Washed White as Snow

Today's prayer group at school was a culmination of thoughts/scripture over the last week.  At church last week, the sermon series topic was the creation story.  There were lots of great insights for me, but I'll only delve into that which is relevant here with the prayer group.   The main thing I pulled away from the sermon was that ALL of creation was created to give HIM all the glory.  It's purpose was simply for God to be glorified. Our pastor challenged us to choose from a short list something that we wanted to focus on this week in our spiritual walk.  I chose to focus my prayer time on praising God for His creation and seeking to glorify Him in that.  Fast forward to Tuesday when the snow began.  During my prayer time on my drive to school, I was praising God for the beauty of the snow as it was falling all around me...The scripture from Isaiah 1:18a popped in my head. '"Come now, let's settle this," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow."'  This snow was an awesome reminder to me of God's grace pouring over me and cleansing my ugly sin white as snow. Ahhhh...what a feeling and image in my mind.  Then this morning on my drive, as I'm contemplating this scripture again in preparation for prayer time with my teacher friends, it occurred to me how ugly the road snow was...it was dirty, dingy, slushy and gross looking...Hmmmm...so God took my mind on a little tangent from my original message of being cleansed like snow...We are cleansed each time we ask forgiveness and God starts over with us with a pure white slate...then what happens?  We yucky it up with more sins, more slip-ups, more attention away from Him...essentially we become dirty, dingy, and gross-looking on the inside again just like that snow on the road.  But what is so awesome is that it was snowing again on my drive.  You guessed it, covering up the dirty-ness and making it white again.  Isn't that what He does with us?  He continually replenishes the forgiveness to turn us white as snow.  This image has been such a blessing to me this week...I've had to be "snowed upon" many times.  Thank you Jesus for being cleansed and for the creation that smacked me with this revelation!

A Visit to Joe Pa

If you don't know, we are Penn State fans in our household!  Since Phil is from Pennsylvania and his brother went to Penn State, we are dedicated to cheering them on.  And if you know anything about Penn State, you know who Joe Pa is...Joe Paterno...loooooonnnngggg-time coach of their football team.  We decided on our trip home at Christmas that we would go a different way, up through the mountains for the kids to see, which took us nearby the campus of Penn State.  Even though Phil REALLY doesn't like to stop on our trips and is focused on getting home as quickly as possible, he detoured off the path to stop by Penn State.  Here is our view as we are turning onto the campus to see the stadium.  AWESOME!

JOE PA!!!!!  There is a whole area in front of the stadium that was pretty amazing to see, so we definitely had to stop and get some pictures of it.

And with it...probably as close as we'll ever get to meeting the legend...

It was so cold and we were trying to get pictures and get back in the truck as quickly as possible!

Below is a Joe Paterno quote that I really liked...a bit hard to read though on here, it says: "They ask me what I'd like written about me whn I'm gone.  I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach."

Yep...at Christmas we went to visit Joe Paterno...well, sort of! HA!  We hope to go back for a game...maybe as soon as this fall.  There's nothing like "Happy Valley" during football season we hear.

Christmas Morning

Since we have been in PA, sleep has not been something that Kiara likes to do much of at night...so although the boys slept well, Kiara, Phil and I were a little groggy...as you can see from this picture.  They came down the stairs together at Grandma and PawPaw's house to see if Santa had stopped there or left their gifts in IN.  Hooray....Santa found us after all!

For some reason, the tree picture will not rotate the right way so I left it out, but it was really pretty with all of the presents around it and Santa even stopped in Indiana for our stockings before stopping here.  He is a pretty amazing guy, that Santa!  The most exciting gifts for the boys this year were their Denver Broncos jerseys.  They have asked for them for a couple of years now and were really hoping that this would be the year...It was their last present to open and it was amidst whoops and hollers!

Kiara was pretty excited about her sweeper that she got too.  She has been vacuuming Grandma's living room several times a day since then! 

Here we all are...Daddy and Mommy looking a little groggy still after opening presents, but the three kids wide awake and ready to start the day!

Here are the kids hanging out on the steps together waiting on breakfast to be finished up.  Daddy fixed a yummy breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage and toast. Mmmmmm... 

More to come later....

"Making the Blog"

This one's for you Chad and Naomi!!! I have so many Christmas pictures and stories to tell of both sides of our families, but I needed to get this one up right away.  You are now famous Chad and have "made the blog"!  Tonight we went to visit Phil's cousin and his wife (Chad and Naomi).  We watched some football, ate some snacks and played with the dog.  Wish we could see them more often.

All the kids had fun playing with Gabby their puppy. The boys played fetch with her, chased her around and even went outside with her for a little bit in the windy snow. 
Kiara just shared wet kisses and food with her!

