Some years, my mom made matching dresses for all the girls, herself included. I felt so beautiful and so special. Another year, she made candy cane striped pajamas, and I felt like I was straight from a storybook. Every Christmas morning, our stockings, which had been hanging around our wood stove for weeks, would be stuffed so delightfully fat with goodies. My mom would encourage us to eat some eggs and bacon, even though we’d all already started on our chocolates. I’d take a strip of bacon to appease my mom, and we’d all head into the living room and wait our turns to open our presents. My dad would always have his video camera in hand.

I remember driving home from Christmas Eve service one year. The earth was blanketed with several inches of fresh snow, and the chilly temperatures added a sparkle as beautiful as diamonds to the surface of the snow on the ground and on the trees. I remember one Christmas Eve at my Grandma Eyre’s house, singing Christmas carols. I remember her teaching us a Christmas carol, singing out the Latin chorus: “Venite adoremus, Dominum, Venite adoremus, Dominum!”

Magic.

I remember Christmas pictures in front of the tree every year. I remember us all posing in our Christmas outfits, and my dad setting up the camera, pressing the timer, and sprinting towards us to squeeze into the shot. I remember making salt dough ornaments, creating Christmas place mats from old Christmas cards, and Advent calendars. I remember Advent readings around candlelight.

But what added the most wonder to the season was simply this: witnessing my parents taking the time to make every year a celebration worth the effort and worthy of lasting memories, because it’s the celebration of something absolutely amazing—something we believe with all our hearts. God sent His Son to the world in order to redeem the world. And twenty-seven Christmases later, I still feel the energy, the wonder, and the joy in this season. It’s more than magic. It’s quite simply…

A Miracle.

“The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us…”

The other two dreams had to do with the Tea Party, and apparently, I was a really big fan in my dreams.

In the first dream, I was selling newspapers, and a guy says, “I haven’t been here in a really long time. Which pill should I take? The red pill or the blue pill?” I start walking with him and say, “If you take the red pill, your once lucrative career will be shipped overseas. You will be told unemployment is low because there will be many jobs, but they won’t pay enough to support a family. All the money will be taken to start wars around the world.” The guy replies, “So I should take the blue pill?” I say, “If you take the blue pill, you will work endlessly…if you can find a job. Half of your earnings will be given to drug addicts and prostitutes.” (Realize this isn’t really representative of my views.) The guy replies, “So which pill should I take?” By now, we’ve wondered through the city streets and an alley where dealers are peddling red and blue pills, and we’re at a harbor that has the background of San Francisco. I take a brown pill filled with tea and throw it into the brown harbor, and with a maniacal smile exclaim, “Take the brown pill…it’s for freedom!” The guy looks at me and says, “Uhhhh….I like freedom?” He pauses, turns around, and walks away. I’m pretty sure this dream was a commercial/ad.

The third dream is actually an alternative ending to the second dream. At the end of my spiel, the guy asks again, “So which pill should I take?” I reply, “Take the grey pill. The earl grey pill.” The camera pans out, and we’re wearing tuxedos with coat tails, while standing on a semi truck going down the highway. After handing him the pill, I dive off the back of the truck, into a limo which has no top, into a lake of grey tea. Yes, a limo-lake. The other guy is left on the top of the truck with a choice to make—the uncertainty of driving down the highway on top of a truck or…the peaceful calm of a grey limo-lake.

In September, I went through some trials that left me feeling very down and very self-absorbed with my problems. As the months have passed, I’ve found that in moments, I am able to rise above the pain, and in others, I’ve succumbed to my own weakness. God continues to be gracious and I continue to wrestle with my own sin and pray for the healing of relationships.

My family has been, as always, amazing. Rick is a constant source of comfort and encouragement, and Kyrie and Antonio fill my life with joy and moments of being as carefree as I remember being as a child. Sometimes there is no better description for my children than little angels. And goodness knows they’re not really angels—their behaviour can be exhausting and infuriating—but the love and the innocence that they display from their sweet spirits really help to lift mine. It’s such a joy to be a mom, even though I have those moments when I wonder if I really am called to be a mom. Sometimes I’m just really truly not good at it. At all.

God has been kind enough to open my eyes to friendships that have always been there, waiting for me—and introduce new friends into my life. He has never abandoned me, even when I think that He has.

It’s been difficult for me to enter into the season of Lent this year. Antonio was sick on Ash Wednesday, so I wasn’t able to attend a service. Being able to hear the words “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” while the cross is drawn in ashes on my forehead by the thumb of the priest is something that is so profound to me that I can hardly articulate my feelings about it. It helps to set the tone for the entire season. I have not chosen to give up anything specifically, nor have I conscientiously added any particular disciplines. However, I do find myself returning to the Lord, and drawing closer to Him, and seeing the sickness of my own soul and the desperation with which my whole body aches for salvation.

