Hey there! I’m back! :) This month’s posting has been a bit choppy, but things have settled down a bit, so hopefully I’ll post more often. :) I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was great. We celebrated it Christmas Eve, because the next day we were going to travel. Here’s a few pictures from our festivities:

Christmas cookies! Mmm. We carried on the tradition of decorating them together as a family this year. :) We also read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a short and funny Christmas book. Mom usually reads it out loud each year in one sitting while we have Christmas cookies and cocoa.

A friend gave my brothers and I sweaters for Christmas.

I made special cinnamon rolls in the shape of a cross for Christmas morning. These are so yummy that I’ll post the recipe sometime if you want to try them.

And before opening presents, Austin and Jonathan took turns reading Luke 2. It was a special and memorable Christmas this year.

The next day (on Christmas morning) we left to go see family up in Wisconsin, but something totally unexpected happened halfway through our trip…. so stay tuned for more! I post on it next. :)

Happy New Year!!!

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”   ~Isaiah 9:6 

Merry Christmas! I hope your day is filled with joy in our Savior!

 Link of the day: It’s About the Cross – one of my favorite Christmas songs.

Good morning! I hope you are having a blessed Lord’s Day thus far. Today I’d like to share with you yet another devotional from Spurgeon’s book, Morning and Evening. This is incredibly thought-provoking It’s so good to be reminded of what we have in Jesus, which is far, far greater than the treasures of this world. I attempted to shorten this a little for posting here, but I couldn’t take anything out. :) I hope you are encouraged by this as I was. What an incredibly gracious God we serve! To Him be the glory!

 
“Behold, all is vanity.” Ecclesiastes 1:14

 Nothing can satisfy the entire man but the Lord’s love and the Lord’s own self. Some have tried to anchor in other harbors, but they have been driven out of such fatal refuges. Solomon, the wisest of men, was permitted to make experiments for us all, and to do for us what we should not attempt ourselves.

Here is his testimony in his own words: “So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

What! The whole of it is vanity? Is there nothing in all the wealth of kings? Nothing in that vast territory reaching from the river to the sea? Nothing in those glorious palaces? Nothing in the riches of the forests of Lebanon? In all you music and dancing and wine and luxury is there nothing? “Nothing,” he says, but sorrow, and his work is a vexation.” This was his verdict when he had experimented on the paths of apparent pleasure.

To embrace the Lord Jesus, to rest in His love and be fully assured of union with Him-this is all in all. Dear reader, you do not need to try these empty paths to find out whether they are better than the Christian’s. If you roam the universe, you will not find another friend like Jesus; if you could have all the comforts of life but lost your Savior, you would be wretched; but if you win Christ, then you could rot in a dungeon and even there find peace. If you live in obscurity or die hungry, you will still be satisfied with favor and will be full of the goodness of the Lord.