Christmas Time

Christmas time is here! By that I mean, the time of year when I have no concept of time. I generally find myself waking and starting my day somewhere between 9 and 10 am. I think lunch happens anywhere between 2 and 4 and who knows about supper. Bedtime is also very obsolete. Last night, 9 of us siblings were all gathered in the Yellow Room playing "Bang" and reading books at midnight and considering another round or two. The 9 siblings included everyone apart from Ken, who had a physics final today and thus chose to be responsible and go to sleep at who-knows-what-time-because-he-disappeared-a-few-hours-before-we-noticed. :) I love Christmas time! 

Another wonderful thing is that all 10 of us are home. Well... all 10 of us were home. Ken's off taking his finals and Kurt went somewhere too. Yesterday was our Kohl family Christmas! It started with us all waking up at various times... a couple of the siblings were watching Tin Tin when I came down stairs and I joined them. At some point in the middle of it Rose made pannekuken and one by one more siblings emerged. I think at some point later Rose made stuffing for our turkey dinner later and the left over stuffing became our lunch. I think it was early afternoon when we commenced gift unwrappings and it must have been close to 4 when we were finished and there were various siblings taking naps, playing Age of Empires, and I think Kyle was off dreaming up ways to create mini weapons of mass destruction. Right now he's gluing pages together from a vintage English textbook from the 50s so he can hallow it out and hide his "Materials for building weapons."





In 20 minutes (which really means nothing to us) we'll play Clueless or Bang for who knows how long.. hours most likely.  Clueless! That's another thing that happened. We spent hours, perhaps even a whole day, making our own Clue Board of our house. 

The whole premise is that a houseguest left upset and one must now find out who did, where, and with what. The suspects being the 12 members of the Kohl household and the the rooms being 12 of the most frequented rooms in the house. The "items" (weapons?) include such things as a squirt gun, box of matches, broom, 2 X 4, frying pan, wooden spoon, ipad... etc. (There's about a dozen). 

It's incredibly fun! The last game we played I was pretty sure it was Mom in the Basement with the Hammer, but it turned out to be Kyle in Kit's room with the squirt gun. Heh :)

Another thing about Christmas Time is that since there is no concept of time and there's always something to do and someone to do something with, it is easy to neglect one's time alone with God. We all love Jesus and we have talks and encourage each other this way and that. It's easy to not miss Jesus, but at the same time, something is missing. I don't always actively notice a spiritual dryness or ache of need for God when I'm home. Well, usually I don't. But this time around, after crash landing at the end of my semester, it's way more obvious to me when I don't spend straight up alone time with Jesus. But home is perfect for that, also. While the house is busy and fun and exciting, there are pockets of rest and peace and calm and quiet. 

Planted

As Christmas quickly approaches, I'm reminded of Christmases past and all the joy and peace that came with them. I like joy and peace. I wish I felt it more often. 

They say it gets easier with time. What they don't tell you is that everyday you will find something new that reminds you of what you lost. If anything, I'd almost wager at this point that it gets harder with time. But, perhaps easier, to trust God. What else do you do? Cry and admit defeat? No, in all things we are more than conquerors through Him that loves us. 

Currently, I'm sitting in a coffee shop after having read a whole list of God's promises for the umpteenth time. They are soothing. I like thinking of God wanting good things for my life, especially when I can't see them at all. Last night, as I was falling asleep I asked God to show me himself..to give me a glimpse of what He was doing. I saw briefly a river and a tree. Then a gardener growing a tree. As it grew, he caused the branches to go this way and that. The tree liked to grow its own way and the branches became tangled amongst themselves but He made it beautiful anyways. 

"He leads me beside still waters." That's what I heard as I saw the river. I didn't understand any of it as I fell asleep. I tried to imagine myself resting under the tree or perhaps cooling off in the stream.  But then I could only think about how I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. How could a glimpse of a river give me any sort of hope for my broken heart? 

This morning as I clicked open various emails to get them out of my "unread" folder I came across my "Encouragement for Today" email from Biblegateway. I have found much hope in many of the articles I've read and I was more than encouraged when I read the title of today's post.. "Planted by Streams."

