Anxiety and Adoration

I know. I'm a bad blogger. I have the best of intentions, but life happens. Laundry happens. Dishes happen. Cleaning happens. Kids happen. It seems like free, quiet minutes are hard to come by, and when I have one (like now ... Anna's still asleep), blogging isn't always at the top of my list.

But last night, while reading an awesome Ann Voskamp devotional my good friend Cris gave me, this quote jumped off the page.

I am no stranger to anxiety and worry. There's not a time in my life that I don't remember wrestling fear. The kind of fear that makes you physically nauseated. That presses on your chest like an anvil. That makes your heart race and blood pound in your ears. Fear was woven into almost every moment of my existence. It was the companion I never wanted that wouldn't leave, and by worrying, I felt like I maintained some semblance of control. 

There was a time when I would've just told you that's who I was, an anxious person, but a few years ago, God corrected me in that. He in the most gentle way, revealed the lie. It's a lie so many believe and live under. That this is somehow "who we are". That God made us this way. He did not create me to be an "anxious" person. Anxiety and fear may attack, but they are not who I am. And they certainly do not come from God.  And so I started to fight. But too often I fought in my own strength which is glaringly inadequate. These past few years I've been on a journey to live free from anxiety and fear, but not just free from those things. Free to live in the fullness of who God created me to be. It's been a journey of learning and growing. Of pushing and pulling. Of seeing my need for control and perfection as a way to deal with my fears. It's been a journey of learning to trust and letting go. 

Then a week ago, my friend gave me the devotional, "One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflections on Finding Everyday Graces". And wouldn't you know, it deals heavily with overcoming fear and anxiety. It also, in the beautifully written words, focuses on God's grace, praise, and thankfulness as the way to overcome the anxiety that plagues our souls. 

The world says, "Take a pill ... have a drink ... fill your life with stuff."

God says,

"28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28-29 NKJV

"6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.  8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:6-9 NKJV

I used to think a project, work, busy-ness would keep the anxiety at bay, and to some extent, it did. Now I know in quiet reflection, in focusing on and praising my Savior, fears aren't just kept at bay, they are banished. 

Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was busy but very good. So different from last year. Anna loved all of her new presents and handled it well overall. A few meltdowns were had but nothing out of the ordinary for a three year old.

As we look forward to 2017, we have some pretty big changes coming up. Anna will most likely start attending school three hours per day. We're still working everything out and haven't made a final decision yet, but if she does attend school, her therapy will be interwoven into her classroom experience. Because she's progressing so quickly, she now knows her colors and numbers 0-10 and some letters, we think she'll learn a lot this way. So please be in prayer for us to make all the right choices for Miss Anna over the next couple of weeks.

We are also getting ready to start on the new house in the "country". It's not way out in the country, but we'll have some land, room for a big playground, and lots of peace and quiet. So, I'm working on packing and purging for our last move for, hopefully, a long time.

As far as personal goals for 2017, I don't have any many. I do want to lose the five pounds I gained in 2016, but that means giving up ice cream so ... I also want to be more diligent about reading my Bible and praying. Otherwise, I'm excited to see what the next year holds.

And with that, I thought I'd leave you all with a lot few pictures from Christmas.

Anna currently has an obsession with these spoons. They are all different colors, and she carries them around. They've actually helped her learn her colors.

They were happy. I promise.

The grandkids on my side of the family

Anna and her Great Aunt Karen

The ever elusive family picture

Grandkids on Patrick's side

Happy New Year Everyone!

Good News of Great Joy

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!””
‭‭Luke‬ ‭2:13-14‬ ‭

No matter who you are ... No matter where you've been or what you've done ... Just over 2000 years ago a savior was sent to earth as a baby, born in a manger, worshipped by shepherds, to save you and me.

There's so much busy-ness and stress this time of year, but beneath everything that is going on the good news of Jesus Christ's arrival on this earth remains. Praying that each and every one of you remember that and come to know Him this season.

