Christmas break: Take 1

Today has been the first day home with the family, it's interesting, trying to adjust. Last night I decided I needed to read. The best nights {curling up in a warm bed with a book and not  falling asleep while reading}
I am currently reading Praying for Your Future Husband and Crazy Love.

Top highlights from last night:

• Francis Chan talked about "if  life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream. James 2:17 "Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." 
• Francis writes about, the way you act toward people we're badly in love with, "when you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You'll drive for hours to be together, even if it's for a short while. you don't mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying. You'll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you're crazy about. When you are apart from each other it's painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about, you jump at any chance to be together.
• You know that if you are deeply in love with God you know you could never be satisfied in a heaven without Christ.
• " I think we naturally assume that if we look out for our own interests and concerns, we will be happy. But people who sacrifice for others will tell you that seasons of giving are the most rewarding of their lives." Acts 20:35 "it is better to give than to receive."
• God is the only true Giver, and He needs nothing from us. But still He wants us. He gave us life so that we might seek and know Him.
• Something is wrong when our lives make sense to the unbelievers
• As chronicled in Hebrews 11, the God that the people of faith served is the very One we serve. As James 5:17 says, "Elijah was a man just like us." When you pray, your prayers are heard by the same God who answered Moses' prayer for water in the desert the God who gave Abraham and his barren wife a son, and the God who made the slave Joseph second in power only to Pharaoh.
• Jesus who had everything and still chose to surrender it out of love for his father
• Giving that is not motivated by love is worth nothing. When we give out of love we gain much, as we love more genuinely and deeply, giving becomes the obvious and natural response. Taking and keeping for ourselves becomes unattractive and imprudent.

I am sorry that there is so much {maybe that is a good thing!}

Here are the pictures from our little Christmas I promised...

Merry Christmas :)

Posy