This picture is a little random picture of happiness for myself. The lady on the left is my Great Aunt Carol, shes my Grandmas sister. They look a great deal alike. Then the man in the photo is my Great Uncle Paul, he's my Papaw's brother. And they also look a great deal alike. In fact, after my Papaw died I use to have reoccuring dreams that I would run into Paul in the mall and I would call out to him, "PAPAW" and he would look at me and say "I'm not your Papaw. Thats how similar they look. Minus the fact that Paul is a great deal taller than Papaw. I'll try to post a picture of my Grandma & Papaw soon, I just got to locate a good one that isn't too big to scan. So basically this picture was taken because I am a goof and wanted a picture of Aunt Carol and Uncle Paul since they look so much like my own grandparents. Now there is my cousin in the pink sweater and my sister on the outside. You can barely see my sisters belly, but thats my little niece Ellie up in there. My sister is now 34 weeks pregnant, she's small for how far along she is. Cute little mama & baby Ellie! Okay now may I direct your attention to the red bracelet or 'Armstrong' like band around my cousins wrist. This band is for leukemia, I bought them for the family about two weeks ago as Grandmas battle got harder. It was a personal reminder for me to pray for her plus it supports the LLS. Anyway, so I sent my dad to Lubbock with 3...1 for my aunt, 1 for my uncle and 1 for my Grandma. I wanted my Grandma to know I was thinking about her. So this little band is what made me cry the most when I saw my Grandma laying there in the casket. I look at her all dressed up in that purple suit and then I see her wrist there with the band around it. I wear my bracelet still, this is the 3rd loss I have experienced due to leukemia. First my 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Graham, then my Papaw and now my Grandma. I wear my band everyday as a reminder of those three people whom I loved dearly.  

Tonight is the most exciting night of the entire year because tonight Santa will come. I'm laying here in bed next to my sister. Every year is the same ole story, we get sent to bed so because as you know Santa comes once your asleep. But what little kid can fall asleep when they are as excited as I am? My sister and I will talk for hours trying to keep each other up so we can peek and see if Santa has come yet. My grandparents have a grandfather clock so we hear every hour arrive.

DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING

"Jana, its 11, go see if Santa's come!!!" Nicole anxiously demands me to go check. I creep out the door and around the hall and...NOTHING! I creep back to the room and crawl in bed only to tell my sister the disappointing news. We continue to talk and goof off.

DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING

"Okay, its your turn!" I say to my sister. Nicole hops out of bed and heads for the door. She slowly opens the door and peaks around the corner. And again, NOTHING! She crawls back in bed only to disappoint me this time. We keep talking because we can't fall asleep as excited as we are about Santa's arrival.

DING!

"Jana, go hurry!" I creep around the corner yet again, and yep your right still nothing. But now we're actually starting to get tired. We both start to doze off, but we know that when the clock strikes two Nicole has to check the living room. We're both fading quick...

DING-DING!

I roll over and give my sister a little nudge, "your turn." She slowly gets out of bed this time, our energy is dwindling. Around the corner, and still nothing. She crawls in bed and tells me the news, I'm barely hanging on and after she says theres nothing I roll over and doze off. Shes out in no time.

DING-DING-DING!

I feel a nudge in my back, "Jan, your turn!" And you guessed it, NOTHING! This time we're officially gone. We miss the 4:00 & 5:00 chimes. But we're waken by the 6th...

DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING!

We both jump to our feet and head for the door, and guess what? SANTA CAME!!!!! We jet to the stockings and the presents. We ooo and ahh! Then we head off to our parents room, its time for everyone to wake up. "Mom, Dad, Santa Came. Wake up, wake up!!" We get to open our stockings from 'Denton' but not the 'Lubbock' stockings. Thats right, Santa knows that we were in Lubbock and still dropped stuff off in our Denton stockings in Lubbock plus we got our Lubbock stockings too. My sister and I sit down on the floor pulling one thing after the other out of our stockings. When we finish we head for the kitchen for breakfast. We're trying so hard to be patient as we wait for my aunt, uncle & cousin to come over so we can start opening the Lubbock stockings then gifts. Finally they arrive and we get to open all of our gifts. We rip present to present open and our faces fill with glee. Christmas truly is the best time of the year.

