Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

As we celebrate the birth of our sweet Savior, this Christmas our family is reminded more than ever of the gift of "Immanuel"- our God with us. We have needed Him to be with us more than ever. And He has kept His promise.

It's been an amazing year. Yet some times it feels like the hardest year we've been through, especially the past few months. Still we know He's been right there walking by our side. He's gone before us and stood in the places we walked into before we ever got there. We asked Him to prepare a place for us in those unknown places. And we have found evidence of His faithfulness each time. We have seen His hand. We have felt His power. And our hearts have been guarded by His peace that surpasses our understanding. All throughout the year we've known the gift of His presence.

And, as many of you know, we also received a very special Christmas gift this year! The gift of Aster.

It's been so wonderful to have her here in the months leading up to Christmas. Each night as I swaddle her up and hold her close in my arms before putting her to bed, I look into her eyes and imagine what Mary must have felt. After enduring the difficulties of her unexpected pregnancy, having to leave her family and travel to a land so unknown, I imagine her holding Jesus in her arms and thanking God for trusting her with this assignment - to be Jesus' mother. Oh how blessed she was for believing that what He had promised would be accomplished.

How blessed we have been in believing God would be "with us" when He called us to adopt a baby. I am so thankful for the gift of His joy through Jesus' love tucked in the heart and smile of our sweet baby girl!

Never before has God's desire to adopt us as HIS children been more real than it is now.

"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. " Ephesians 1:4-6

Our overwhelming love for her has changed us in ways that only Love could do. And yet even more than our love for her, she helps us see how great our Father's love is for us!

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" 1 John 3:1

Our prayer is that Aster's story would somehow translate God's love story for so many other people than just us. We are praying that each person who knows us, or is getting to know us through her adoption, would know the width and depth and height and breadth of God's love for you. Love that surpasses knowledge (in our head) so that it can supernaturally satisfy every need and longing in our hearts.

Love has gotten us through recent trials. Love has bound our hearts together and kept us near to Him and each other. It is His Love that we are putting our trust in as we wait for my biopsy next week. It is His Love that met us in the Doctor's office Monday and gave us the time we needed with a busy surgeon to ask a lot of questions and get a lot of answers.

It is that Love that will be with my dad as he goes into quadruple bypass heart surgery today, (that we just found out about Monday night). It is that Love who will open dad's heart to physical and spiritual healing It is Love we are asking to guide the hands of his surgeon and BE the hand that reach down from Heaven because He is the Great Physician.

It is Love that transforms, renews, heals, restores, redeems and remains. My prayer for you this Christmas is that HIS love touches your heart and your life in the way you need Him most. Thanks for loving me so abundantly these days with your prayers, words, faith and encouragement. You have been His love with skin on!

Sweet Christmas blessings from my heart to yours!