A Post Card from Tennessee

Dear YLCF,

Last night we decorated the littlest of Christmas trees, Scott and I, and put it on our table.  It is a gift from my parents who brought it with them from Colorado yesterday, and though it is really a rosemary bush, it does make a cute little Christmas Tree!

As we wound the beads around the tree, and tried to get our star to balance at the top of the tiny bush, and put on our tiniest little ornaments (and decided however pretty they were, the fact that our regular sized candy canes are at least half the height of the entire bush sort of ruled them out of being hung on the “tree” this year), I couldn’t help but think back to last year, and how it all started out with a Christmas tree.

“Twenty-Ten” (and I still think that sounds as awkward as it is to write!) has been quite the year–a year filled with new things, and old things and a lot of changes and a lot of blessings. It’s been a year that we’ve lived more literally just one day at a time, a year that we’ve seen His hand providing for us in ways that we may have overlooked when things were easy, and a year we’ve had to trust that He will provide when we’d done all we could.  And He always has.

We’ve felt the strength of  the prayers of friends, and experienced the love of Christ through the hands of friends and of strangers in so many ways. We pulled up deep roots and moved from one side of this great country to the other, and traded our White Christmases for something a little different. We’ve made new friends and been blessed with the company of old friends–more than once! We’ve seen our love grow, and deepen and we’ve made so many beautiful memories together in these days passed.  It hasn’t always been an easy year, and we know that we cannot do with out Him.

And now it is Christmas time again.

There have been a lot of changes. Sometimes I try to think of anything that is really the same, and I’m not sure that anything is! But changes mean chances…to grow, to be made more like Him, to experience new things, and to make new memories.

We seek to embrace the change, to enjoy each moment as the blessing it really is. But I’m still dreaming of a White Christmas, and together, Scott and I, we’re looking forward to living, loving, and trusting Him through another year…no matter what might be hiding in tomorrow.

As this year closes, from our hearts and our new home in Tennessee, we want to wish each one of you all the best of His blessings in the year to come.

Merry Christmas!

Love,
Chantel & Scott

P.S. Don’t forget to send us your own post card via YLCF’s virtual Christmas post card exchange!