Now that you realize all of that was a story, I can now talk as Jana the 22-year-old. I have to say me & my sister don't exactly check for Santa every hour anymore. But I still have trouble falling asleep Christmas Eve and I'm stoked when I finally make it downstairs to see my stocking full of surprises. Now let's stop for a minute and consider the story of my childhood, the excitement of Santa arriving! Now lets for a minute think about the reason for the season...Christ's coming! So now that I've pointed that out, how many of us feel a little bad about the fact that we don't get that excited about Christ's coming. I can't say that I've ever stayed up most of the night because I was so excited about Christ's coming! The other night I heard on the news that they are trying to change it from Christmas tree to Holiday tree, what the crap? As if people don't use, Merry X-Mas instead of Merry Christmas or even now we just say Season's Greetings or Happy Holidays. I remember when I worked at Old Navy and we had to say Happy Holidays and not Merry Christmas for it might offend someone. How dumb, the reason for the season is Christ's coming. Its not Santa's coming. I kind of like that Christmas is on Sunday morning this year, kind of exciting. I just hope that we can all remember the reason for the season this year. And maybe think about how excited we use to get about Santa's arrival or maybe even how excited we still are and be able to have some of that same excitement for the arrival of our King.

So I'm gonna go ahead and say it...the church is pretty darn pathetic. (myself included) Isn't it sad that we can often find things outside of the church to comfort us in our mourning or to befriend us when all we want is to be loved. Why can't we find those things with in the comfort of our own church? Are we missing some piece? I've heard it a lot from many people, and I feel it myself. My dearest friend, Mik told me to listen to Stained Glass Masquerade by Casting Crowns so here I am listening to it on repeat. And wow how pathetic we are as a church. Here's the lyrics:

Is there anyone that fails?
Is there anyone that fails?
Am I the only one in church today feelin' so small?
'Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they'll soon discover
That I don't belong
So I tuck it all away, like everything's okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I'll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the part again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them
Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain
But if the invitations open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain on our stained glass masquerade
Is there anyone who's been there?
Are there any hands to raise?
Am I the only one who's traded
In the altar for a stage
The performance is convincing
And we know every line by heart
Only when no one is watching
Can we really fall apart
But would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind ht person
That you imagine me to be
Would your arms be open
Or would you walk away
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay

It's sad to me that this morning when I was hurting I felt the need to put on my 'Happy Face' and pick myself up because if I didn't no one would have the desire to talk to me. This morning tons of people asked me this question, "How was your thanksgiving?" Which to most everyone responds, "Great, how was yours?" But my answer wasn't what most wanted to hear. My response to such a question is..."it wasnt so great, I lost my Grandma on Monday." They pause and stare at me as if I said something wrong. For crying in the mud people, I lost my Grandma give me a break. I'm sad, its a normal response to death. I felt as if I needed to be more positive and respond, 'oh my thanksgiving was great.' While yes I do realize its good to pull the positive out from the week. Praise God my Grandma is with Him in Heaven now, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt. And yes I'm thankful that I got to spend time with my family for a week. But still with all the praises from this week, my overall view of the week is that it wasn't that great. Maybe I should be more optimistic about the situation, but I'm hurting so let me hurt. Just be my friend and stop running scared. We as a church have forgotten what its like to love one another.

Another note on the song. Above the song is this little response about the song:

I don't think it bothers the world that we sin. I think it bothers the world that we act like we don't. There are times that instead of being myself and exposing my own weakness and hurt, I portray a character of the person that I know I should be. But when I expose myself as weak and frail at times, it frees the Body of Christ to restore me as it should and invites other to unmask as well.

So true, so true. Not only with sin, but me today being upset and having to mask that so that people think I am one way. Let's be real with one another. I know I'm not scared. I desire it more than anything that when someone says "how are you?" I can respond, "I'm not doing so great." And then that person is able to pray for me and help build me up. What a blessing we could be to one another if we were willing (1) to be honest and (2) to use such a response to bless that person. I'm not afraid to say I'm hurting, but no one knows how to respond to that. Maybe its time we learn how to respond.