Merry Christmas from our family to yours. May your hearts be filled with peace knowing that no matter where you are His Grace finds you. Our hope is that you are making beautiful memories and that when you wake on Christmas you smile at the thought of our Savior’s birth.
We are spending Christmas at home with our traditional church candlelight service followed by games and soup. On Christmas morning we will have a gift exchange with a big lunch surrounded by family in Yuma. This year we are changing things up, as we plan to travel the day after Christmas from our tiny town to the city of Denver to meet extended family. We have two days full of activities ending with 16 of us storming the theater to watch Star Wars. We are looking forward to having some much needed quality time away from work and chores.
Focusing on our family is how we want to end this year.
Sending you warm thoughts and thank you for your love and support this past year. Please know that we enjoy reading each time you comment on The Wheels of Grace. You have a special place in our hearts. We are blessed as we get ready to enter 2016 with you along side of us.
Share your Christmas plans with us. What traditions do you share with your family? What is a favorite activity that you partake in? We’d love to hear from you.
Keep Rolling on!
Behold I bring good news of great joy that will be for All the people. Luke 2:10
I wanted to share something that I love about christmas, but before I do I need to set the scene of where my mind was before all the lights went up and all the christmas trees where pull out from their 12 month hibernation.
Right after Thanksgiving I started to feel sour on the thought of Christmas being less than 30 days away. I couldn’t put my finger on why I was feeling this way. If it would have been up to me, I would have been ok with skipping Christmas all together. I wasn’t sour on the idea of celebration the birth of Jesus, it was the total opposite of this. I was 100% ready to go the school and watch the kid’s Christmas plays and be blown away by the awesome job they do. I was in a crisis, because I didn’t want to be the scrooge of Christmas. Imagine me going around saying “Bah Humbug.” I would have a mutiny at my house and I would probably spend the next 30 days sleeping outside in the dog house.
Then it hit me!
What triggered this crisis in me was all the hype surrounded around shopping and spending money. It seemed that everywhere I turned I was bombarded with the idea that I needed to buy stuff. Slowly over the years my Christmas spirit has be taking a hit from witnessing the effect of people getting so caught up in the spirit of buying and spending and totally missing the hurting and lost that are in front of us every day. Maybe why I was hit so hard with this, this year was because I overheard someone talking on the phone telling the other person that they didn’t know how they were going to do Christmas this year because they didn’t have any money. Or maybe it had to do with knowing that there are people around me every day just trying to make it through a normal month without the pressure of trying to find a way to scrape up a little extra in December so the tree has something underneath it on Christmas day. Wow how did we get here? This time of the year was never meant to become stress to our body and mind. Nor was it meant to become a strain on our wallets.
Now let me tell you that something that I love about Christmas. After I’ve painted this scene of doom and gloom.All it took for me to clear my head of all the muck, was to see my family’s emblems of love to me. It happened the day my wife said today I would like to bring up our Christmas stuff and start decorating the house. I have to admit that I wasn’t very enthusiastic with the request but I obeyed because I know it would mean alot to my wife and the kids.
We started the ritual of bringing out the decorations. I was a little impressed with how fast we were able to decorate the inside of the house. We knocked it out in less than half a day, everything except for the tree. By this time I was done and didn’t want to help with anymore decorating, so I pulled out my computer and started to work on stuff for work. It didn’t take long before my wife forced me to get involved with the activities so I put away the laptop and started to help fluff the tree.
We spent A few more hours decorating the tree and we were done! Wow I was tired, decorating is hard work!
As I started to unwind and relax this was when my eyes caught sight of all the precious gifts that I had been given and collected over the past 21 years. I was overwhelmed with the sight of the gifts I had decorating my house. A smile grow on my face from ear to ear as I looked around my house and I saw all of the craft projects my kids made over the years. I was overcome with an avalanche of emotions of love and honor.
So what I love about Christmas now is unboxing the gifts that my kids have given me over the years, these images of their hands making a Christmas tree out of craft paper and paint has become a symbol of how much they love me. In that moment my spirit was rejuvenated and the muck and sourness that I had tasted for the past month was taken away.
Life is hard and comes with many challenges but instead worrying about all the things that we ca not do or don’t have. Lets try to spend less time in the store and more time giving the emblems of love to someone in need this Christmas. Remember very litttle money is needed to give a card, send a letter or make a call. But the power that act has will always outweigh the power of a gift that can be purchased.
This Christmas let the power of our love shine!
Please share an experience of how love was given to you or someone this Christmas.
Remember To Keep Rolling On This Holiday Season! Merry Christmas to all!
I started this journey with writing a book about my parents and it blossomed into a million different things.
