For December Fast Sunday our family fasted for a safe, happy, healthy Christmas. I fully believe in the power of fasting to invoke the power of Heaven into our lives.
During December, and the Christmas season, we got COVID, Josh got the world’s worst canker-sore, I got a pretty significant ear-infection, and Josh seriously injured his foot on Christmas Eve.
It’s interesting, because thinking about those things one might, naturally, think that our prayer was denied up in Heaven. But through every one of the things we went through I felt countless blessings!
After Santa Came 
Long Exposure Version
We got COVID, the cause of the upheaval in the world, the thing that has had me worried–not knowing how my loved ones and I would respond to it–for 9 months. And we had virtually no symptoms except extra fatigue. We had SO many wonderful people help us in countless ways while we were hulled up at home. We were still able to participate in church as well as get everybody to school and work thanks to remote-everything! As far as a case of COVID is concerned, we truly were very safe and healthy.
Like a Kid at Christmas!
We think that the severity of the canker-sore and ear-infection may have had something to do with our immune systems being busy with COVID; because we each deal with those respective things to lesser degrees relatively frequently. But because we deal with them more often, we already had everything we needed (ear drops for me and mouth numbing spray for Josh) on hand. I didn’t have to go to a doctor (which I couldn’t have done because of being in isolation), because I just called Daddy! And he instructed me how to treat my cranky ear all from the comfort of my own COVID home.
Josh injured his foot on Christmas Eve night jumping up the stairs to his parents’ front porch–as he has done countless times before. Though no InstaCares were open that evening, he was able to be seen and treated on Christmas Day!!! I am so grateful for all the people who sacrificed their own family and personal time and made it possible for Josh to be treated and returned safely to us to enjoy the rest of Christmas! As far as injured (potentially fractured) foot on Christmas Eve goes, that seems pretty happy.
Not sure about Grandpa… 
A Pirate’s Life for Josh
So, God did not prevent us from having an excitingly mortal experience this Christmas Season. But we are still feeling His love abundantly, and know that He hears and answers our prayers and fasts. And by answering our request with helping us through bumps in the road, He gave us the opportunity to witness His hand blessing us in a different way than if we had simply had an uneventful December. We fasted in gratitude today.
This was the most magical house we saw on our night out to see the lights.
And now we have entered 2021! We are looking forward to seeing how the Lord will continue to bless us in exciting ways. 😉
With the new year, I have a new goal! I feel like this one will help me simplify a little bit while still stretching myself. As I practiced last year, there was something I got really excited about doing more of. I want to significantly expand the number of excellent books I read. Growing up, I basically never read anything extra-curricular, and didn’t until Josh and I got married. I resented reading for school because I felt like you were supposed to be able to read really fast (I’m slow) in order to complete assignments on time, and then you’re expected to find all kinds of symbolism that may or may not actually be contained in the book. But at the same time I lamented that I had such a bad relationship with reading. I have always known that reading is a positive habit to have throughout life, so I knew my attitude towards it would probably need to change at some point, but Wuthering Heights definitely wasn’t the book that was going to do it.
Anyway, I started reading fluff books when Josh and I first got married and then got more into fluff books (aka: everything Janette Rallison ever wrote) after Fay was born and I had to sit and pump milk for hours each day. But I’m ready to move past the fluff and onto some really cool, inspiring, uplifting literature! And I must confess that I’m grateful for all those English teachers who, despite my efforts to the contrary, actually did help me to glean interesting messages from books. So, as you have undoubtedly already guessed, my word for 2021 is Read.
I’m excited about it!
Also, I cut my hair rather drastically. Daddy did a photoshoot and captured it fairly well, I’d say.