Odds and Weekends

Yesterday was the shortest day(light hours) of the year. From now on, the light will be increasing. I pointed this out to Papa Rooster this morning, and he said that this fact is one of the reasons that we celebrate Christmas on December 25. Advent falls during the darkest time of the year, and darkness reaches its fullest point during this season. One of the great themes of Advent is how Christ is the light breaking into the darkness. But once the light is increasing daily--we have Christmas!

He said that the feast of John the Baptist (or his birthday) is celebrated just after the summer solstice--as the daylight has reached its longest and now will be daily decreasing. "He must increase, I must decrease," John the Baptist said of Christ.

Sounds like those Church Fathers really put some thought into these things!

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I just realized that I never reported a couple of amazing answers to prayer.

Remember my father-in-law had a cancerous tumor removed from his kidney? It turns out that it was completely benign, after all!

And the mom of four kids in our theater group who was diagnosed with sinus cancer? She was all scheduled for surgery when they discovered from a biopsy, that hers is an incredibly rare form of sinus cancer (only 30 cases) that is not nearly so bad as most sinus cancers usually are; she doesn't need surgery, and they expect treatment (I'm not sure if it's chemo or radiation) to take care of it. She said if she could turn cartwheels in an email, she would be!

Thank you, Lord, for answering our prayers in these ways.

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Speaking of answering prayers, I received an anonymous comment back on this post asking:

It troubles me that you assume God supported Peter Roskam, or any candidate for that matter. Did God not listen to the prayers of Tammy Duckworth or her supporters?

I answered:

I didn't say or assume that God supported Peter Roskam or that He didn't listen to the prayers of other candidates.

I said, "We believe God was in this"--as He is in everything. I believe God works all things together for good and to accomplish His purposes. I believe He has good works for Peter to do in Washington. I don't know if prayer was what "accomplished" the outcome of the election, and I didn't say that...but I do know that Peter is a man of prayer and that his campaign was grounded in prayer.

Perhaps the same is true of Tammy Duckworth--I have no way of knowing.

If Peter had lost, would I feel that God had not answered our prayers? No, I would have assumed that He had chosen to answer them in His own way and for His own purposes. I hope believing, praying Duckworth supporters--or Christian supporters of any losing candidate--trust Him in the same way!

I would have to say the same thing if we had received bad news in either of these cancer cases, that God had certainly heard our prayers and He had answered them in His own way and for His own purposes.

We are just so grateful, and we praise God, that His purposes included protecting the lives of these dear people!

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What happened with that blog award contest? I'm sure some of you are wondering.

I am too. The fine print says the winners will be announced in the January edition of Christian Women Online. I am not holding my breath, since one of the other blogs has soooo many more readers than I do, but I'll let y'all know what happens!

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What happened with that property you were looking at?

The listing realtor seems to be on vacation! But we've brought the matter to our church vestry as well as to some of the clergy of our region, and everyone is excited and willing to support the project. We have a number of praying, discerning friends "listening" along with us, and no red flags have been raised other than to get a thorough inspection of the property.

Personally, a couple of related, neat things have happened in the past week. One amazing thing is that we have friends with a home of similar value who would like to move into our elementary school district--and they said they'd be interested in our house if the timing works out!

One of my prayers has been that if we have to move, that someone we know would buy our house--someone who could overlook fingerprints on the walls, dirty carpet and all our junk, and be willing to wait for paint and new carpet after we're moved out. I can't imagine the nightmare it would be to pack up a bunch of our stuff and put it into storage, move our furniture around while we paint, re-carpet, and try to keep homeschooling in the middle of it all--and then have to keep the house picture-perfect for months after that.... You see why I've been praying!

Also, based on what they're expecting to get for their house, our house is worth even more than we realized--Yay!

The other exciting news is: I talked to the area director of our children's theater organization. We have six chapters already, divided up by counties, and I asked him if he'd ever considered adding a Kenosha County--it's immediately north of one of their other chapters, Lake County in Illinois. He said, yes, he had--and if we move, he'll do it. That news totally rocked our kids' world! They'd love playing the role of the theater veterans. Renting our facilities to the theater group three times a week--we'd hold all classes and practices there--would also be a source of immediate income for our church, and if I agree to be the Area Coordinator, it's a paid position. So who knows? It could be part of God's provision for this whole thing.

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Sunday, Monday and Tuesday will be very full days for us, celebrating with our church, with friends, and with family. But I'm hoping to post some pictures at least.

Blessings to all as we await and prepare for the celebration of Christ's birth!