I realized that we were nobody’s in the world of publishing. Every advice I read and listened to said you have to start a blog and gain a platform. So we started The Wheels of Grace.
Since then I learned how to blog, continued to write our book, and more tasks came with it.
The next words I heard over and over again were you need a social media following: We started a Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Next was you have to get published before you can get published. I began to write my own book that I wanted to self publish to be published before published.
Every single day I struggle with where to put my time and energy. I have a full time job which takes up 40 hours of my week. Should I be taking the time to write my original book (which is the ultimate goal), should I be writing my book that I need to publish before I can publish, should I be building my social media platform, , should I be writing a new blog post, should I be taking pictures or making graphics for the new blog posts?
The lists are endless. There are a million things that come with writing a book and most of them are not even writing the book.
I have to be honest and say that it is a lot of work.
You may think that it sounds like I want to be social media famous, but that isn’t it at all. Publishers take into account how many people follow you on social media. To publishers the amount of followers you have on social media translates into how my books you will sell. It is insane how crazy and competitive it is to get a book published and with the way of the internet it only gets more competitive.
I say all of this because for a while I haven’t felt good enough to do any of these things. I honestly haven’t opened up my laptop for weeks. Which isn’t like me at all. I haven’t even opened a book, which is definitely not like me in the slightest.
This is not to say that I’m giving up, or that I won’t accomplish my goal, but only to say I’m stuck in a rut. I took a little break and I wrote this mostly for myself. So I can tell myself that the only way I can get to my goal is by doing all of these things. Some days are harder than others. The easiest days are when I receive e-mails from people telling me they enjoy our blog. Those are the days when I know it will all work out.
I do all of this to share our story and to be able to put it in the hands of others. For people to be able to hold our book in their hands, and smell the pages. I do it to encourage others and let them know that no matter how low you get in life that there is always a way to get up.
What will it take for you to accomplish your dream? Does it come with extra things you didn’t realized you had to do? Are you willing to do those unforeseen things because you goal means that much to you?
In the world of dreams I really think we can each accomplish them. As soon as I publish my book, my next dream is to help others reach their dreams. I really would like to devote my life to letting others know that they can do whatever it is they want.
The only thing we all have to understand is that doing whatever you want comes with late nights, early mornings, working through lunch, missing social events, staying home on the weekends, and constantly doing whatever it takes to get to that goal.
The other thing is knowing when to take a break and when to slow down. Knowing that it’s okay to not open your laptop for a week or two, but to get right back to it. Write yourself a letter to say that its okay that you’re not doing the best right now, but you will soon.
I had to write this to myself and to you because I know that you and I can do it. I will get my book published now matter how long it takes, I will build up our platform, and become noticed.
You will do it too, whatever that is. You will take extra time to start your dream today. You will stay up a little later, and you will wake up a little earlier. You will bring your lunch to your day job so you can use that time to work on your dream. You will start finding other people who do what you want to do and you will study how they do it. If they have a blog you will read that blog, if they have a podcast you will listen to that podcast. If they have a book you will read that book.
Now you will only do those things for some of the time, you must not waste all your time learning, you must take that leap and start doing. Promise me and yourself that you will start learning and then start doing.
We can do it!
Share with me what your dream is and maybe I can start early of helping others fulfill their dreams. After all my dream of getting my book published isn’t really my dream at all, it is my parents dream and I decided to be the one to help them achieve it.
The time has come, Thanksgiving is near. My family can’t wait for the moment when the spread is laid on the table and were told to come and eat. We’ve already created our list of wants for this day.
On this day there will be enough for us to have seconds, thirds, fourths or fifths if one chooses.
On this day, food will fill all of our counters with turkey, ham, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, rice, beans, yams, cranberry sauce, rolls and salad. We can forget the best part “dessert”. Homemade Pumpkin pies, pecan pie, cookies, and all the whip cream that one can handle.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. The day starts off with the morning air being heated from the warmth of the oven. It doesn’t take long for the smell of the roasting turkey to fill the house. The only thing that could even come close to smelling better is when the pies are put into the oven to bake. We have to have pumpkin pie and pecan pie, it’s on the list! I bet this is what heaven smells like. Yum I can’t wait.
It’s hard to imagine that there could be anyone out there that would not agree with me but there is. This time of the year can be a difficult time for anyone that has to organize the events of the day. There’s a lot of moving parts to the celebration. To pull this off one needs to be very organized and needs to have the ability to multi task. You can’t forget anything, so a list needs to be created.
It could sound something like this, clean the refrigerator, clean the oven, clean the house, make sure the dog gets to the groomer, find out how many people will be coming, find a roaster for the turkey, make a list of the supplies for Thanksgiving, and go grocery shopping. You could get the sense that to the person doing the organizing, doesn’t get the warm fuzzy feeling that this day is going to be much fun.
