if home is where the heart is...
I absolutely love the holiday season because it gives me the beautiful opportunity to be with the people I love and celebrate friends and family. I love being home and spending time fellowshipping with all the people I love. Being at college creates this interesting predicament because there are so many places that I consider home because they house pieces of my heart. Boone is one of my homes because it is my college family, and then there is my hometown where I get to see my parents and all my friends I have grown up with, there is also my home with both my mom's and dad's extended families visit. All these places are so special to me in different and unique ways, and this holiday season I have been able to be at all of my homes for a little while.
After a long and stressful semester, I was so excited to finally have a break from the busyness of class and school. A week of one too many late nights in the library had left me exhausted, and I could not wait to be back at home for a little bit of relaxing. There are so many little things that I get to enjoy at home that are so simple, but they just warm my heart. I love just being able to sit at dinner and talk with my parents, going to get coffee at Starbucks in the morning, seeing my best friends from high school, celebrating my youth group's annual Christmas gift exchange, wearing tacky Christmas sweaters, watching Christmas movies, seeing my church family, reading books for fun, and being with family and friends. Pretty shortly into my break I went to the Carolina Cross Connection Staff Christmas party and I got to see my summer staff family. I got to see two people from my Loy White family and we missed our other four a lot!
Another much awaited tradition was my youth group's annual Dirty Santa gift exchange where everyone brings a gag gift and then you can trade and steal. The best part was getting to see my best friend, Katy who I had only seen one or two times this semester. I swear we are both like five years old on the inside because we both got giant coloring pages and a pack of 96 crayons. We have already planned to have a day of movies and coloring before we have to go back to school.
As much as I love all the holiday traditions I celebrate, my favorite thing to do is just relax and spend time with my family. We are all crazy, and things get a little loud, but I wouldn't trade these precious moments for the world. I am continually reminded and blown away by how blessed I truly am. Christmas and this unadulterated time spent with the people who know me the best allows me to re-center my focus and re-align my perspective. Jesus' blessings and glory are so abundant if we are able to slow down enough to take notice of them. When we take a break from our busy schedules, we can cherish the wonderful journeys our loving Father is taking us on. This is something Matt Redman's book Mirror Ball talks about; it says
After a long and stressful semester, I was so excited to finally have a break from the busyness of class and school. A week of one too many late nights in the library had left me exhausted, and I could not wait to be back at home for a little bit of relaxing. There are so many little things that I get to enjoy at home that are so simple, but they just warm my heart. I love just being able to sit at dinner and talk with my parents, going to get coffee at Starbucks in the morning, seeing my best friends from high school, celebrating my youth group's annual Christmas gift exchange, wearing tacky Christmas sweaters, watching Christmas movies, seeing my church family, reading books for fun, and being with family and friends. Pretty shortly into my break I went to the Carolina Cross Connection Staff Christmas party and I got to see my summer staff family. I got to see two people from my Loy White family and we missed our other four a lot!
Another much awaited tradition was my youth group's annual Dirty Santa gift exchange where everyone brings a gag gift and then you can trade and steal. The best part was getting to see my best friend, Katy who I had only seen one or two times this semester. I swear we are both like five years old on the inside because we both got giant coloring pages and a pack of 96 crayons. We have already planned to have a day of movies and coloring before we have to go back to school.
 |
| This was the first picture I colored that I am going to laminate for my dorm :) |
"The life of a worship is a life of wandering and wondering -- journeying from scene to scene and taking time to explore the magnificence of God. With the eyes of our hearts fixed on Jesus we will always be amazed by the things we see. Literally always. We will find His splendor, power, and love inexhaustibly captivating."This holiday season I have truly been inexhaustibly captivated by the Lord's blessings and provisions at work in my life and all of creation. Makes me excited about the glory of our eternal Home.
Comments
Post a Comment