Christmas Shopping

This year I as I am out of a pay check, and I need to once again downsize before moving back to my parents house, I have decided that all of my Christmas "shopping" will be done at a cute little boutique that I call My Place. I figured the things I have left for the most part are things that I love, things that are special to me. Last May I got gave away and sold most of my things, and in doing so I realized I enjoyed giving away the things that I had accumulated over the years more than selling them for next to nothing to strangers.

So, this Christmas, I am giving from the heart, these items are things that I have had for years, or given to me by special people, or that hold a lot of memories for me. As I began my shopping this morning it was fun to look at each item as a gift not just as something. It is a challenge to choose who will get what, and why. I have decided that each item will also come with a tag, that explains it's history or the memories it evokes for me, so that in the end I am not just giving gifts, but sharing part of myself as well.

As therapeutic this is, I ask for your prayers as well. Like I mentioned, I already got rid of a lot of stuff and this time it is harder. I know some of you who read this have also gone through this process, and can understand how difficult it is to move closer and closer to having nothing you can call your own and live on the brink of the uncertainty of when and where home is. It is comforting to know that you have been through this too. Yet it is hard to go through this alone.

I will be honest and say that as I type this what started out in sharing about joyful giving has now left me sitting in tears. I tell you this not for your sympathy but so that you who have not gone through this process realize that while there is great excitement and hope in going where God has called me to go, there is also a lot of uncertainty and at times sadness and even fear in letting go of everything (physical and not) that I have come to put security in.

I know that this year there are a lot of people without jobs, or without homes, without a firm idea of when they will have both again...and I am thankful for what I do have, hope in Jesus Christ and the call He has placed on my life. I want that to be enough, and I know that it is, but that does not make it easy.

I long to be in Rome. It is increasingly hard to wait for support to come in. So I ask for your prayers, not only that I get to Rome. But that in the waiting I continue to learn more about God, and His provision for my every need.