Typing Through Tears...

Every once in a while I start to post a Facebook status, and it just gets so long I decide I need to move it to the blog instead.  This is one of those posts...unplanned, unedited, and a bit raw, but words that needed to come out tonight.  This is what I started to post on Facebook:

Reminded again tonight how very thankful I am that Christmas isn't over on December 25...that the birth of the baby in the manger was neither the beginning nor the end of God's plan...that the message of Christmas is the HOPE that that Baby brings to the earth...not a "wishing" sort of hope, but a sure and certain hope...that for those who have accepted that Christmas Gift of salvation, God has promised that He is with us every step of the way on earth, and then we are in His presence forever.   Remembering Bro. Gary's message Sunday morning on Isaiah 9:6, and thankful that although I do not understand the "whys" behind God's plan so often, I know that He is in control, He loves us more than we can imagine, and He is good, always.  Grieving tonight and praying for friends whose grief is even deeper. 

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
~Isaiah 9:6

We lost a dear friend tonight.  We came to love Mr. Roy and Mrs. Beverly very quickly upon our move to Grace last summer.   Roy went to be with Jesus very suddenly and unexpectedly this afternoon.  It's amazing how sometimes you can know someone such a relatively short time, and yet they become such a huge part of your life that they leave a big gaping hole when they are gone.  I know that is multiplied many times for his family and close friends. 

There are four things I'll always think of when I think of Mr. Roy...

1. He loved Jesus.
2. He loved people.
3. He was always ready to help meet a need.
4. He had one of the best laughs ever.  And he used it often.  And his eyes twinkled.  We are going to miss that laugh and those twinkling eyes!


I'm thankful for the months that we've gotten to share with Mr. Roy as part of our Grace family.   As we ache and pray for Beverly, Justin, and their family tonight, and for Bro. Gary and Becky and all those who loved him, these verses keep coming to mind...

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. ~ 1 Thess. 4:13-18

We know where he is...we are thankful that he is rejoicing with Jesus...but we sure are going to miss him!  

Wrap It Up! {Quick, Easy, Last-Minute DIY Gift Wrap}

"What's your favorite Christmas tradition?"  That question has come up several times recently, and I always have a hard time answering.  Most of our traditions in recent years haven't been of the big, fancy sort, but we do have lots of special little traditions we enjoy.

One of the "little things" that has become a tradition for us is our annual trek to the newspaper building to pick up an end roll of newsprint.  For years we've gone downtown to the dock of the old green newspaper building and bought a roll of newsprint to use for our Christmas gift wrap.  A big roll costs $3.00, and it lasts us all year for gift wrapping, crafts, and other projects.

I didn't realize what a tradition our trip to the newspaper building was until we called this year and discovered that they no longer sell the end rolls at the old building downtown.  Instead of pulling up to the back dock and ringing the bell to make our purchase, this year we went to the {much newer} newspaper building and bought our end roll right at the front desk.  (The change took a bit of the fun out of it for some of us. :))

It's been fun over the years to come up with creative ways to spruce up our newsprint packages.  I've drawn with crayons and markers, used punches and hand-cut lettering and paper-piecing, and made yarn pompoms.  Here are a few examples...(if you don't have newsprint handy, kraft paper, butcher paper, or even solid-colored wrapping paper can be used instead)...

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Sunday Morning Funny...

Spurgeon on Christmas...

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12 Days of Treats {Lottie Moon Cookies}

Day 2 of 12 Days of Treats!  As I mentioned yesterday, December 12 is the birthday of Lottie Moon, Southern Baptist missionary to China.  When Lottie first went to China,  she was called the "foreign devil" because the Chinese people...particularly the children...didn't trust the white woman among them.  Lottie began to bake cookies for them in an attempt to win them over.  Once they realized that her cookies weren't poisoned, they began to warm up to the cookies *and* the missionary lady.  She was no longer known as the "foreign devil", but was known as the "cookie lady".


Yesterday we talked about Lottie Moon in school, and then I decided it would be fun to make "Lottie's cookies".   They were very simple and quite good.  Best of all, the ingredients are things I always have available.  That's always a plus! :)  (Note: I found several recipes for Lottie Moon cookies online.  This is a composite of several. :))

Lottie Moon Cookies

2 cups flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp. cream (I ended up using about 2 Tbsp.)

Preheat oven to 425.  Beat together butter and sugar, add the egg and mix well.  Add the flour and cream.  (I had to add a second tablespoon of cream to make a dough at this point...with 1 tablespoon I just had a bowl of crumbs. :))  Roll into 1 inch balls, place on cookie sheet, and bake about 9 minutes.

I'd love to hear from you!!  I'd love to hear about your favorite holiday treats in the comments section.  Also...a friend and I are on a quest for a great recipe for cornmeal biscuits (similar to the Grands Cornmeal Biscuits that apparently aren't made anymore).  If you have a great cornmeal biscuit recipe, we'd love to try it!  You can post in the comments or email me using the email link in the "About Me" section.  

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12 Days of Treats {Chocolate Chip Cookies}

I've decided to try something fun for the next couple of weeks on the blog...12 Days of Tasty Treats for the holidays. We'll see how it goes...consistent blogging doesn't always work the way I hope and plan. *Sigh* :)   Hopefully, though, this will give me a bit of a push to actually make the treats I plan to make and then blog them. 

