We put up the tree tonight, but we’ll have to trim it later on. Sometimes it’s best to do things in stages.

It’s snowing in Lincoln! A beautiful, birthday snow!

Somehow I don’t think he missed me when I went to Brook and Allison’s to watch Project Runway.

I spent the morning with Brook at Scooters. Not very productive editing-wise but enjoyable nonetheless.

I’ve lately been engrossed in George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. I finished tonight, and I can see why Jason was so taken with it. (Jason has lately been spending his evenings/late nights after I crash thusly.)

Today was Zion’s first Sunday in our new facility. It was good--bittersweet and fitting and strange at the same time. And, well, it was new but with the sense that what is now new will soon enough be familiar. I have to admit that I had moments of feeling a bit frumpy about some of the silly little details--for example, the Trinity Hymnals are blue, not red. (Okay, I’m already over it.) My much stronger feeling, though, is that we are deeply blessed and I am comforted by the reality that Zion is still Zion,

The sign out front said it well: We are thankful.

Responsive Reading of Dedication

Leader: Peace be unto this house and to all who worship here.
Congregation: Peace be to those who enter and to those who go out.

Leader: Peace be to those who love it and who love the Lord Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Congregation: Peace be to those who love Jesus.

Leader: Brothers and sisters in Christ, it has pleased the Almighty God to put us in this house for worship. Let us now fulfill the godly purpose for which we gather, to worship an dedicate ourselves and this house to the honor of God’s most holy name. God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Father who art in heaven…
Congregation: To You we dedicate ourselves and this house.

Leader: Lord Jesus, Son of God, Savior of sinners, Head of the Body which is Your Church…
Congregation: To You we dedicate ourselves and this house.

Leader: Spirit of God, given to be our abiding teacher, guide, and comforter; Lord and Giver of life…
Congregation: To You we dedicate ourselves and this house.

Jason and I don’t necessarily do well with joint home improvement projects (we know this, and we’re okay with it), but putting Simon’s crib together last night was a happy exception. It’s December 1 already! Something is finally registering in me that we actually have to start getting on the ball with baby ready-ment.

And December 1 also means the December Photo Project is underway.

I just can’t resist the siren call of the DPP. Here’s to a blogging comeback in December!

Nearly every time Liv comes over to play she picks up Jason’s XBox controller and asks, “That fine I push the buttons?” Most days she is met with a blank screen and quickly tires of the “game.” However, a few weeks ago Rebecca and I were watching a video of our twenty-week ultrasound. Liv took her usual spot on the floor, and when she looked up from the XBox controller, her eyes widened as she saw “Gooper” on the screen and came to the perfectly logical conclusion that she was playing the Gooper Game.

Among the many things I have given up hope of ever getting used to in this life is how much everything is always changing--sometimes slowly, sometimes in an instant. Rather often it’s some very small detail that finally alerts me to the fact that something has shifted. Case in point: I am used to getting e-mails from Jason telling me about an exciting new movie trailer, dvd release, or helpful software, but yesterday he sent me a link to Fuzzibunz. I can’t actually say that I never, ever thought I’d see the day when my husband would send me a link for cloth diapers, but, still, it did strike me as a little surreal and reminded me that, yeah, things aren’t like they used to be.

Inspired by Chookooloonks.

Get down with your own wild self here.

About a week ago, I got the best kind of mail: a package, a complete surprise, an incredibly thoughtful gift (one of those “we saw this and thought of you” ones) from dear, faraway friends. It is a book by Nikki McClure--an artist I had actually heard of and many times drooled over. She does amazing papercuts, and her work is described as “strong images of everyday life, each with a powerful verb that inspires to action.” And though I could go on and on and on and on about so many of the stunning pieces in the book, there is one in particular that I just can’t get out of my head these days. It’s titled Surrender.

I admit when I first saw the baby in its mother’s arms linked with the word “surrender,” I just kind of thought, “Huh. I don’t really get it.” But over the next few days, my mind kept drifting back to that image, that word, and I started making some connections. Now that I think about it, as we continue to prepare for parenthood (is that even possible?), I find countless opportunities for surrender.

Perhaps most obviously, having this child has, does, and will continue to require surrender to God in ways that I had not previously experienced and, frankly, did not imagine. As much as I thought I wanted to be (and, let’s be honest, still do), I was not--am not--in control of anything about this child. I could not even control when--or even if--I was to get pregnant, much less the baby’s health, gender, height, personality, etc., etc., etc., and not to mention the countless, countless things I will no doubt worry about as he or she grows in the womb and in the world. I am day by day gaining a new appreciation for what it means when we say this child does not belong to us (and yet has been given to us to love and nurture and care for). And suddenly the idea of surrender in the sense of yielding to the power, authority, control, and possession of another (God) seems not just inevitable but deeply appealing and life- and freedom-giving.

Surrender comes in other ways too. It had not really sunk in what women meant when they said their bodies were not their own while they were pregnant and breastfeeding. In some ways I have to admit that it has been harder than I thought to share with the wee one. Surrender in the sense of assenting to the loss of control over and even possession of my body has been somewhat disorienting. For an obvious example, most of my life I have focused on trying to lose weight--trying not to worry about gaining weight, knowing, in fact, that I have to gain weight is an adjustment to say the least. I find it hard to remember sometimes that I have to make all kinds of changes (some big, some small). Another example: Baby has made it very clear that I need to not let myself get hungry (when Baby needs to eat, Baby needs to eat NOW !), but even when day after day I throw up for not eating quickly enough, I still find myself reverting to my “old” eating schedule--and usually paying for it. So there’s that kind of surrender too.

And I won’t even pretend to delve into all the ways we will surely learn about surrender once the baby arrives.

The thing that strikes me--perhaps for the first time--as I reflect on surrender, and especially specifically thinking about surrender as it relates to this child, is that I will need to give myself over, that I will need to relinquish control, yield power, devote myself without restraint for the sake of another, but (and here’s the new-to-me part), I actually do not need to surrender forcibly or shamefully; I can surrender willingly and joyfully, even eagerly. What an incredible opportunity to follow the example of Christ, who “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” He surrendered. 

Perhaps I should just add a category for Bravia’s advertisements--I am taken with each new one I see. This one for the Egyptian market is, to my mind, second only to (what else?) the bouncy balls.

You can see a (better quality) Quicktime version here.

Via.