Lee's Tree Decorating Partry. Darrel, Sandy and Lee exhibiting very manly ornaments... I particularly like the my little pony one in the middle.

smile!

where's lee?

O Christmas tree O Chrsitmas tree, how lovely is your new home, which is also Lee's new home which is BEAUtiful!

cutie patootie julie! :)

mission accomplished! good work gang

Darren Reed and Jess at the silent sunday school Christmas Party. woo hoo!

This is Calvin tellin a funny story about how he got drafted. They didn't believe he was deaf! They thought his hearing aid was a radio. A few years later, his cousin asked to borrow that same hearing aid. He can hear fine. He uses it for deer hunting. Hilarious.

everybody's talkin, but there's no words. How cool?! The lady in the blue and white sweater is BJ Boggs. She is my hero. :)

gail and jess. i love deaf people! \|m|

William Sloopdog and me also at the Christmas party :)

not to DO for Him, but to KNOW Him

Sometimes I pray for God to show me things I don't even know I need to know. Tonight I got this:
I've never thought about what it means to love Jesus in his "winter." I think about loving Him in his glory, His victory, His righteousness. This devotion from "streams in the desert" hit me and made me long to be able to say "yes" to the questions it asks. I want to accept Him for Himself alone.

Worship in the Night by
Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

"Ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion" (Ps. 134:1, 3).

Strange time for adoration, you say, to stand in God's house by night, to worship in the depth of sorrow --it is indeed an arduous thing. Yes, and therein lies the blessing; it is the test of perfect faith. If I would know the love of my friend I must see what it can do in the winter. So with the Divine love. It is easy for me to worship in the summer sunshine when the melodies of life are in the air and the fruits of life are on the tree. But let the song of the bird cease and the fruit of the tree fall, and will my heart still go on to sing? Will I stand in God's house by night? Will I love Him in His own night? Will I watch with Him even one hour in His Gethsemane? Will I help to bear His cross up the dolorous way? Will I stand beside Him in His dying moments with Mary and the beloved disciple? Will I be able with Nicodemus to take up the dead Christ? Then is my worship complete and my blessing glorious. My love has come to Him in His humiliation. My faith has found Him in His lowliness. My heart has recognized His majesty through His mean disguise, and I know at last that I desire not the gift but the Giver. When I can stand in His house by night I have accepted Him for Himself alone. --George Matheson

"My goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace,
Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God;
'Tis His to lead me there, not mine, but His
'At any cost, dear Lord, by any road!'

"So faith bounds forward to its goal in God,
And love can trust her Lord to lead her there;
'Upheld by Him, my soul is following hard
Till God hath full fulfilled my deepest prayer.

"No matter if the way be sometimes dark,
No matter though the cost be ofttimes great,
He knoweth how I best shall reach the mark,
The way that leads to Him must needs be straight.

"One thing I know, I cannot say Him nay;
One thing I do, I press towards my Lord;
My God my glory here, from day to day,
And in the glory there my Great Reward."

hmmm....

Slugs are so gross. There was one outside my house tonight. Once, when i was little, I was about to go to bed and had on my pajamas, but somebody came over to our house and I went out to see them. I danced around a little bit outside entertaining our guest, like little girls do... then I went back in and hopped in my bed. The next morning, I woke up and got in the bathtub. As I was scrubba-dub-dubbin, it felt like there was a sticker on the bottom of one of my feet. I looked down and it was a squished slug. He had been there all night. Ew.

If I were to give superlatives to my pots and pans, I think the MVP award would go to my small frying pan. It's my favorite one. Quite versitale. What a champ.
Teflon was a cool invention.

It's amazing how washing your dishes suddenly becomes a wonderfully fun thing when you know you should be studying for a biochem exam.

Praise Him

gray day wish it was may
hope i shine instead of whine
almost done then comes fun

Jess the poet.