I'm starting out today with a pretty basic, simple recipe...but sometimes basic and simple is good when you're looking for something tried and true.  There are hundreds...probably thousands...of chocolate chip cookie recipes out there, but this one from the folks at KitchenAid definitely qualifies as "tried and true".  

This was the first recipe I made after we were gifted with our new mixer this summer, and I think I've made them at least once a week....and sometimes more...since.  My children have decided they are the best chocolate chip cookies *ever*. :)  

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened {My son says "No margarine!" :)}

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla in mixer bowl.  Beat with flat beater 30 seconds on speed 2.  Stop and scrape bowl and beat 30 seconds on speed 4.  

Mix baking soda, salt, and flour.  Add to mixer bowl gradually while beating on stir speed for 2 minutes.  Stop and scrape bowl, then mix on speed two for 30 seconds.  Scrape bowl again, add chocolate chips, and mix on stir speed for 15 seconds.  

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto baking sheet about 2 inches apart.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  Let cookies sit for 1 minute before removing to wire rack.  

{Dough keeps well in refrigerator for several days.}

Did you know...that in addition to all the buzz today about it being 12-12-12 (and yes, I took a picture of the kids at 12:12 on 12-12-12...but they made me promise not to post it online! :)), today is also Lottie Moon's birthday?   And did you know that Lottie Moon was known as the "Cookie Lady"?  The Chinese people didn't trust this foreign lady, so she decided to make cookies for them to gain their trust.  At first they thought the cookies were poisoned, so they wouldn't eat them, but in time they realized that the cookies were delicious and the lady was kind, and the door was opened for Lottie to share Jesus with them.  I think we'll try Lottie's cookie recipe for tomorrow's "12 Days of Treats" post!

I'd love to hear from you!!  I'd love to hear about your favorite holiday treats in the comments section.  Also...a friend and I are on a quest for a great recipe for cornmeal biscuits (similar to the Grands Cornmeal Biscuits that apparently aren't made anymore).  If you have a great cornmeal biscuit recipe, we'd love to try it!  You can post in the comments or email me using the email link in the "About Me" section.  

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Remembering 8 Years Ago...

It's Sunday...and the last day for Keyboards at Christmas...and I don't really have time to be blogging...but I can't let this day go by without a remembrance.  So...I'm going to repeat last year's post with a few changes...

Funny how eight years can seem like an eternity and a blink of an eye all at the same time.  December 9, 2004 seems like forever ago and just yesterday all at once.

I've been thinking a lot about my daddy lately...how much he would have LOVED Keyboards at Christmas, how excited he would have been about our new church, how much he would have enjoyed digital photography (and what a great blogger he could have been! :)), what he would have been saying about the recent election and the state of our country (it wouldn't have been pretty...), and mostly, how proud he would have been of his grandchildren.  

Remembering eight years ago...

missing dress rehearsal, friends helping in so many ways,
Isaiah 40:11,

Diet Coke in a bag, 

half the choir showing up at the hospital when dress rehearsal ended, 

just the right people being there at just the right times, 

watching every breath and wondering if it was the last...

until it was, and all the suffering was over, 

and we were left with a great big husband/daddy/father-in-law/Papaw-sized hole in our hearts.

And his funeral a few days later right in the middle of the sets from the musical...which was somehow so fitting, with his great love of all things choir-related...and the choir singing one of his favorite hymns, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", so beautifully.
 

So thankful for these years he's spent rejoicing and worshiping instead of suffering, and for the certain hope that that night eight years ago was not good-bye.  Almost the last words I heard him say, in the midst of incredible pain, were "God has been so good to me."  So thankful for that memory that challenges me when I get caught up in earthly stuff and forget to see His goodness...

So thankful for my Daddy...

 

focused on Glory {in Christmas Music}

Short and sweet this week...I've been listening to this over and over the last few days and just basking in God's glory expressed in amazing music.  This is one of my favorite Christmas hymns {O Holy Night}, arranged by my favorite arranger {Oak Cliff's minister of music, Lyndel Hobbs}, sung by my favorite choir {the Oak Cliff choir}.   I'm usually in the choir singing it {which I love, because Lyndel has written some beautiful alto harmony parts that are just a joy to sing}, but Sunday night during rehearsal I got to sit and listen {and record :)}.  Wow.  It's like a 5 minute, 44 second worship service all by itself!

{Arrangement copyright Lyndel Hobbs, used with permission.)

Doesn't that just whet your appetite for more??!! :)  I am amazed to think that the awesome beauty and creativity of music on this fallen, broken earth is but a shadow of what it will be in Heaven.  The glimpses of God's glory that we see here...as incredible as they seem to us...can't begin to compare to the glory we will see when He has restored all things. (Romans 8:18-25) 


For those who are within any kind of driving distance of Fort Smith, I encourage you to come experience all of Keyboards at Christmas this weekend.  There are three opportunities...Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, and Sunday evening...all free!  For more information {times, directions, etc.}, visit the Keyboards at Christmas website. 


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 focused on Glory is a {not terribly regular these days :)} collaborative effort between Ponderings of an Elect Exile and Creative Confetti.  We've both had a bit of a crazy fall, but hopefully this feature will be more consistent soon. :)  Be sure to visit Tauna at Creative Confetti to see her latest!