedroom all except my bed, tried unsuccessfully to fix one of the vacuum cleaners, cleaned out the other one, vacuumed my bedroom and hallway and upstairs bathroom, brought in plants from the upstairs porch, made bread two loaves and a pizza, Song helped with the pizza, visited the buildings we are trying to renovate with hubby and helped the building inspector tour the site and answered questions he had with hubby and the contractor and then on to the building department to pay fees and chit chat and ask questions and listen to huby and nod head while he talked with the contractor in the parking lot and then on to have a little date of pie and soup and coffee in a small eatery downtown as we sighed in relief over getting through the red tape on one of the two houses we want to renovate and being given the green light on it!! Moved the cedar chest out of our bedroom and down the stairs with Song and a set of drawers up the stairs with her. Tried unsuccessfully to instal printer software for our new printer on the old deskstop computer so hubby can use it to print a copy of excel spreadsheet he has to turn in on Monday!!! Some of windows xp has been accidentally  been uninstalled and the old computer won't let me reinstall it without an Internet connection which it no longer has because the modem died last summer or a code that I no longer have drat!!!! Answered questions about when am I going hunting and no I am not going on Sunday morning because I am teaching the Sunday school kids in the opening part this week and next, Answer questions about the market scene of our church reenactment  of Christ's birth and agree to do the prop gathering and set up of props this year because the two who have been doing it quit. Vacuum the basement and furniture down there too on the half where we hauled in a big heavy replacement bookcase to put where we had a cheap Sauder entertainment center,

So the long involved not too interesting description of my days is here to show anybody who might find themselves feeling envious of my good life that it isn't always so great! I've had people be somewhat envious sometimes of the good life I have but not of the everyday process I go through.

The part in Max's book that I read yesterday morning was about envy and jealousy. Of course he makes the point that both are bad for us. I found myself thinking that the difference between admiration that motivates us to make some improvements in our lives and those other two E and J choices is just what you do about your noticing somebody looks a bit better than you to you! If you notice somebody else is better at making friends and you start to study them and try to do some of the things they do. That's a function of admiration or if you just glare at them and complain about them that's a function of envy.

Then is occurred to me that we tend to envy the end result not the process. What I mean is we admire the spotless home,the well behaved children, the strong marriage, the well stocked cupboard,the nice looking home, the bank account with lots of money in it. But we are looking right past the process which is what we need to take a long hard look at. The spotless home is that way because the folks that live there keep it and make it clean and orderly. They wipe their feet, they take off their shoes, they vacuum every day, they don't let the dishes sit on the counter, they don't eat at home, they limit their possessions etc. If I am unwilling to do likewise then I should not be surprised or depressed about my messy house. But if I am then that's a result of envy.

I don't want to do what it requires to have what I want I just want it! I want what I want with no effort on my part. That's the baggage of envy or jealousy. I don't want to put the effort into it. I just want it to appear in my life.

Life doesn't work that way. There is a bit of undeserved good stuff that happens to us but to a large extent you get what you aim at. If you want a good marriage you have to marry carefully and then work like the dickens to grow a better relationship. If you want children who grow up into great people that you can enjoy admitting you are related to then you have to say no to some thing that can gobble your time and attention and you have to work on doing some growing up yourself.   If you want money in your bank account then you have to find ways to earn money and find ways to not spend it all. If you want these kinds of things but not enough to work at them like crazy then you probably won't end up with them. Not much that's worth having in your life happens by fallout.

It's really pretty interesting to ponder this idea.

We tend to think that God forgives and gives grace to the humble and that takes care of it. But we also tend to believe that old adage, "You made your bed now don't complain about lying in it." They seem to contradict each other. But do they?

I think they don't.  God forgives and gives grace. That means that anybody can stop kicking themselves for being stupid, wasteful, immoral, ingnorant, even downright evil and then ask God to help them make different choices now and they start to roll up their sleeves and get going on a better life. Now that may not yield the quality of life they would have had if they had not been stupid, wasteful, immoral, ignorant or evil before that day. It will mean that they will have a better life than they would have it they kept being stupid, wasteful, immoral, ignorant and evil.

The idea of being wise or being stupid is doing what is right. Knowing what is right is not so difficult but the rub comes in when we kinow what is right and we do what we think is wrong. Admitedly all of us do this sometimes. But when our lives get really rotten is when we look at somebody making good choices which leads to a pretty good life and we starte badmouthing them or tossing things in their path to make it more difficult for them.

Just to make any envious folks out there who think I can't relate to them or they can't relate to me feel better. I want to admit I was married for ten years before I put a garden in without getting in an argument about it with hubby. I remember thinking that it was quite an accomplishment when that happened!! I believe that is when I felt hopeful about my marriage. And there were times when I struggled as a mother too. I found a letter as I was cleaning out my bedroom last night which I had written to a good friend who moved away saying that I finally was beginning to feel not so cross-eyed because they baby, my youngest had slept through two nights in a row!!!According to the date on the letter she was over a year old at that point.