The verse at the top of the page was Psalm 1:3 "He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers." That is when things started to make sense. Yes, He leads me beside still waters... but He plants me by streams of waters as well. The fruit yields in season. Right now I can say without a doubt that my season is wintertime. Many things have been pruned away from my life.. good things..cut off. Things look dead to me, life seems dead. But amongst all the nothing there is to see in my life, there is a blanket of white. Christ, in the purest form, has blanketed the dead things around me to make them beautiful. And when my Spring comes, the snow will melt away to water my soil and the dead things will bud to life again ( I hope) and joy will surround me. Not that I don't have joy.. I do! A deep, unmoving joy that cannot be shaken. But it is not an overwhelming joy. But I will wait for it. I wait for the snowmelt to flood my rivers of joy and bring life back into my resting trunk and broken branches.  
During finals, my roommate who is a elementary education major, was working on a lesson plan about trees. She asked me, "Do you know the 4 things a tree needs to grow?" I began to think, "Uhm..Roots, sunlight, water.. uhhm.. I don't know.. dirt?" She replied quite enthusiastically, "Oxygen!" 
"Oh right! Okay so if we think of ourselves as trees, the roots are our faith, the sunlight is Jesus, the water is the Word, and the oxygen is our Christian community.. right?" "Sure! That sounds good! I never thought of it like that." "Ha well.. now you'll never forget what a tree needs.." 
True as can be.. I have all those things, Faith, Jesus, the Word, and Christian community. Take any one of those things away and you have a dead tree...or dying tree. God puts us where we need to be for maximal growth. He doesn't plant us somewhere and leave us to die. I know for SURE if I had not had such a great community of believers around me in the last couple months, I would have given up all hope and fallen into a deeper valley than the one in which I already walk. Praise the Lord for the blessings He gives us. Praise the Lord for the seasons we go through. Winter, to me, is the worst one. I hate being pruned, I hate having things cut off from my life, I hate cold and deadness. But the end result is always overwhelmingly fruitful. 

Finals day #5

Rest. Today is the day. This morning I woke up at 5:40 and got myself together enough to wash my hair and meet my friend at Starbucks by 6:30. Armed with a peppermint mocha and a cinnamon roll, we headed to the mall and practiced our signing and took our final final and all was done by 9:30 am. 
Done. Free! Praise the Lord!!

Finals Day #4

Today's menu: Research Methods and Vitamin E

I know it's a little cliche to say something like, "Three down, two to go" since *everyone* else is saying similar things like that... so I won't. But! In just 25 hours from now, I'll be home free! Well.. I won't be home.. but I'll be free! Research Methods has been the trial of all trials this semester..well not really, I've been through worse than just that class, but it didn't help in making my future seem any brighter. Oh well though! I endured, and I considered it pure...uhm...pure.. awful.. BUT! I can consider it joy that it's going to be over! Woohoo! 

Finals Day #3

Woohoo! I've now made it through two rounds of finals and look forward to my 3rd foe this afternoon. I'm not worried. Research Methods tomorrow night might be the death of me.. but we won't worry about tomorrow since tomorrow has enough worries by itself. 

So, yesterday, my final was in the morning and so I spent my morning studying before heading to the exam. Upon returning home I ate lunch and hit the books for todays final. I kept telling myself I needed to spend some time with Jesus but...didn't happen. Lesson learned... you can't walk on water when you don't see Jesus. So today, Jesus and Dev Psych are my priorities. 6 hours to next test... 

Finals Day #2

Another exciting day of examinations and studying!! Day number two! Praise the Lord that Day number one is now in the past. Good bye, Biological Psychology...you will not be missed. 

It's Tuesday!!! I'm now one day closer to break! One day closer to a weekend full of adventures! One day closer to rest. One day closer to the sweet smiles from my precious siblings. 

Today I conquer Social Psych... in a little less than two hours from now, actually. I'm ready to be done! Woot! I should probs cram in a little more studying though.  Woohoo! What an exciting time! Time to cauterize all those wounds caused by these esteem-shattering classes. Yay! 

Finals Day #1

Thank goodness! I've been waiting allll semester for this.. the end. This has been by far thee most brutal semester of my life, school wise, coupled with emotional pain and spiritual darkness dumped on top. 
I look forward to rest. I look forward to going back to my parents house where I will receive hugs every day and I will wake up to the smell of the wood stove warming the house. We'll put aside the stresses of the future and the pains of the past and we'll tell our funny stories and spend hours playing round after round of Nerts and drink pot after pot of coffee. We'll make cookies and read books and spend hours cleaning mom's kitchen, only to mess it up again within 3 hours and have to clean it up all over again. We'll spend Sunday afternoons falling asleep to Planet Earth movies whilst we all pile all over the couch and fight over the 3 blankets that we keep in the living room for such times as naps. 

We'll stay up til 2am watching Sherlock or Dr. Who and no matter what time we lay our heads on the pillow, we'll actually sleep because we don't have ten million thoughts about our uncertain futures spinning through our minds keeping us awake. We'll make eachother coffee and bring it to them in bed and encourage them to wake up since we can't wait to spend another day together. We'll eat scones and drink tea and read Calvin and Hobbes comic books...even though we've read them all at least 5 times. We'll play Age of Empires (3 at a time) and make eggnog from scratch. It will be SO wonderful. 

Until then... I have a marathon of finals. Monday..tuesday..wednesday..thursday..friday. But everyday is one step closer. Praise the Lord!