Joy is here…

Merry Christmas, friends!!

this is our Christmas card that we sent out this year….

actually…its not totally.

i first ordered our cards before Thanksgiving, and when they arrived, i noticed that the printing company (whom i will leave unnamed, cause i don’t want to say anything bad about them…but lets just say, they are not my fave at the moment!) cut right in half the bottom of our card…leaving half of our (unreadable) text at the bottom.

so i reordered right away…and they still have not arrived. they are probably lost somewhere in Russia, for all i know.

so in a mad dash to get our cards out by Christmas, jake and i decided that we would not spend any more money to get them reprinted a 3rd time, and instead cut off the bottom of each card. those of you who received it would never know the difference, but it has caused some frustration here in our household! oh well…live and learn i guess!

but onto the real reason for this post:

we like to use our Christmas card to communicate some kind of message from our family that has meaning to us. this year was simple, and most probably didn’t even catch it, but the word we wanted to communicate was JOY!

that’s what this season is supposed to be about, anyway. actually, i would venture to say that i think God would desire for that to be what our lives are about too.

i read somewhere last year a great little snippet that has stuck with me, that i thought i’d share again this year. you know that saying that you see everywhere this time of year, “JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON?” cute and catchy. however…there is more to this season than that. what it could say is, “WE ARE THE REASON FOR THIS SEASON!” cause afterall, if it weren’t for God’s great love for us, Jesus wouldn’t have come here to earth to dwell with us, die for us, rise again to redeem us. so actually, we are the reason for this season. seems weird to say, i know, but its true. we celebrate because that little babe came here, with His only reason being for US. crazy…but totally true!

and that is what brings JOY!

and i have to confess, i type this for myself today. cause the last few weeks, i have felt anything but joy. i have been stressed, angry, sad, anxious, tired….and have lacked joy BIG time!!

so i pray for myself and my family, and for you too…

that today and tomorrow and this week (and this life) would be full of JOY RESTORED…

not because of gifts, not because of circumstances, but because of THE circumstance that brought Jesus here in the first place…HIS GREAT LOVE FOR US!

reminds me of this:

Lamentations 3:23

“Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed…for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning…great is your faithfulness!”

so the consumption that this season brings (and not even so much material consumption, but more busy-ness kind of consumption, at least for me) does not have to define our joy…

but instead, we get to celebrate that we are SO DEARLY LOVED that God would give us the very best gift ever…His Own Self…A Savior

and that truth brings REAL JOY to my heart!!

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth!
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks, a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;

Praying that these next few days bring joy and celebration to your families!!

With JOY,

ps: because i think some of you might ask, i’ll go ahead and tell you that our cards were designed by a super talented lady that i found on etsy. you can see her amazing shop here. she was super efficient and quick, so easy and fun to work with, and amazingly accommodating, making sure that i LOVED every detail of my card, even redoing parts of it for me after my first batch was cropped during printing (not her fault!). i highly recommend her if you need any kind of card, invite, stationary, etc. just to note…she is NOT the one who messed up my printing! she does offer printing services herself, that i did not use, but i am sure that those services are the best! please check her out someday!!