Just Life

So what have we been doing the last few weeks? Not much really. Just living life each day and doing our best to avoid any contagion or sicky stuff that seems to be going around lately. I think I may be losing that battle as I have had a sore throat and feeling drained for several days. I'm definately battling something.

The biggest news lately is we have decided to switch churches. We have been attending a very large church that we found right away when we moved out here. Dwayne and I both got started in serving ministries right away and tried to get to know people. They offered several classes that I wanted to take but we never could seem to afford the class, books, and babysitting all at the same time so those have had to wait. I feel like many of them are overpriced anyway. The cost to attend the couples retreat this year was going to be $1200! for 3 days. I know we live in an upper income area of town but that is still just a bit ridiculous in my opinion. I was feeling a bit lonely and missing my family and just still don't feel like I was making any connections at the church. After talking to Dwayne, we decided to visit the local Assembly of God church in town. It is much much smaller. Only a couple hundred people rather than a couple thousand like we had been attending. We were greeted warmly and found out that Dwayne has a couple of coworkers who attend it as well. The pastor greeted us by name the second time we attended and has known us since. We have had some great conversations with him already and he has made us feel very welcome. Sam and Evie had already made a friend and we visited their house for a playdate. His mother has invited us over for Thanksgiving with them since they don't have family in town either. I'm pretty excited because we seem to be making those connections that I in particular need.

The other most exciting thing recently was the injury of one our gerbils. The kids were near the cage looking and giggling at the antics of the gerbils when all of a sudden Sam comes up to me, holding a gerbil tail in his hand telling me Evie did it. I immediately burst into tears shocking both the kids. Of course, I'm the one who would probably cry over a beetle if I had decided to make it a pet. Evie knew she had done wrong. She kind of avoided me and sat on the couch apologizing over and over again. I know she didn't do it with malicious intent. It was an accident and after my performance and telling her of the seriousness of what she had done, I don't think she will do it again. I immediately started calling around for a vet, but no one was seeing exotic pets or was open. The emergency clinic finally said they would see the gerbil but there was a $79 emergency fee not counting any treatment that might be necessary. After calming down a bit and realizing that I was causing quite a fuss over a $5 animal and a rodent no less we decided to wait overnight and contact our regular vet in the morning. By morning, she seemed to have taken care of the injury herself and I wondered again at the amazing work God had done in creating creatures who could take care of themselves for the most part. Over the next few days, I have just kept an eye on her in case of infection but otherwise she seems fine. Maybe I should reconsider naming her Stumpy. LOL

Not much else has been happening lately. We are trying to gear up for the holidays and figure out how we are going to do Christmas as finances are really tight. I made a major mistake this past summer in regards to some income that I thought was coming in and now are paying the price for that. But its all good. We still have a roof over our head, food in our bellies, and despite the economy, Dwayne still has a stable job. Unfortunately, that does mean we won't be able to make it back to Oregon for Christmas or my cousin's wedding. But know that our thoughts and prayers are with you all and we hope your holidays are wonderful even if we aren't there. LOL....Just kidding. If I don't write again before then, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Halloween

Halloween has always been one of those holidays that I have struggled with for so long. I was raised when I younger that it was the Devil's holiday and we would not participate in trick-or-treating or decorate our houses, or dress up, etc. And yet, it caused me much confusion because it was ok to go the local churches' "Harvest Party" or "Fall Festival." Aren't we still celebrating the season and holiday no matter what it is called? Every year I would be greatly dissapointed because I would see all the other kids in their fun costumes and buckets of candy and knowing that I wouldn't be able to participate. Then after my parents' divorced and my mom remarried during my teenage years. We all of sudden went to the opposite extreme, decorate the house, and celebrate Halloween, and the more gory the better. By then, I felt I was a little to old to be trick-or-treating and silently felt the dissapointment again. Add to that more confusion because I was then asking myself, was everything I was raised to believe as a child actually false?

When I finally left the house and was married we didn't have kids right away. My husband didn't really seem to have any strong feelings about the holiday either way but he was raised to belive that it was a bad holiday as well. Since I still had such conflicting emotions about it, I decided to do the minimum and would wait anxiously near the door with way too much candy for the actual amount of kids who would show up at my door and cuddle up on the couch watching a scary movie with my hunny.

We were finally blessed with a child 4 1/2 years ago. Having children definately makes you reevaluate your beliefs, positions, and why you do the things you do. I am now responsible for this little life and want to raise him up right. The first year Halloween came around, I decided he was too little to appreciate any aspects of Halloween anyway so I was able to procrastinate making any kind of decision regarding the holiday. The following year my daughter arrived in late September and 4 weeks later I was still sleep-deprived and not in any condition or mood to deal with holiday stuff, especially one that I was still so confused about. The year my son was 3, we were attending a large church that held a large community event during Halloween. We went early with the kids and attended the function but I still was not sure how I felt about the whole thing and wrestled with guilt that I was doing anything on the "devil's holiday." The kids got cranky pretty fast since it was noisy, crowded, and past their bedtime. We went home fairly quickly, realizing they were still too young to appreciate the holiday anyway.

This year, things have finally come to a head and a decision had to be made. The kids knew what Halloween was as far as the trick-or-treating, dressing up, and, of course, candy was concerned. They were constantly asking me how many more days it was until the holiday. I knew they wanted to participate so bad and I remember that feeling from when I was a child. When my sister-in-law had visited me this past summer she brought a lot of books with her for us. One of the books she brought was a book titled Redeeming Halloween. It is a book with ideas and suggestions for celebrating Halloween from a Christian perspective. We felt the book was poorly written and wished they had gone into more of the history of the holiday but it set us to thinking, having some good conversations with each other and doing some research on our own.

Learning about the history of the holiday has brought such a huge relief for me. The church originally created the holiday to claim it for themselves and celebrate and remember the martyrs who died and paved the way for the Christian faith and our beliefs. Now, of course, that is a very simplistic statement and there are definately pagan practices that went on before which prompted the church to create the holiday in the first place, but you could say the same about Christmas and Easter too. Our family has decided to take back the holiday for Christ. Ignoring the holiday and not participating doesn't make it go away and changing the name of your party or gathering doesn't negate the fact that you are celebrating the holiday. I'm going to teach our kids the real reason for Halloween, just like I do for Christmas and Easter. We are going to dress up (though never anything gross, demonic, or scary) and participate in the Fall Fests, Harvest Parties, or trick-or-treating with friends depending on what is going on that particular year. We are going to be good examples for our neighbors and non-christian friends and show that you can still be good God-fearing people, but still have fun and enjoy the holidays and hopefully, God will use us to open up conversations about the holiday and bring someone just that little bit closer to Jesus' saving grace. And you know the best part? I'm no longer going to feel guilty!