Reality

Many of you already know that while I was in Cambodia, I struggled with darkness. Now I can say that there was sin in my life. The sin made the darkness grow and yet the darkness made it even harder to fight temptation. I was caught in a place where I felt detached from God. The Bible makes it clear that all of us are sinners. We have a diabolical longing. This is due to the original sin where Adam and Eve went against God and ate the forbidden fruit. Even though God made the world perfect, He gave us the ability to choose for ourselves to follow Him and man chose to sin. The special part is that He still loves us. He loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to come into this world and pay the penalty for our sins. When we choose to follow Him, we are set free from our past sins. I am so glad that God forgives. I am so glad that He still desires to use me, despite my failures, and that I can have a personal relationship with Him. I know that there are a few of you who read this who have not chosen to follow Jesus. I just want you to know that Jesus loves you and desires you to come follow Him.

Merry Christmas!

I would just like to start by wishing everyone who reads this a merry Christmas. Thank you for your prayers...I have really felt them. This has been a wonderful Christmas.

It started with babysitting my neice. We successfully got paint everywhere...including her mom's good chair.

Then after dinner on Christmas Eve with my brother-in-law's family, my parents and I headed up to their new home for a quiet Christmas. We opened a few presents, cleaned, and relaxed. It was actually really nice. Then everyone arrived and we had a full house, snowball fights, good food, and lots of presents.

(Me, Jackie, Bobbi, Maria (my bother-in-law's mom), and my mom.)

(We discovered that Rylee really likes dada juice -- aka pop!)

(Noah and his new gecko that I brought home from Cambodia for him.)

(Mom with one of her presents -- a picture of my nephew in his hockey uniform, and my niece in her figure skating costume.)

All in all, it was really nice to spend Christmas with my family again!

Quick Update

Sorry I haven't written anything on here for awhile. I have been a little under the weather and very stressed. I was rear ended a couple weeks ago which left me with whiplash. The whiplash plus the stress made for a very painful week last week. Now that my neck is getting better, I have started to come down with a cold/bronchitis. I am hoping to nip it before it gets the better of me. Please pray for physical healing as exams start on Friday and I want to be able to focus and do well.

Thanks so much.