Winter is here!

Well, winter has officially come to the edge of the world! Saturday night was our town's Christmas light parade. We had a great time freezing our buns off watching all the light covered floats pass by, and waving to friends. Here are some pictures.

Candace and me
Meghan and "Wobby"

Rob, Dana & Darren

"Candy and Andy"





This is the Burger King mascot...or is it???

Breathe

I am still reading the Narnia stories and found myself pondering a quote from Prince Caspian (one of the books in the series). At this point in the story, Aslan confronts Susan with the truth about her heart's condition, the reason she was unable to see Him as He led Susan and her siblings through the night. Aslan says to her, "You have listened to fears, child. Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?"

This got me thinking about how in the midst of fear, all we truly need is to feel our Lord breathe on us. Our confidence in Him and who we are in Him grow exponentiallly as we stand in His presence and feel His gentle breath cover us. The key to feeling Him breathe upon us is to be in His presence. While that seems like an obvious statement, how often do we wander away from Him and then cry out to Him in disappointment because we do not feel His nearness? He is immovable, His Word tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us. WE are the wanderers, not Him. If want to continually feel His breath upon us we must remain beside Him, in His presence.

Changes

So, there have been a few changes in our life here in Maine -

1. The Lord has blessed our family by providing Rob with a great new job at Time Warner. Among the blessings that have come with this new position are better pay, better training, and better health benefits! The health benefits include much better fertility coverage! PRAISE GOD!

2. We got a new car! And believe it or not, this one actually has heat!! Woo-Hoo!! I have to admit it is a rather nice feature for a vehicle living in Northern Maine.

3. I got a new do thanks to the exceedingly talent Tina!

Life here at the edge of the world is good, but our God is even better! He is constantly surprising us with His all encompassing goodness!

Choo-Choo, Natalie's two!!!

Happy Birthday Natalie! I can't believe you are already two years old. You are such a big girl now! I hope you had fun at your party watching all of the trains.

I love you bunches -
Auntie Heather

A Truth Revealed By YouTube

I just visited my dear friend Elizabeth's blog and saw this YouTube video which got me thinking about where I am in my relationship with the Lord. What do I do in the storm? Where do I get my shelter? Sadly the truth is that I have stopped looking for shelter. You see, for quite a while it has seemed that I have found comfort and shelter under an umbrella, yet just as I start to get dry under that umbrella I find a puddle, and I find that I am engulfed in the storm once again. So, several puddles later I find myself avoiding the umbrella all together. I no longer trust the umbrella to protect. I trust the storm.

Forgive me Father for avoiding you. I have trusted my circumstances more than I have trusted you. You have proven yourself over and over again, to be gentle, loving, and protective yet I have allowed the lack of change in my situation to convince me that you don't really care. You are bigger than any storm I may encounter and I will trust you to protect me, to care for me, to love me. Thank you Lord for opening my eyes to the condition of my heart.

I'm Just a Blogger Newbie

Well, I'm starting to figure out how to add to and change the look of my blog, which has been pretty fun so far. I know for sure that I've not figured out all the cool things you can do here, so here's the question of the day...What is your favorite blog trick? Something that helps set your blog apart from everyone else's, or something that just makes your blog look cool.

An explanation

"A Journey Toward Hope," the title of this blog, sums up my walk with the Lord. My journey with Him has been one out of despair, and hopelessness into a hope resting upon Him; His love, His faithfulness, His trustworthiness, His gentleness, His forgiveness.

Hope for me was once a "four letter" word. To hope was to set yourself up for disappointment, and I learned at a young age that I did not like the pain that came with disappointment, so my solution was to give up hope. I no longer allowed myself to get excited about the things that could be, only the things that are guaranteed to happen. As we all know, there are very few guarantees in life, so I did not get excited all that often.

It has taken me a long time to learn that hope is not a bad thing, as long as I place my hope in the right things, namely my Heavenly Father, my Abba. And in trusting Him, He has traded the ashes of hopelessness I brought to Him, with a beautiful garland of HOPE!