On Light and Warmth

Oh, the time slips away so quickly.  How I miss coming to this place of clarity.  The beautiful season of Christ-mas is upon us and I am filled with memories as I witness the excitement of my younger ones brooding.  Though it is a delicate task - the balance between the focus on self and selflessness - my prayer is that we would always set our sights on the powerful purpose of the manger, that His coming meant our pardon and our personal invitation into relationship with the Trinity.

The past two weeks now, we have been settling into our home on the hill.  This truly has been a transition for me.  Having always lived on the ridge-side of this sleepy town, we migrated into the tall pines and forests of ..."Forest-Hill".  Oh, I get it!  Always wondered why it bore the name.
Here we are, and let me tell you what happens to a girl when she discovers that the home she has moved her family into does not see rays of sunlight beaming through windows.  She suddenly becomes pale and frantic!  This was the hardest adjustment for me.  I love sunshine!!!  I love it streaming through windows and I love it's warmth on a winter's day.  This new home requires lamps and lots of them!  Thankfully, as the days have passed, and I have gotten over the shock of this reality and my eyes have adjusted, it would seem that the sun still shines and The Light still leaks into my home.

Other adjustments weren't so drastic, but included getting used to the space of a large home.  I had become so accustomed to a small, cozy home with everyone right in each other's business all of the time.  Small and cozy has it's benefits but, oh my, how we are loving the extra square-footage of a larger home.  That was a pretty quick and painless adjustment.

Happy to say that the wood-stove and I are finally becoming friends.  For all of these years we just turned up the thermostat and enjoyed the flame of a gas-stove, I worried so about moving into a home that, though it has a gorgeous whole-house heat system which is great for those times I need instant warmth, we would now have to stoke and burn actual wood!!  Aaaaahhh!  After some cursing, begging, pleading, barganing and persistence mostly, we have finally discovered that life with a wood-stove can be bliss!!!  Getting to the place of mutual acceptance was difficult, but we have arrived, and I can honestly proclaim that the warmth of a hearth is unmatched, and there is just something about an honest home-fire...ultra-cozy and country.  We are downright HOT sometimes and I find the boys lounging shirtless on the couch.  I have not gone there myself ;)

God has truly been kind in bringing us to this place.  It feels like HOME!  I am reminded daily of how blessed we are as a family...to live on this beautiful "forest-hill", in the trees (see there...even without sunshine beaming through the windows), above the fog (now THAT is something to be thankful for), and so much more....endless blessings!

Oh how I want to continue this blog post, but wee-girl is awake and needing her mommy to get her breakfast, and the older ones are rising from their slumber.  It's Friday!!!  Have a weekend filled with warmth (weather it be from a wood-stove or not, it doesn't really matter as long as it is shared with those you love:) and may you share some sweet memories this second weekend of the Advent season.

Much Love!