Category — General

Tonight I enjoyed a bowl of Bailey’s spiked ice cream while sitting in my living room lit only by Christmas lights. I spent a lot of time last year working on garlands and wreaths, and this year I just have to hang them all up. So hurrah!!

This morning Mike preached about Christ who is crowned as King. He had a great quote from the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “Christ carries out the office of a King in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all His and our enemies.” Wow, what more can I add to that, except that I hadn’t really thought about some of those qualities of Christ before, or at least in those words.

We’ve been wanting to do a Hersman family picture for awhile – what do you think?? (Don’t worry, we did some serious ones too!)

Some things that I’m thankful for right now:

• A God who deeply loves me and cares for me, who sent His Son to save me, and gave me His Word to teach and encourage me
• A husband who loves me and who loves my children (whom I also love!)
• The opportunity to love and be loved by so many people – my wonderful family and friends
• That God gave us the courage to make the decision for Erik to work on his consulting business full time and for me to work 3 days a week as a Nurse Practitioner – the Lord has brought such joy and contentment to our household with Erik not working a traditional job.
• The family I was born into, the family I married into, and the family Erik and I have produced
• Even though I’ve only worked my new job for one day in the clinic so far, I think I’ll really enjoy it. And more importantly, God has given me a real peace that He will care for Erik and the girls while I’m at work
• The opportunity to spend 11 whole days with most of my family at Christmas time, and for all of us to be together for a few of those days. I worried for months that I wouldn’t be able to get that time off, but God provided (again!!)

I’ve always thought this map was really cool – so I stole it from Erik’s Flickr to show it to you.

The girls and I have been working on learning a simplified version of the children’s catechism that my dad wrote for us when we were kids. I’ve been impressed at how well they’re doing.

Catechism question # 11 – Can you see God?
Meredith: God can’t see me because the clouds are in the way.

Lauren was singing the doxology to me yesterday:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. . .
Praise Him above ye heavenly ho

Lauren, sweetie, it doesn’t sound like whore, but is hosts – it means angels!!

I just finished a wonderful week with my mom – what a privilege to have her here.  We went to Kelly Park, the pool (x2), Biblestudy, and LIFE group, among other things.  She made Wordless books and bracelets with the kids, a cake, and read endless books and told many stories.  It was especially fun to hear the stories she told about our family, and our adventures.

For those of you who don’t go to my church, I’m one of the authors on our Women’s Ministry blog Craving Grace. This last week we shared about Godly Women who’ve impacted our lives.

I wanted to link to the post that I wrote about one of my best friends, my mom. I also just wrote about a wonderful children’s Bible, The Jesus Storybook Bible.

We had a fun day today celebrating Erik’s birthday (and day off) by going to Kelly Park. Floating down the lazy river, playing in the shallow water and the sand, eating take-away Outback Wings for dinner when we got home – it was a good day.

In honor of Erik, I’m going to tell you some of the things I love and appreciate and admire about Erik:

• his love for the girls and I
• the fun adventures Erik takes us on – from outings around town to a spur-of-the-moment overnight trip to Melbourne last summer
• his loyalty to family and friends
• his passion for Africa and desire to impact Africa with his gifts
• his trust in the Lord and His care and provision for us
• his love for reading
• his laid-back and flexible approach to life
• his visionary-ness – Erik has so many new ideas, and loves to talk about them with me – I enjoy learning about all these different topics, as well as sharing in the adventures with him

I could go on, but will spare you my sappiness. But I do want to honor Erik today. I am so thankful that the Lord gave him to me to be my husband and the father of my children. Happy birthday, sweetie!!