Like Jason said, I too love the feeling and excitement of Christmas. My mom bakes and cooks like crazy, and I eat at least 2 batches of her Reece's bars. I never outgrew my love for toys, they just get bigger and more expensive. Christmas gives me a time to play with toys again. I love giving gifts, love the Christmas Eve luminaries, and Christmas Eve party at the Schauer's. I love my family, and I love Grayson chewing on his new bone in the living room as we sit around the tree.

But this year I've come to see the emptiness of the tradition of Christmas without the presence of Jesus. We have walked for 7 months in the pain and darkness of losing our son Cohen. The one thing I long for is to sit with my son, who I knew so briefly. I want to sit with him and talk to him, enjoying him and loving on him. So I read Isaiah 9 this morning:

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined... For to us a Child is born."

In this season of longing for our son Cohen's presence with us, we have felt the deep darkness, the darkest night of the soul. We have walked in the sadness, day by day. And the one thing that has sustained us is the presence of Jesus.

He has been our solace, our comfort, our strength, and our joy. After living in the pain and suffering, the joy for us this Christmas is that Jesus came. He came as we so often hear, "God with us," which is much better news than we realize. Jesus entered the darkness of the world, and darkness of our hearts to dwell with us, sit with us, and love on us. While we mourned our loss, Jesus entered our lives in a tangible way, his presence. He met us at our most vulnerable and fragile state, and he pierced our wounded heart with his love for us.

So as we think about Christmas, we can look back on the year of pain and hurt, the tears and sadness. Enter your sadness. Dwell in the pain of the world. Consider the sin of your life, the sin of your family, the sin of the world. Mourn the sickness and disease. Cry with the widows, and mourn for the fatherless.

Then thrust your eyes to the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Rejoice for the savior has come. Place your hope solely in the return of Jesus. Put all of your strength into the celebration of a small baby, the redeemer of the world, who bore our sin and sickness that we could enter into God's presence.

While the long awaited savior of the world has entered as a baby, he comes back with a sword. Let's spend this Christmas looking forward to Jesus' final comeback in Revelation 21, sword in hand, tattoo on his leg (King of kings, Lord of lords), his robe dipped in blood, on his white horse, his eyes like a flame of fire. Let's worship the redemption of God, the work of Jesus, and the deepest longing of our heart, the presence of God with us.

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son... And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death." Colossians 1:13, 21-22

2) I will now make a list of things I love about Charlotte in order to help with my transition.

-Chick Fil A

-People with manners

-The weather (ie the sun)

-Warm beaches, with sand

-Cracker Barrel

-The panthers

-Carolina Basketball

-Mellow Mushroom

-Harris Teeter

-Dunkin Donuts (Except the coffee)

-East Blv Starbucks

-My house

-My family

-East coast friends

-Freedom Park

-Boone

-Fall

-Queens Rd West

-Redemption Church

That sort of helped:)

Just a few photos for you boos..

This is what packing for a big move looks like with a baby.

Pearce's first Halloween.

So I guess I'll just bite the bullet and post something from my list. I think I know that most people who read this do actually want to know how we're doing, even when it's hard. And although a blog is a little impersonal, it's also as close as I can get to sitting down to a cup of coffee with some of you. So everyone get your coffee out and I'll get mine and I'll just pretend you asked how I'm doing...

Months ago I think the answer to this question changed by the minute. Literally. I could smile in one minute and cry in the next. Some time has passed now. Not a lot. But some. And now the answer doesn't change quite as quickly. I can go for days with the same answer. This feels a little refreshing when it's days in a row of smiling or laughing. But the flip side is days at a time of sad. A kind of sad that I didn't know existed really. I mean you see sad like that in the movies, but it's the movies, you know? So here's the kind of awkwardly vulnerable answer on the blog...

