One phone call away…

As I was looking through our 2013 Taylor Christmas photos, music was playing in the background. The words “I guess we’re all one phone call from our knees” rang out. These words have so much meaning to our family this year. We experienced that phone call more than once!

My family first experienced the phone call on April 15, 2013…The Boston Marathon! The second phone call was from dad on June 12, 2013 when mom had her brain bleed.  The third and hopefully final phone call of 2013 was on November 8 when Mike fell from the ladder and broke his shoulder and nose.  All of these things literally brought us to our knees! We cried out to our Lord and Savior for help, for comfort, for healing, for understanding and for peace!  To which He answered all of them in His perfect timing.

Romans 8.26

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

These photos were taken by my very talented niece Lane Lewis of Laneybugphotos.  Check her work the rest of Christmas 2013 here:   http://laneybugphotos.smugmug.com/MyPhotos/2013/Christmas-2013/i-Fd6xdth  

She truly captured the overwhelming joy our family experienced this season.

This Christmas we celebrated life.  First, we celebrated Jesus’ birth and life!  His life and death assures us of eternal life and comfort on earth through the Holy Spirit.  We have felt His presence through the Holy Spirit with each phone call.  It baffles me how anyone can receive a phone call that brings you to your knees and not know, really know God.  How do they survive?  He is the only way I have survived and found peace and joy in ALL circumstances.

Jeremiah 29.11

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Then we celebrated our lives and being able to be together! We enjoyed quality time just being! This time of year we forget that…we forget to be still and just take it all in!  We celebrated sitting in a room with one another…conversing, laughing, reminiscing…being together in the moment.

Looking at the pictures brings us tears of joy just knowing how faithful God has been.  He never left us.  He held us together the whole time.  Mom is a miracle! Mike is alive and healing extremely well! Boston 2014 will bring closure to a bittersweet Boston 2013.  All of these things have taught us to live for Him in the moment.

We have learned this year that the moment will and can end.  We have no control of when that will happen.  But it will! Take this day and make it your best.  God gave us the best present next to His son – the PRESENT….we need to live in it and find the joy in the people around us!

Psalm 30.5

For His anger is but for a moment,
His favor is for life;
Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning.

Matthew 6.25-34

 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?[g] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

2014 will hopefully be a little less eventful.  BUT, if it is not and I receive yet another phone call…my knees is where you will find me. Why?Because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my Lord and Savior will be there to pick me up and help me take each step of whatever journey lay ahead.  How do I know? Because He has proven Himself over and over in 2013(and before!)  He is our Lord and He is our Savior…He is faithful and good ALL the time!

Romans 8.28

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.