We recently took a trip to Florida and had a wonderful time. Rick has been attending Robbert E. Webber’s Institute for Worship Studies in Orange Park, FL for the past 3 years, spending the past year working on his doctoral thesis, and finishing it up last winter, earning the title of Dr. Capezza. The official graduation ceremony was 8 days ago in Florida, so we decided to plan a family vacation around that time so we could kill two birds with one stone.

We arrived on Wednesday, June 10th, in time for the convocation. The worship was beautiful, and the enthusiasm and love for God was felt in everyone around me as we sang our praises to God without reserve or hesitation. After the service, we drove down to Daytona Beach, where we’d spend the next three days soaking up sun, splashing in the waves, building sandcastles, and relaxing in the pool. We had an oceanfront hotel, which was really just perfect for us. We were able to spend lots of time on the beach, which is mostly what I wanted to do. The kids absolutely loved the pool, and were very brave and confident in the water. Antonio was too afraid of the waves at the beach to get near the water, but liked digging in the sand. Kyrie was thrilled with the waves and also loved looking for pretty seashells along the shore.

On Saturday morning, we left Daytona and drove back into Jacksonville to pick up Rick’s mom from the airport. We spent some time at the mall until our hotel was ready for us to check-in. We had a nice evening at the home of the Creeches, the couple that hosted Rick every time he traveled to Florida for classes throughout his schooling.

The next morning we attended a Russian Orthodox Church in the area. I would have probably enjoyed it more if Antonio hadn’t decided to be a screamer that day. The singing was beautiful. There are definitely aspects of Orthodox worship that I would love to see recovered in Western liturgy. There were other things about the service that I didn’t find particularly appealing, but overall I thought it was a lovely service.

We had to kill some time before the graduation, so we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese’s to get some energy out (the beach wasn’t an option because we had already checked out of our hotel and didn’t want to come to the ceremony all sandy and salty). They had fun, and to our surprise, we killed all the time we needed and were ready to head over to the church. Rick went to rehearsal and Rick’s mom and I spent some time with the kids in the nursery. I also had the chance to take a few pictures of Rick before the ceremony.

The ceremony was great. Some of the music was a little weird for my taste, but some of it was just beautiful. And the people sang with all their hearts, so the sanctuary was filled with noises of praise to God. After taking lots of pictures following the ceremony (visible on facebook if you’re my friend), we headed to Palm Coast, where we’d spend the remainder of our vacation in a 2-bedroom condo along with Rick’s mom.

It was really cute, spacious, and relaxing. The pool there was huge, and we made sure to get plenty of use out of it. We also managed to make it to the beach, although sadly, the beach there wasn’t as nice as Daytona beach. We had lots of fun anyway, though.

On Wednesday morning, we packed up and headed back to Jacksonville. No trip to the South is complete without a visit to the Cracker Barrel, so that was where we ate lunch. Soon after, we dropped Rick’s mom off at the airport, and then went to a few stores to kill some time before our flight. It was beastly hot, so we found a Chick-fil-A with an indoor play place and let the kids get some energy out before the long flight home. We stayed there until it was time to get to the airport, return the rental car, and check-in for our flight. Other than the long, 4 hour flight in the middle, it was all relatively smooth travel on the way back. Our vacation was just what we needed, but it was really good to be home.

Me: It died. It died and went to be with Jesus.
Kyrie: laughs Where is Jesus?
Me: Jesus is in heaven, with the Father.
Kyrie: Where is heaven?
Me: It’s all around us. It’s here, but it’s also in another dimension.
Kyrie: Does God talk to you?
Me: Well, He talks to us in His word and through His Spirit. We can talk to him when we pray.
Kyrie: We can talk to Jesus when we pray. And we can pray to the God the Father. And we can pray to Fr. Jerry.
Me: No, we can’t pray to Fr. Jerry. We can talk to Fr. Jerry at church and when we see him. We can only pray to God. Fr. Jerry is just a nice man who teaches us about Jesus.
Kyrie: When does he teach us about Jesus.
Me: When we go to church, and he talks to us. He talks about Jesus.
Kyrie: Santa Claus doesn’t talk about Jesus. He’s just a nice guy who gives us presents.

Kyrie’s eyes lit up as she answered the question: “Mufasa is!”

Anyway, after compline tonight, both Rachel and I were singing her to sleep. It doesn’t happen very often that we both sing her to sleep together, but Kyrie stopped us in the middle of our singing to say this:

Kyrie (tapping her doll’s head): I put water on her head.
Rick: To baptize her, so she can be in Jesus?
Kyrie: Yes.
Rachel: Do you know anything about this?
Rick: Noooo.

I guess he loves his grandma.