I had a really bad week two weeks ago. I mean really bad. Movies bad. Cry in the shower bad. Sit on your couch staring at the wall sobbing bad. And I couldn't snap out of it. I tried to muster up every ounce of stubborn will in me to pull myself out of it. And I couldn't. This is completely unfamiliar to me. Apparently everything about grief is unfamiliar to me. Usually I can make my brain win out over my emotions. Not the case anymore. All I could do was literally pray over and over again, "Help me." I don't even totally know what I wanted the Lord to help me with. I wanted him to say something. I wanted to actually, audibly hear him. I wanted him to come sit on the couch with me. I wanted him to be that close. That present.

Here's the thing about me- when I read the bible I read it to know the Lord. To hear from him. To be changed by him. And I really believe that it is truth and that it is living and active and that it pierces us and teaches us and changes us. But I can't think of many times that I've read it and felt like that specific verse was literally written to me in that moment. I most often read it like the words were written to whoever they were written to whenever they were written. (maybe a little bit the curse of seminary??) They are just as true now as they were then and they are applicable to me, but they weren't written TO me. This is not totally wrong. But I don't think it's complete either. This way of reading isn't full. It's not taking into account the holy spirit at work in the pages. I don't know that I ever really noticed that this is how I read the bible until Cohen. The thing is, I don't know that I've ever needed to hear the Lord the way I need to now. Before I could just glean the wisdom and truth and knowledge of God in scripture as it was written then and it spurred me on and fueled me and excited me. But now I find myself in a foreign land of desperation. That sounds so high school girl dramatic, I know. But I really feel pretty desperate to have the Lord close. Not just big and huge and sovereign. But near. So close that he feels like he's sitting on the couch with me. So near that I can actually hear him talk and even smell his breath. Except he probably doesn't have bad breath, right, because he's perfect and all. I need him like this. So I need the bible not to be just words that I'm supposed to read and get knowledge about him from. I need the bible to also be him speaking. To me. Right to me. Which it does.

So that's where I was that week. Asking the Lord to speak like that. Right to my heart. And here's what he said...

In Acts 8 there is this itty bitty account of the disciple Philip. The Lord sends an angel to tell Philip to go to this desolate, desert place. The angel literally just gives him the location in the desert place to go to. So Philip goes and he comes across this Ethiopian man who is reading scripture in his chariot as he is traveling. He's reading a portion of the Old Testament that is prophecy about Jesus. So Philip walks up to him and says, "Do you understand what you are reading?" And the guy says, "No. Not unless someone explains it to me." Then Acts says that in response to the Ethiopian wanting it explained to him Philip, "told him the good news about Jesus."

So I'm the Ethiopian at the moment. Feeling like, "Lord, I can't understand anything right now unless you explain it to me." That's what I meant when I said "Help me." And in that one verse I heard the Lord. "And Philip told him the good news about Jesus." The good news about Jesus. That's what the Lord started talking to me about. Jesus. I'm crying on my couch asking for help and he says to me, "Remember the good news about Jesus." Jesus is what makes earth and this life not what I hope for. Jesus makes eternity what I hope for. If this was it, if this world is all there is, then I've got nothing to hope in except a life full of being sad with the occasional week of smiling and laughing. The good news of Jesus is that I am saved and redeemed for an eternity of good and joy and perfection and purpose. One of no pain or sadness or anxiety or confusion. Because of Jesus brokenness and death will end and I will experience the fullness of joy. I will see in full what I don't really even see in part now.

I think I keep mistaking the brokenness of this world, Cohen's death, as a lack of God's love for me. But Jesus is the evidence of the depth of God's love for me. The depth of his love is too much for me to comprehend and it is why I can't always see that his sovereignty is also full of love. How I long to see in full. Until I do, the Lord has to remind me of the good news about Jesus every minute of my day.

There it is. Our first virtual coffee date. You might not ever ask again how I'm doing. Or to get a cup of coffee with me for that matter:)

and just so you can have a picture of Pearce I'll tack one on of me and P Diddy from our recent trip to Cannon Beach..