A Little Different

Over the past few months, I've actually been attending church on a regular basis. Crazy, right?In the dark days of my past, I was a sporadic church-goer at best. I'd be all excited about church and want to get "involved" with some various ministry and then someone would say something that pissed me off (usually regarding a woman's role or homeschooling) and I would gradually stop attending. YES, I know, I know...this is not the right way to think/act/feel. Going to church shouldn't be about my own personal, flawed feelings, but it should ONLY be about building my relationship with God. A HUGE part of building this relationship is by engaging with other believers and having someone there to hold me accountable when I make some ridiculous decision or say something completely awful and cold. Most of you know me and you know how I have a sharp tongue and a biting personality that can come off as being....well, mean. I need people to call me out on that because I can get a little carried away. Hard to believe, right? Anyway, the whole reason that I even started off this post with that little story is because when I went to church this morning, I heard one of the most moving and realistic stories regarding the life and cruxificion of Jesus Christ. I'm not really an emotional person because in my warped mind, the showing of emotion is a weakness (for all of you aspiring therapists, we can talk about this later). As I was listening to the sermon, I actually started to tear up and then the tears were a rollin'. That's right, I cried...in public. It was horribly wonderful. Through the course of about 23 seconds, I felt awful, wonderful, thankful, awed, and just down right amazed. It was one of those experiences that I will always treasure because I know that they are so rare. (The church actually records their sermons so you should go here and listen to today's message). Besides having pastors who can actually move me with their words, this church has given me the opportunity to meet some amazing people. Yeah, I only managed to meet these people a few short months before I'm going to move but at least I have these 6 months. God has his reasons and I just have to remember that I will never come close to understanding him. Faith is a tricky thing.

On a different note, I managed to finally finish decorating my Christmas tree and the above picture is of my most prized ornament. Ha! Thankfully this one managed to escape Wendell's rampage where he pretty much destroyed every piece of the tree that he could reach. I'm still finding pieces of ornaments that the little devil scattered throughout my apartment. If he wasn't so darn cute, I'd probably sell him to gypsies. Below is evidence of how cute he is. He was hanging out with his grandfather (yes, I'm pathetic. I admit that).

Ok, I'm done and f.y.i. iTunes has a free holiday sampler of 20 Christmas songs. I'm cheap enough to get really excited about this.