Everything changes.

Right now, my gold retriever, Lexus is lazily panting on the floor, my sweet baby nephew Braylon is innocently snoring in his pack-and-play he sleeps in at my mom's house, right next to me. I can hear my brother's TV in the room next to me and my door is shut so the light in my room doesn't keep my mom awake across the hall, she has to be up for work. My sister is at home with her husband, sleeping because she too has to work in the morning. My dad is in Tennessee, trying hard to make it home as soon as possible tomorrow. Josh is with his family- joyfully playing Wii with his sister and best friend. Peace- be still.

As I sit here in this bed... and look around me... tears fill my eyes. I've struggled so much with this idea of change. With the fracture that has been placed where my family once was. The idea and virtue of patience is a rather simple one for me, I can wait. Change on the other hand, it terrifies me. It terrifies me so much, that I have been failing to let it happen. I have failed to allow time to do what it does; to shape me, to grow me and to most importantly age me with life. When I was a teenager (not SO long ago) I always wanted to be older. I never understood why people freaked out when they turned 28 or 43. I just though it would be cool to be older. As I continue to get older, I don't necessary have that young naive mindset. I know that getting older, inevitably means change. I change, the people I love change, my family changes, even my dogs change. Easily, I can get stuck here. I can get stuck in this sad place of what was, and what I miss. I can hang on and grip so tightly to the memories that haunt me, the good memories that bring me only tears. I dread the days to come, because I fear that something will be wrong and someone will be hurting, dying or walking the wrong road. I always hear people say, "The only thing that never changes in this life is the fact that everything will keep changing." Huh. So if this is true, which I believe it is, that means if I fight continue fighting this idea of change in my life I will forever be in turmoil, in angst over something that I have absolutely no control over. It's freeing kind of, when I think of it that way.

God designed me to trust him, to praise him, and to obey what his word says. Do I question this? Yes, with the most immature and unknowing mind, and the most yearning heart. There is power in "The Blood"- Freedom in "The Blood." When I think of the current placing of my family at this very moment, it overwhelms me. How are we here? How did it all happen so fast? How does "The Blood" makes us free- how does our little crazy, loud and hysterical family fit into the family of God when we are just messed up sinners, trying to feel something in this life. In this moment, I know deep in my soul that there is a God- the Only God- who made us each so different and unique that we fit together perfectly. That because we are crazy messed up sinners, we are like all of the others in the family of God. Imperfect, undeserving, unworthy- yet LOVED. I don't know how many years ago Jesus was born, or if it was in October or December that he was laid down into a manger with animals all around him. All that I know- and all that I believe is that he was- and he did. He was born- he did in fact live a life of perfection because we are sinners, undeserving- yet hungry for what this Christmas season represents. Christ being born, to come into the world so that our sins could be washed away by The Blood. That's how we fit it, that's how I belong to Jesus.

I don't like change, and I'll avoid it and fight it at all costs. God reminds me that through change and through the darkness, his Glory is here in it and the light on the other side of the dark night is so sweet... The small reminder of this precious baby sleeping next to me, or my little brother punching me so hard in the arm I felt like we were kids again because I was so mad at him--- making Christmas cookies with my mom and sister again. Even though change has stolen some of my most fondest memories, God is making all things new in this family, and in my life. I will praise him with a thankful heart for bringing me this far.

Merry Christmas. Emily.