Praise the Lord for Clemson. Praise Him for the diversity that is here and the opportunity I have to touch many nations in one place. Praise him for my family. Praise Him for my family having understanding about my grades this semester. Praise Him for His son. Praise Him that he is patient with me. Praise Him that he is always near. Praise Him for the Holy Spirit. Praise Him for friends and laughs. Praise Him for orchestrating my steps. Praise Him for Hope. Praise Him for seasons in life. Praise Him that his mercies are new every morning. Praise Him that he is in control of every small and large thing. Praise Him for his righteousness. Praise Him for the body of believers. Praise Him for joy. Praise Him for his promises. Praise Him for health. Praise Him for rain. Praise Him for purpose. Praise Him for Truth. Praise Him for holding onto me. Praise Him that he sustains me. Praise Him for rest. Praise Him for today. Praise Him.

Can you tell I need a vacation?

It's saturday night. I've been studying evolutionary biology since about 5:00 this afternoon. As I am sitting here staring at this book that is trying to make sense of life, I find myself agreeing with some of it. And I feel like a traitor. Mostly i feel small. "If all the worlds were scattered and I found my way to here, then how could i love you the way that I love you. Big sky and a silver moon, the apple of your eye.. how can i explain it, how can i maintain this...One big bang an atom I? Oh, how'd I come to be, whittled from a boulder's harder to believe... I hope in things I cannot see I know that you will come... seasons quickly turning, quickly you're returning." (jennifer knapp- around me) I know we will never know, and people much smarter than I, have thought about it way longer than I ever will, but I keep coming back to the paradox between the bigness and smallness of God. he created it all. he thought of every small thing. butterflies. dna replication. protein synthesis. brains. emotions. There's an overflow song that asks, "when you hung the stars in the sky and you saw it was good, was it all just for me? when you showed the sun where to rise and the night where to hide, was it all just for me?...You knew my name before you even made the moon.. there's no way I can be the one to bring me closer to you..." It's all, every part of every thing, to show us something about Him. Everything that is seen is to point us to what is unseen. Our senses even. they seem so real. Like they are the end. We miss it. Nothing we see will last. It's like a puff of breath on a winter morning. I wish I was bolder. Lord, make me bold for you.

He thinks about gravity- holding everything down so that we don't all just fly off into space. He thinks about making all the little processes work so that my hair will grow, and grow curly at that! He cares about what I did today. He cares about how I felt when I did the things I did today. He acts as if I am the only person in the world. He does that for anyone who comes to Him. He does that for everyone. Why is it so hard to come to him? Why, if all of creation shouts, "I AM HERE! I DID ALL THIS FOR YOU," is their likely to be more people in hell than in heaven? i hate it. it seems like such an injustice. i don't understand 1- why it has to be that way and 2- why I see it. I guess the "why" questions don't really get me anywhere with God. It's more the "who" questions. "Who are you God, and what does this show about you?"

We are born enemies of the one who created us. We are not neutral, we are a rebellious people. We do what he tells us not to, from the get-go. We are selfish and disobeident. Every human that has ever been born deserves punishment. He's fair. He told us what would happen if we acted that way. "the wages (cost) of sin is death." The fact that he calls any of us, who are his enemy, his friend, shows how merciful, patient, grace- abounding and good he is. And "who" is he, in making me see it? And he says to me, I AM who I AM. And that is enough.

Neely's tootin her own horn...

finishin up...

I sat through my last class that I will ever sit through here at Clemson today. I will be student teaching in the spring, so I won't be here on campus sitting in class anymore. How weird. Truely. This, of course, is assuming that I will pass Biochemistry, and that is yet to be determined...

I've been a bit of a Ba-Humbug lately. Everytime the Christmas songs come on the radio I change it. I think I've just had so much crazies going on that I didn't want to think about that it is already Christmas time. I am glad it is Christmas. I love Christmas, I just need a few more months to get everything done before the day actually gets here! Anyway, to help me out of my holiday stupor, some of my sweet friends helped me decorate my house. Here they are...

cherubim and seraphim ain't got nothin on you girl...

Aw, Laurie, you could be on the front of the Hallmark brochure!

oh she looks such like an angel...