Here I finally am, sitting in front of my blogger compose page, where I visit so often in my mind, yet so infrequently in body. I have so many things I want to blog about, they are all fighting for preeminence in my mind and pushing my thoughts around in a blur. First of all, we had a lovely Thanksgiving and Buchan family Christmas. Scott and Mandi and my two beautiful nieces arrived on the 19th and left on the 27th. Ross came home for the weekend, and of course Karen and George and Caleb were here most of the time, too. We laughed, we took pictures, we shopped, we Starbucked, we lunched out, we grilled, we baked, we played games, we stayed up too late, we shed tears of happiness and remembrance with a tinge of grief, we chased children, we changed diapers, we hugged, we tree shopped, we gave, we received, we decorated, we caffienated, we loved. The time flew by so quickly, as it is wont to do when you are brimming with joy and busyness and being together. Every time we are all together as a family like that, it is a bit more comfortable, a bit more sweet, and a bit more bittersweet when we part. All of the many pieces of my heart that I have vested in family come back to rest with me when I am with them, and a brilliant but exuberant peace colors my outlook. To have a sister laugh and share with me, to have brothers that were not born next to me smile when I come into the room and tease back and forth with me, to have grinning children throw their pudgy arms around my neck, this is real living. When I left them at the airport, Lily gave me a hug and a kiss and said "I only had one kiss left, Aunt Charity, and I saved it for you." If my heart weren't already breaking, it would have at that. I love them all so much.

It hurts to give pieces of your heart away, to bestow the deep emotions on people, but the exultant joy of having them come back, with the piece of your heart so much bigger and brighter and fuller is worth all the pain of separation, and the aches when you miss them. I forget sometimes, in my stoic day to day coping with life, how much of my heart I have given away, and then I am always surprised when I am back with the dear friends and family who hold the tiny treasures of my love with them, just how much my investment has grown in their care. I too often forget that love cannot multiply if it is kept to oneself, and only when you give blindly and lavishly can you feel the yield of the commitment come back to you, and come back exponentially.

On an entirely different subject, may I just say that to know and to do the will of God is always a mighty and a heavy responsibility. I know that the majority of it is taken up in the day to day obedience of small decisions and quiet acquiescence to the Holy Spirit's prodding, but I too often take that for granted until I am faced with the choosing of a path, outside of the daily race of submission. Am I supposed even to be looking down that path? Am I seeking what is the truth, or merely seeking what will validate my truth, and justify a decision based in selfishness? When you feel God is silent, do you keep asking, or do you take the silence for an answer? In going over and over a particular issue with my husband, rolling over in my mind the same arguments again and again, he gave me pause by saying that it was basically a contentment issue. He would be content if we stayed on the path we were on, if we made that path the only one we could ever be on, or if we went on a different path. I realized then that in my heart, I have only been content with the path I am on, and my spirit rises in turmoil when I contemplate going on that different path. But, is that the leading of God, or the rearing of my selfish nature? Sometimes my deceitful heart confuses me so. How much can you look at the experience of others as a mark of where you should be? How much do you let circumstances dictate your decisions? These things are what I have been struggling with, and while I don't feel I have come to a place of God-led peace on the matter, I do feel a quietness now that I have recognized the lack of contentment over certain possibilities in our life. I feel a small peace in the answer "wait", and I am believing that God will guide me if He wants me to pursue a further course. In the end, my times are in His hands, and I will continue to strive to die daily to self so that my will is in His hands as well.

Nathan is in Florida right now with Dan for the National Pool and Spa convention. I think his leaving was made a bit easier because of the timing of it, since he left on the same day as our company, so all the goodbyes rolled together. Now I am here, with my children, missing everyone, but doing alright nonetheless. My Christmas tree is up, and it looks as wonderful as ever it does, crowded with mismatched homemade ornaments and tangled up, brightly colored lights. It is a riot of shiny color and remembrance, and it gives me such joy to just look at it. The cat and the children have undecorated and redecorated it several times, but it still looks to me as lovely as the most elegant and well appointed tree that ever graced a spotless home. It is homey and lopsided, but full of love and character and sweet, true pine scent, and I am so thankful for it. My favorite thing is to turn all the lights off and sit in the quiet after everyone is asleep and just look at the twinkling lights on the tree, reflecting in the red and silver balls, the silver garlands, the handmade ornaments from 25 years ago, and the ones from only a few years ago, with my children's pictures as babies, as toddlers. The one of Nate and my first Christmas together, where we both have these tentative smiles, I think wondering if spending the best holiday of the year with just this person we just married will really be as great as all the ones before spent in tradition with the families we have celebrated with forever. It was, and it has only gotten better since then.