For many of us this is how the day unfolds, we get so locked up into the food side of it all, that we forget why this is all happening in the first place . We get so lost in the make sure everything is ready and that nothing has been forgotten that we miss the true meaning of the day.
The meaning of Thanksgiving is the expression of gratitude for our families and friends, gratitude for good health, and safety, and gratitude especially to God.
“Remember this Thanksgiving that life is full of give and take, Remember to give thanks and take nothing for granted”.
Take the time this Thanksgiving day to show the gratitude you have with each other. We are blessed with so much abundance. We have been given so much, so lets share it with others. Invite a friend or friends to your home, support a worthy cause, make it a point to help someone in a positive way. You get the point, share and spread the abundance that the Lord has given us. Let’s do more then just eat and check things off our to-do list this Thanksgiving. Please share the ways that you showed gratitude, with us. “Happy Thanksgiving”
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” Psalm 136:1
It is a word we use often, but how much do we really mean it?
I say I’m thankful for things but it can be a word that is tossed around lightly. I wrote this post last year about things I’m thankful for, coffee is one of them. Sure I’m thankful for coffee I’m glad it exists, but isn’t that such a worldly thing to be thankful for?
We say we are thankful for small things because we are afraid to dig deep into our emotions.
Every year at Thanksgiving my family goes around and says things they are thankful for. My answer is always the same “carbohydrates.” I say it as a joke, but the reality is that I hate sharing my feelings and opening up, especially when all eyes are on me.
I will never forget the Thanksgiving after my cousin lost her mom, through heartbroken tears her response was “I am thankful for my supportive family” She was only 6 or 7 that Thanksgiving. She truly knows the meaning of being thankful for her family.
I would bet a million dollars that the same Thanksgiving my cousin cried over being so thankful, I used the carbohydrates joke. I should want to feel so thankful for my family that it makes me cry. There have been days when I cry of how blessed I am, but those tears only come during the hard times in my life. When will I learn to truly seize the day and to really open up to all of the things I am thankful for.
I am thankful for all the people who have paved the way for me to be the spoiled coffee loving America that I am.
I am thankful for the lack of pain and suffering that others have endured for me.
I am thankful for the sacrifices my parents have made for me, to ensure that I never went without.
I am thankful for all the people who stand by me and are supportive of my dreams.
I will try my best to remember these every day and to not take them for granted like I do most days. I will do my best to never forget that every day.
What are you thankful for? Try to go beyond the mashed potatoes, yams, pies, and rolls. What are you really thankful for deep down in your soul?
Sometimes I underestimate the impact that Sergio has on others. I simply forget what a lover of people he truly is. He is a great example for me. This week I tried to follow by his example.
The week started with the opportunity of travel. As always I worry about the accessibility of hotels, especially bathrooms. We were traveling out of the country, to Cancún, Mexico, and for a longer time than usual, this created another worry. Will his shoulders hold from all the travel on different terrain than what they are use to? I finally let the worry go and trusted that we would have a great time and that all of Sergio’s needs would be meet.
On our way to board the plane I allowed myself to relax enough to watch how people react to Sergio as he moved around the airport. The stares come almost immediately but so does my husband’s charm to counteract the awkwardness. Not for Sergio’s sake, but for the person staring. I continue to watch as he breaks the exchange with a” Hello how are you?” My reaction is to try and protect him from the glares, he just wants an opportunity to talk to everyone and anyone.
On our trip this happened over and over again. With each stare Sergio took as an invitation for conversation. Within a couple of days he decided to challenge me to a game of let’s make friends while at the poolside. I bravely took on the master of friendship making. This game lasted for three days. With every eye contact he used to gain a smile and with the smile came a conversation that lead to lunch or dinner. I was very quickly losing.
I had to change my strategy or be forced to throw in the white towel. I put on my game face with a smile and started to say hello to everyone I came to contact with. In time I was poolside making new friends. I was learning how a couple had just celebrated their tenth anniversary and how another couple meet on an online site. I learned how many children and grandchild some others had. The game was one that I began to enjoy and in the evening we would laugh as we counted how many new friends we has made. Disagreement came as we battled out which one of us had made the first contact. After the third day Sergio and I agreed that he had won.
I share this with you because I learned a lesson. Simple interactions led to sharing our lives. We all have a story to share. Seek to start conversations by simple smiles and genuine hellos. Thanks Sergio for challenging me in this way. I will work harder to win next time.
Let’s all set out to make a new friend this week. Challenge someone to do the same.
