Merry Christmas with SO much love!

Christmas cards are kind of my thing.  I love them.  I look forward to writing our Christmas letter each year, taking our family pictures, addressing, stamping, embossing, and mailing them out each year.  And I adore getting them in the mail!  This year, we took our pictures.  I wrote our letter.  And then my love got really, really sick.  I have a whole post coming about that.  There were a few days during David's sickness that I was really sad about not doing Christmas cards this year, but in the midst of the craziness and being really scared at moments, I just realized that it wasn't going to happen this year.  And you know what?  I'm really okay with it.  I would love to share some of my favorite pictures of my favorite people though because I'm so very thankful to be sharing this Christmas season with them.  

 It seems another year has come and gone, and we are excited to wish you a Merry Christmas as we share with you some of the highlights of this past year.  Thankfully, we have not experienced many dramatic changes!  Although, we have learned that change is not all bad, especially when we grow and learn from it.  What has occurred in our party of six over the last year is a whole lot of love!  Love for our new town.  Love for our church family.  Love for the children’s school.  Love for the wonderful experiences we have had over this past year.  Love within the walls of our home.  Love for our extended family and friends, both near and far.  And mostly love for a Savior, who came down so many Christmases ago, so that we might experience love like no other.  For, He is love!

This Christmas, as I was preparing to write our letter, I was praying and asking the Lord what word He might have me to share, maybe as a word of encouragement or maybe just a reminder of how much you mean to our family.  The word that kept coming to me over and over again was love.  In fact, the morning I felt certain of love as my word for this year’s letter, I heard a familiar song that I just adore on the radio, a wonderful reminder of His love for us.  The title of the song is, “One Thing Remains.” If you have a minute, check out the song and listen carefully to all of the words.  The chorus that plays over and over says, “Your love never fails. It never gives up. It never runs out on me.” Throughout this entire song, we are reminded over and over of just how much He loves us.  The song reminds us that we are covered by the power of His great love.  And, because He loves us so much, and because He is love, we are commanded to love.  He is teaching me a lot about love in this season of my life.  How to love Him. How to love David.  How to love our children.  How to love my neighbor.  Even when it’s difficult, especially when it’s difficult.  Oh, how I hope you know how very much He loves you.

 Let me tell you a little about my loves.  David has officially entered into his second year pasturing Hardy Street Baptist Church, and since it’s our letter, and he is mine, I can totally brag on him.  He is doing an amazing job of shepherding our church.  He is dreaming big, but mostly he is loving big, and God is doing big things here.  I have loved watching him over this last year find his groove in our new place, and he is loving every second of it!  Apart from pasturing our church, David was also able to preach a revival in North Georgia this past fall.  He has filmed a couple of television commercials, advertising for our church, and he has appeared on our local television and radio station to talk about some of the great things happening at Hardy Street Baptist Church.  My love and I will celebrate 11 years of marriage just after the New Year, and I can definitely say I love him even more today than I did 11 years ago when we said I do on a cold winter’s day in South Georgia.

  Now for our four little loves:  Carter turned 6 in May, which we can hardly believe!  He is loving flag football, school, boy scouts, and activities at church. He is asking pointed questions about salvation and has great head knowledge regarding what Jesus did for him on the cross.  We are praying that head knowledge will grow in his heart as well.  Summer turned 5 in July, which just seems impossible!  She is loving ballet, art class, church activities, and all things princess.  Summer has a love for life that is just far beyond her years. Her love for learning and people continues to amaze me.   Tilly turned 4 in August, which makes us realize just how quickly time is passing! She is loving ballet, Barbie, her new pink cast, and her special friends at school.  Tilly received her first broken bone over Thanksgiving, while playing with her big brother on the stairs.  Thankfully, she is on the mend, and it has not slowed her down one bit.  Oh, how we love that about her!  Story, our littlest love turned two in May, which we are trying to pretend didn’t really happen! She is loving ballet, singing songs, learning her letters, and trying to be as big as her siblings.  Story attends MDO one day a week at our church, and she loves going to “school.”  I am loving having her home with me the rest of the week!  There are not enough words to describe the love in my heart I have for these four little people, whom I have been entrusted to as their momma.

We have loved doing life together as a family this past year.  In the springtime, we loved welcoming new members into our family, McKinley Holland and Emery Calhoun, both born to our sisters.  During the summertime, our party of six traveled to New Orleans for the Southern Baptist Convention.  Oh, how we love being close to one of our most favorite cities.  We travel there as often as we can.  In the fall we traveled to Georgia for David to preach a revival at the church of a dear friend.  On our visit, we loved being able to see T and Hart, the Hollands, sweet friends, and Georgia in autumn.  For Thanksgiving, we traveled to Branson with Papa and Gigi and the Calhouns. We loved the Dixie Stampede and riding the ducks to look at Christmas lights.  This Christmas season, we have loved spending time with our friends here in Hattiesburg.  We look forward to school being out and traveling to see family in Arkansas and Georgia.  There is never a dull moment around here, and most days we truly love it that way!

 As we prepare for Christmas, we think about all those years ago when love came down as a baby in a little town called Bethlehem.  We think about what that night must have been like for Joseph and Mary.  I am sure their hearts must have been full of love for their tiny babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.  We can be certain they knew that He came to love as no one ever had nor anyone would ever love.  Our prayer for you this Christmas season is that you would be confident of His great love for you.  A love that never fails.  A love that never gives up.  A love that never runs out on you.   We pray that you would rest in the knowledge of that love, even when the world is telling you not to.  As you come to know more of His love and trust His love more, we hope you will want to share that love with others.  It’s too great of a thing to keep all for yourselves. 

“Above all, love one another deeply.  For love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8

 Merry Christmas with so much love,

David, Heather, Carter, Summer, Tilly & Story