Here are the Witmer grandkids on Christmas Eve...some nice looking kiddos if I do say so myself!

 Here's the newest addition to our family, our nephew, Jackson who is nearing 6 months old.  He is too cute for pictures I tell you and this just doesn't do him justice!

OK...more to come of Christmas, but this was just a glimpse so that Chad could make the blog! :)  Oh, you may notice as well that there is a new picture at the top of the blog of our family.  We were fully decked out in our Denver Bronco attire for the game today...finally a WIN!  Woo hoo!  Thanks to Chad for taking the picture even if it hurt to see all that orange and blue!

Miracles of Christmas

At my school prayer group last week we talked about the Christmas story (well, sort of)…
Matthew 1: 18-25 (I won’t type it all out…essentially it is when Mary and Joseph each separately learn of Mary being pregnant by the Holy Spirit).
How many times have you heard the Christmas story…a gajillion, right? For me, it has become a nice story and I can tell it backwards and forwards…but how often do we REALLY stop and think about it. We focused just on this first part of the story, but it is easily carried into the rest of the story as well. Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit…Can you imagine what she thought and the fear and doubt that she felt? Can you imagine what others were saying about her?  Her response...that she was the Lord's servant and she would gladly endure for Him. (my translation!)  And Joseph…he did as the Lord commanded and stayed with her….stayed with this crazy lady that was causing a lot of grief in his life as well…They both did what they did because of their great faith and trust in God. Did they question God? Or say “why me?”…I’m sure that they did, but the fact remains that they trusted and believed during those questions.
So often we let life’s little things build up and wear us down. The craziness of the season, one more gift to buy, one more party to attend, one more card to send…STOP!!!!! Stop to remember the faith and courage of Mary and Joseph and the miracles that occurred in the story. We often think the miracle is in the birth of Jesus and it truly is…but the miracle started long before when Mary accepted this gift from the Holy Spirit and chose to continue the story….the next miracle was Joseph sticking it out in the midst of the scorn and shame…and continues in every aspect of the story. (Consider the shepherds who saw an angel and believed…and followed the star, trusting to see this baby they had heard about)…Search for the miracles this season and be encouraged that the Holy Spirit also is alive in us.

Our wonderful pastor added so much more to this story that I have been thinking so much about and having to do with the nativity scene...Maybe a new blog on that one coming soon as my heart has been stirring over it.  What an awesome God we have that He would become man like us and SAVE us.
Merry Christmas!

Music Programs

Both of the boys had their school music programs in the last month or so.  I was unable to go to either concert, which was definitely hard for me.  I had parent/teacher conferences on Grant's Fall Program and MY school program on Brock's program night.  Phil and the boys were able to get a little bit of video from each concert so I could see some of it.  And Grant took lots of pictures of Brock's program.  Thankful for that and for a DVD of Brock's concert that I ordered and will get in January.  I was so proud of both of them and they did such a great job.  First is Grant singing one of his songs. 

Here's Brock as a toy soldier doing a special dance part in his concert.

I think he is a very handsome toy soldier! (He's on the right)

Here's a picture of me at my concert then..."The JingleBell Jukebox"...We were singing Silent Night at the end of the concert.

And although I don't have a picture of Kiara and Phil to put up...they worked hard too...Well, Phil worked hard entertaining Kiara and keeping her quiet during both concerts with me not there.  Thankful for my family.

My Blessings

My day started out with me whining a bit...
*My kids had a delay and I didn't.
*A reminder that I don't work in the town I live in.
*A reminder that I am a working mom.
*A reminder that I miss out on a lot with the kiddos
*And the list goes spiraling on...
So, as I began praying on the drive I decided to think about how I am blessed and thanking/praising  God for it.  I have so much to be grateful for, yet this struggle of the things mentioned above haunts me regularly.  Here is where the list started...and then it went on, and on and on.  I am truly blessed.
*I have a husband who loves me and I love him.
*I have three beautiful children that I love so much.
*I have a job to go to (with so many unemployed).
*I have a reliable vehicle to get me to my out of town work.
*I don't have to panic about practicing for my concert cause there was no delay.
*I am blessed to have my mom watch my kids and be with them on this delay.
*My kids had joy in their delay and were safer for it.
*We have a home to live in and food to eat (in abundance).
*God provided a beautiful snow-covered landscape for me to see.
*I have teacher-friends that I would never have had if working elsewhere
And yes, the list goes on and on...So, even though I still wish I had a delay today and that I was either at home or working in the same system as my kids...I am blessed.  Too blessed to whine about it.  God is so good to me and mine.