Full of Joy

If you could please pray for Chuck, we would greatly appreciate it!  He came home early from church today with the chills, aches, and sore throat stuff.  Our winter retreat is THIS weekend and he had an important meeting with the leaders tonight about it.  I will be filling in- just call me Pastor Dubbe.  Ha.  But pray Jase doesn't catch this, and that I can lead the meeting well.  Thank you all!

I know the true definition of "church" is the body of Christ, but for all intents and purposes, I'm going to say I stayed home from church today.  For me, Sundays are the most stressful day of the week.  I could go into all the logistics of why, but come Saturday nights, I get the blues.  I just realized this yesterday, and verbalized it to Chuck.  Normal church services seem to always be held on Sunday mornings, and usually way too early, in my opinion.  My church in MN met on Sunday evenings, and it was the absolute BEST.  I actually looked forward to going, and truly enjoyed my day of rest before our service.  I continually have this nagging feeling that church services could be done in such a better way than the typical Sunday morning stuff.  Why is it that churches typically cram two different messages into one morning?  The way it works for me is I hear a message with the teens, and then I head over to the main service and hear another ...

I don't really get in to New Years Resolutions.  Goals overwhelm me, and make me feel like I'm failing.  Chuck really gets in to setting goals and is motivated by them.  To each his own.  I am feeling daunted by all the things in life I'm not doing well.  I'm sure that's a normal "new Mom" issue, or even a "Mom issue" in general.  Maybe not, but I suspect I'm not alone. The great news is, Jase is 4 months old and doing beautifully!  He is growing like crazy, right before my eyes.  Often lately I find myself saying, "This is the last time you'll be squeezing into this outfit!"  During our  2 1/2 week Germany trip he grew out of three outfits I had packed for him.  He is wearing 6 month clothes, with some 9 month things- heading quickly into full-time 9 month attire.   And by the time we got home, he no longer fit into the size 2 American diapers I had.  Thankfully, I was able to mail the 25 leftovers to a dear friend whos...