Five more sleeps

So five more sleeps before the big day arrives. 

Christmas has arrived big style in my house this year! For the first time in my 33 years I am responsible for Christmas dinner and whats worse not just Christmas dinner but Christmas dinner with the mother in law. 

I have made list after list, I have even googled Christmas dinner shopping lists, and its amazing what I have found. On one website I came across a step by step planner and a timetable on what needs to be done when. This disturbed me as the preparation and planning starts in November. Oh well if I live to tell the tale it will come in useful next year.

I do however have a nice timetable for the next five days, it includes the important things like getting my nails done and a visit to the hairdresser, need to get the priorities right. Somewhere this week I will fit in shopping, work and wrapping but if all goes pear shaped I will have nice nails and hair. 

In the midst of all the panic, stress and, I hate to admit, the commercialism lies the reason for Christmas and at sometime this week I hope we reflect on the miracle of Christmas, the reason for Christmas. I wonder how much planning went into that first Christmas, I know there were no Google for lists that's for sure. But there was a plan, the greatest plan ever, a plan that began before the beginning of time and that ends in eternity. The plan to save us. A plan made by someone far greater than you or I, someone who doesn't crack under pressure but someone whose heart breaks when his children turn away. God had a plan he gave his son we know the story Jesus in a manger, the shepherds, the wise men, Mary, Joesph and it goes on. But Christmas doesn't end in the stable it just begins there. 

I read Max Lucado's daily posting this morning, he talks about no room in the inn. There was no room for the couple and the baby maybe they felt like we do on Christmas Eve that mad rush, the panic. But what about the room in our lives, just how much room do we give to really think about the miracle of Christmas. we may not give God that much room in our busy lives but he has plenty of room for us, plenty of time and he waits. 

So my challenge to myself this week is to make room...not just time for the shopping, the beautifying, but time for me and God, time to listen, time to be still. As in the carol Holy night Silent night..all is calm! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRSSsNbF29I

Think about it...

PS All may not be calm come Christmas day and I have to say I have a new found respect for my Mother...:-)

Don't doubt in the dark what you have seen in the light

On Sunday I was reminded how often we 'forget' ..I know how often I forget that's for certain. Personally I am referring to Gods promises, the good things he has done for me and all the hope that I have. Oh its easy to remember these and 'rejoice' over these things when the going is good, when lifes path is smooth, but the moment I hit that bump in the path, or enter that tunnel I seem to loose grasp of everything I know. I am a bit of a stress head at times, I think it comes with being so anal :-) I like to know the ins and outs of everything and I just HAVE to know how things will pan out. Sometimes I look too far ahead, not good when having a son with a  progressive illness, but I just need to know. But what I NEED to sometimes is take a step back and remember. So when life gets a little bit crazy and a little bit fraught, when I am in a tunnel rather than on a mountain dancing, I need to listen to that still small voice of calm ..yep within this manic red haired girl, there is one, and I need to remember the promises and the hope.

I did this this morning in the car, I shut out the craziness of the traffic announcements, the radio ads and the general noise, I didn't check Facebook when stuck in traffic. I just sang and during that 30 minute commute into work I remembered God, the lover of my soul, who has set me on a solid rock, up and out of the crappy clay!!

Ah I will still use my lists, my excel sheets and my google calendar to keep my life organised, probably much to my husbands dismay, but I will learn that above all things, above the greatest organisational tools I can use I have someone in control, who has promised me more finances than my excel sheet shows, more time than my calendar allows and more hope and promise than anyone can ever deliver.

Take some time..remember  and don't ever doubt in the dark what has been seen in the light.
oh and one last thing, in the storm always look for the rainbow and in the dark look for the stars......

SO!!! here I am a blogger!! I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, or what I am going to write apart from my Blog title which is Me, God and the olive tree. What on earth does that even mean? Well it was a sentence that came into my head one very hot and sunny evening whilst I was holidaying on a Greek Island this year. Sat outside our apartment reflecting on my life, as you do, pondering on the greatness of Gods grace, thinking of all the things that had happened and how things had changed. whilst considering all of this I was scared..scared I would loose that intimacy that God and I had built up, I just wanted to sit there in the presence of God..hence Me God and the Olive tree..


So from very humble and simple beginnings the blog is born.