Christmas fun

It is so much fun to share Christmas with family.

Highlights in the Rhyno household include:

- Seeing how much the kids enjoyed picking out and giving gifts to each other.
- 5 people's hands co-operating to make a Christmas feast.
- Many Wii tournaments....lots of laughter and sore muscles.
- The enjoyment of fine art and budding artists.
- Talks about things that really matter.
- Delight on the faces of 3 precious children.
- Brain Quest, Are You Smarter that a Fifth Grader, The Little Rascals
- Glow-in-the-dark face paint.
- Family enjoying family.

Thank you Lord for the privilege of loving people and doing life with them.

Sssshhhh....you might wake them up!

Christmas Eve service is done.

The Christmas story has been read.

The children are all nestled snug in their beds.

The tree is all ready.

The stockings are filled.

Outside, the night is silent and still.


Shhhhhhhhhh....you might wake them up! (Oh Lord, may they sleep past dawn!)


Merry Christmas!

Be Still this Christmas

"Be Still" is my first instrumental worship cd. It is designed as a background music cd for prayer time or quiet time. And...it is ready! Yay! I have a few tracks loaded on my music players on Facebook and Myspace. Check them out. If you're interested in a copy, just be in touch. They're $15 plus shipping if you're not local. In that case, we can use PayPal.

I have multiple stories about how the Lord brought this album to mind as a fundraising project for my next full band/vocal album, and about how He then brought all things into place to make it happen. He blows me away ALL THE TIME!

A Challenge

My friend Heather challenged me to blog 7 random things about myself. Good thing my thoughts, in general, are often very random.

1. You can take a girl out of the Maritimes, but you can't take the Maritimes out of the girl, eh?

2. I was a kilt-wearing, sword-steppin', toe-pointing highland dancer for nearly 10 years of my life. (Don't ask....it didn't stick.)

3. Favorite teenage memory...driving around in my parents' chevy cavalier the summer I was 16, listening to good old Elton John as loud as I could stand it. Ahhhh....Elton. Too bad about his passionate, Anti-Christian beliefs.

4. I became a Believer when I was pregnant with my first son. I was baptized when I was pregnant with my second son. I began to learn how to be an actual Christ-follower as my daughter was learning to walk. I am continuing to grow in the Lord....but I don't plan on any more kids! :)

5. I tend to forgive and forget....and apologize and forget too. If a relationship has been in disrepair, but then restored, I can't even look back and remember what the problem was in the first place. My husband complimented me about this today by saying it was Christ-like to be able to continue to move forward without harboring resentment. In the past, though, I have always thought of it as brain-fogginess or forgetfulness. I like his description better. :)

(So...if we have had a relational breakdown in the past, trust me, I can't remember why!)

6. I love our Youth Group. They rock!

7. I am very blessed to have the husband I do...someone who challenges me in my walk with the Lord; someone who is unafraid to be challenged in his. I love him more truly and deeply today than I did the day I became his wife.

How's that for random thoughts? :) Thanks for the challenge, Heather.

******Along with this challenge, I'm also supposed to challenge 7 of MY friends to do the same. I choose Liz Brewer, Kelly Thomas, Kristi Benson (I'd especially love to hear her new-baby-sleep-deprived random facts), Angela MacPherson, Melinda McNeil (you KNOW you want to come back to Blogger!), Lor Mitchell, and my dear husband Scott....TAG, YOU'RE IT!***********

Refining Perspective

Do you ever find that your perspective shifts? Or, maybe "broadens" might be a better word. I can't even put into words all of the ways in which I feel my perspective shifting. For this post, I'll talk about 3 which are very real right at this moment.

1) Christmas "stuff". This year I'm really struggling with all of the "stuff" of Christmas, more than ever before. I'm challenged every time people talk to me about what they want for Christmas; I'm challenged every time I hear what people are buying my kids for Christmas. I'm challenged every time I'm asked what I want for Christmas. There's too much stuff. We have too much stuff. We've made Christmas all about stuff. I want to give, not receive, this Christmas. But, at the same time, people want to give to me, and so I must receive. How do we do this in celebration of the Christ Child's birth, but not get sucked in to the materialistic mindset of our fat culture? One thing we've done: when we've been asked what we want, we've voiced only needs, not wants...gas cards and grocery cards. And I'm praying that the Lord would help to strip me of any desires that are beyond what I really need, that I might be more others-focused, and not self-focused.

2) Life is here and now. As our family and church family mourn the recent death of a wonderful young man and friend, I have been made so much more aware of the importance of living life here and now, not assuming that I'll have time for it in the future. This perspective encompasses so many things: my relationship with the Lord, my relationship with my husband, my kids, my friends, the urgency of developing disciples and sharing the gospel. The time is now.

3) "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." The Lord been laying this one heavy on our hearts for the last few months...so much so that I wondered if He was getting us ready for something. And now, in my immediate circle, I have a young widow to be Christ to, and some who I recognize are "orphans" for whom the Lord has burdened my heart to be ready to minister to in any way He directs. And so, I am in awe that offerings which require sacrifice and are filled with heart-ache are still pure and undefiled religion; That worship which costs me is truer worship than that which feels good.

Perspective shifts. Some I'm immediately happy about, some hurt and cost. But all are part of the Refiner's fire. For that, I'm so grateful.