Thanksgiving Recap and Rant

I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving!

Our family helped serve Thanksgiving meals to a few families who came to our church on Thursday for lunch.  We didn't have the crowd we expected or planned for, but we are praying that the ones we did have a chance to interact with were blessed with not only a meal, but also with the love of some folks who love the Lord!  Thank you Sean and Leslie for having the vision for this kinds of outreach and for getting others motivated to help.  I was so proud of how our family at Northside were willing to serve!

That evening we were invited to spend some time with a family in our church.  We are blessed with folks who love on us during the holiday season when we are away from our own families!  The kids played Apples to Apples and had a great time!

On Friday, Mike and I left the house about 8:30 a.m. and did a little Christmas shopping for the kids.  Cecily did an awesome job of watching the little peeps for us while we were gone.  We are really proud of her and appreciate how she helps out with her little brother and sister!

Now for the rant...
As Mike and I were out on Friday we were amazed at the crowds!!  As I said we didn't leave the house until about 9 o'clock and every store we went in was so crowded, I mean with masses of people.  We were in Toys R Us at about 10:30 and the checkout line was backed all the way from the registers to the very back of the store!

As I was looking at something for JennaBeth, a lady asked me to help her look for something on a higher shelf.  She was a grandmother out shopping for her grandkids.  I asked her what time she got started shopping and she answered, "I've been hard at it since midnight."  Now, this conversation was taking place at 10:30 a.m., which meant this dear lady had been shopping for 10 1/2 hours!  As Mike and I went from place to place and I observed the crowds of people with buggy loads and notebooks with the day's plans in hand, something occurred to me...

How many of these people know Jesus?

And of those who do, do they put this much effort into living for Jesus?

How many, including myself, would be as diligent with their prayer lives to get up at 4:00 a.m. to pray and read God's word and to plan our day according to what the Lord revealed to us? 

Are we as serious and diligent about chasing after Jesus as we are about chasing after the items on our shopping lists?

Do we put as much effort into teaching our children about Jesus as we are about making sure everything we want to get them for Christmas has been gotten?

More stuff...

The rant is over now, but those are just some things that came to my mind.

On Saturday I asked Mike to get all the Christmas things down from the attic and he sweetly obliged!  The kids were ready to put up the tree.  We had so much fun decorating!  I'm not finished yet, but plan to finish up on Monday.

While we were decorating we listened to the Oak Ridge Boys Christmas cd we own.  This has become somewhat of a tradition.  Plus, there is something to be said about decorating your tree while listening to the Oaks singing the Hallelujah Chorus!

We stayed in our pj's and wore silly hats and had the best time!

I can't wait to see how long out seven foot tree survives with a 9 month old speed crawler in the house!

Yep, this should be an interesting Christmas ;)!!!!!

Counting it all Joy,

Jennifer