Clean slates..

Woah, as I was contemplating it being on the brink of a new year and the weather outside I had a flashback with a scratchy homemade recording of me and other kids singing, "What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus........Make me white as snow.."

I have noticed that rising up of anticipation this year for the holidays. I was so cheery and ready for Christmas this year. I have hated my own grinchness and reluctance in some past years. This year the presents were wrapped, the decorations were done, the Christmas songs were searched for and I waited with gladness for the fsmily to arrive and for the day to be here. As a child I would often get sick to the point of throwing up on the day of because I had hardly slept and was wo worked up with anticipation.

We had 8 people in my sisters apartment and more presents than I have ever seen. We had to find the manger so we could wrap the baby Jesus. It is our traditions where on Christmas morning each family member unwraps a layer and then at the very end th youngest answers the questions, "Why do we open the baby Jesus first? Because it was God's gift to us, to the world, the very first Christmas gift, what it's all about." Some variation of that. So anyway we had no room for the nativity that my mom brought for my sister. We halfway joked about putting it on the deck, looking in the glass door and I eventually did. So once again there was no room at the inn.

The poor baby Jesus and party were rushed into the bathtub this morning as they were covered in snow. The poor sheep lost his ear in the process. It was a rough and windy morning.

I couldn't sleep last night. I stayed awake for a very late movie (Goal) which is unheard of, as you know my sleeping during movies issue Then I played about until 8 this morning. I saw the snow at 6 or so but it continued on. I have smirked a bit as others have had it piling up and we have gone with purely rain. Now it is our turn. I notice a sense of excitement in me for today, for tomorrow. I know we can start new and make new goals everyday and some would say it is silly to be tricked by culture to think it is special day. I love the dream of new beginnings. It allows me to relax today and look forward to discipline tomorrow. It makes me dream a swell in the story may be mysteriously close. I want to take a bubble bath, get dressed up, journal for hours of past refelctions and lists of hopes and wonders for the future. I want to play games with friends and try to come up with new ways to make our time together meaningful, purposeful. I want to make these days go as slow as possible before work, schedules and neglected projects creep back in, spinning time hour by hour.

I have been trying to stop my brain these last couple days from thinking if I only wish or pray hard enough the story I caught a glimpse of might be decided upon to come true. I hate thinking what if, even if it is so odd of a thought and then knowing it just might happen and yet knowing it is silly to keep re-thinking it and searching. I see myself as the girl sneaking into the authors study as he is out by the fireplace. I keep looking for some clue, wondering if this was forshadowing at all. I try to look for books on the shelf about how to make your story come true, how to insert something, how to hope that other characters are on the same path and that by some crazy twist of fate I have stumbled upon a part of my story with my eyes wide open. I am hoping this will be the year of apprenticeship, that the Father will help me understand what co-authoring is all about. It would be so much easier if it wasn't my very own story. It's so personal, we can't seperate our desires. I don't know ow to sit calm, to wait, to accept strange suggestions. I guess it is good to be engaged, to be effected. He'll just have to know sometimes I'll have to close my eyes, too anxious about what appears next.

I like the number 7. We get a brand new year. We could never write or imagine what will come in this one year.