Merry Christmas from the Davis Family to yours!

Why We Believe

Growing up I believed in Santa. Patrick didn't. We had to come to a place of understanding regarding the whole belief in Santa with our own kids. It was a personal choice we made. I have no issue with parents that do not choose to do the whole Santa thing. I not only respect their reasoning, I understand some of it. What I don't understand is the vehement need to tear down everyone that doesn't come into line with their way of thinking. It's not everyone, but I've seen enough of it, and it's ugly. Believing in Santa never, not once, made me question my belief in Jesus, and while I know there are probably some that have been crushed by finding out Santa wasn't real, for the most part the people I know weren't really affected by learning the "truth" behind Santa. I think a lot of it has to do with how you go about it all. So I'll share how we do Santa in our house. I'm not debating whether it's right or wrong. I'm not trying to convince you to change your mind so please refrain from trying to change mine or debate with me (I'll delete any comments on here and on social media that are trying to debate).

1. We do NOT worship Santa. We worship Jesus. Three hundred sixty-five days a year, throughout the day, everyday, we worship Jesus. We pray to Him. We sing to Him. He permeates every area of our lives. He forgives our sins. He delivers. He sets free. He heals. Santa comes into play about a month out of the year and not even close to the extent that Jesus does. He does none of the stuff that Jesus does. We do not worship Santa, but he is fun. You know the old song, "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake"? Well, not in our house. Santa is not all knowing or all seeing, and I don't call him or email him or even address the whole naughty or nice thing. Which segues nicely into my next point ...

2. Santa bringing gifts has nothing to do with behavior. Now whether you get to keep and play with those gifts might be influenced by your behavior, but Santa doesn't bring gifts based upon how you behave. My kids are not "naughty". Sometimes they may act naughty, and we will discipline accordingly, but I (and by extension Santa) will never withhold gifts based on behavior.

3. But not all, or even most of the gifts, are from Santa. Yep. I am a control freak, and I set limits on Santa gifts. Like monetary and quantity limits. Because that's how I am. So they get to pick a couple small things or one big thing from Santa, and he fills their stockings with junk. The rest is from Mom and Dad. And if and when my kids start questioning Santa, I won't push it on them to believe. I was seven when I stopped believing, and Andrew is asking a lot of questions so I leave it up to him. He's a very imaginative kid and is still very much into pretend play (he also believes in Captain America and the Hulk) so he'll figure it out in his own way.

4. Everything and everyone bows their knee to Jesus at Christmas. Maybe you find that contradictory. Maybe you say Santa distracts from that. I could argue that the tree, the gifts, the food, the carols ... are all a distraction, but I don't think that. And honestly, I don't think Jesus does either. I think sometimes we split hairs over ridiculous things and turn, what should be a celebration, into a legalistic, rule bound time of year. God is not putting us on a guilt trip. Don't put yourself on one.

So that's it. That's how we do Santa. If you do it differently or don't at all, that's fine with me. I think there are much bigger, much more serious things in this world with which to take issue.

Gotcha Day

Today marks one year since Anna left the orphanage! One year since she joined a family forever. It's surreal and hard to believe. This year has been hard and beautiful and challenging and fun. We've seen Anna grow by leaps and bounds both physically and emotionally. She is most certainly not the same terrified little girl that we picked up one year ago. She is so full of life and joy and tenacity and determination. We are so proud of our Anna girl and cannot wait to see what this next year has in store, and we give all the glory to God as He has done and is continuing to do great things in her life.

Tonight, to celebrate Gotcha Day, we are going to hang out at home and have fried chicken and mashed potatoes and homemade banana pudding ... a few of Anna's favorites. We'll play and laugh and hopefully have a limited number of fits.

A year ago ...

And from the past few weeks ...  

Thank you all for supporting us, loving us, praying for us, and walking this journey with us. We appreciate you more than you'll ever know. 

Happy Gotcha Day, Anna Gayle!