The fact that this is my 500th post since launching this blog is unreal.  Some of you have been on this journey with me from day 1 and some of you may be here for the first time but either way I want to say thank you for joining me.  I’m still just as non-techy of a person but now I know how to utilize Youtube and Google to answer (some of) my questions.  I still come to almost every post not knowing how to communicate my heart or what to write but now I don’t panic when I push the publish button.  I still care about India as I did when I started my project but now I’m in love with 545 no-longer-orphans there.

I debated putting up my annual Christmas pictures this year because I’ve changed so much in 2014.  I wondered if it was vain and then decided that I was going to post them anyways because I want to be able to look back each year and see the change that has happened.  I want to grow and learn.  In 365 days it can be hard to see the difference day to day but look back on a year and you have a finer point of view.  A picture can’t always capture that growth but it’s a start.

Today as I was talking with my friends at Warm Blankets Orphan Care and realizing that there is less than 10% to raise I was encouraged to go back and read my first posts. It’s funny looking back at things you don’t remember writing (and some you do) and contemplating what three years have brought.  Shauna Niequist said it so well, “My life is not a story about me.  And your life’s not a story about you.  My life is a story about who God is and what he does in a human heart.  My story is about the people on my street, the things I read, the way we raise our child, the things I’ve done and things that have been done to me.  A story is never about one person.  It has a cast of characters, connected by blood or love or jealousy.”

I don’t know how you’re feeling this season.  Maybe Christmas time excites you and brings you joy but maybe you’re just bone weary, heart broken, or feeling all alone.  I don’t know your story but I pray that the greatest story teller of all would encourage your heart and show you the beauty of his story.  His story is marvelous but it comes in pain.  It comes in frailty as a baby in a stinking barn but it also comes in beauty at a host of angels singing about his coming.  A tiny baby comes and his coming brings us the one thing I know we all need, hope.  His coming means that God came down to understand our pain and suffering and to redeem it, to make it count for something beautiful.  As one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis would say, “Aslan is on the move.”  Christ came and he’s still with us today.  May you know that joy and experience it to the full.

If the greatest gift, Jesus, came down and gave us everything, how much more then can we be enabled to give?  I know you’ve spent money already this holiday season but please consider giving to the sweet orphans in India who can give nothing in return.  That is a true act of love when we give expecting nothing back.  Although I can guarantee you that you will get something much sweeter than you give and that is joy.  (Just click here to give.)

Merry Christmas!