Giving Thanks and Anticipating

I love that Thanksgiving and Advent collide this weekend, how perfect!  Perfect a) because I didn't get my Thanksgiving blog post written prior to Thanksgiving and b) because combining the season of anticipation with the season of gratitude seems like chocolate and peanut butter - simply perfect together.

I'm so excited to take this blog public again.  I missed recording the antics of our kids and the stories behind the pictures.  Having an audience keeps me writing, and I really like writing and I hope you like reading and feel connected anew to our family.  I am grateful that the season has come to be able to write publicly again.

We have a new theme verse at church and I've adopted it as our family's theme verse as well.  It definitely describes Advent 2013 for us:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21

Eighteen months ago, we were profoundly broken.  Our family was broken. Our marriage was broken.  We were individually broken.  Our relationships with God were broken.  It was a place of indescribable heartache. 

And we have experienced the miracle of restoration that only God can give.

Are we hunky-dory?

Heavens no!  We still deal daily with the fallout of our year apart, with the effects of broken relationships with family immediate and extended, with the pain of memories that cannot and should not be forgotten.  I would gladly wish away the entire 2012 year if I could. 

Absolutely.  The Bible is clear - we are made whole and holy by God's love. Do we deserve this restoration of our relationship with God, with each other?  Nope. But it is a gift freely given, daily, by the God who joyfully adopted us into his family.  He has done immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine, immeasurably more between us and within us.  And we stand awed and grateful and joyfully anticipating the next season of life.

Joyful anticipation isn't a phrase I could have used to describe my emotions a year ago.  I am profoundly thankful for the miracles worked within me and within my family over the past year.  And so this year the collision of Thanksgiving and Advent is just perfect as I gratefully look forward to what is to come.