Merry Christmas!

I wish a Merry Christmas to all of you. Christmas is my favorite holiday because of what it means to me. Jesus came to earth as a baby. God with us. It is an amazing thing that too often we as christians take for granted. God is with us and will always be.

My family makes a big deal of Christmas. We start celebrating as soon as Thanksgiving is over. We put up decorations and observe the four Sundays of Advent. On Christmas Eve we open our presents and have a fancy dinner. We tell the Christmas story and have a wonderful time of hanging out with family. We continue celebrating on Christmas Day by emptying our stockings and having another wonderful dinner. The time spent between Christmas and New Year's is usually filled with more sweets, family time, and celebration. We finally end our Christmas celebration on January 6th with the visit of the Magi. Then we take down all our decorations.

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

This morning, when I woke up to go to morning prayer, it was raining. At first, I didn't want to go to get up and go but then I remembered that I had made up my mind to go yesterday and I wasn't going to change it. I drove carefully since it was the first rain in a while. The roads are extra dangerous during the first rain because there is still oil on the road. Oil and water make a bad combination. At least that is what everyone tells me. It started raining harder after I got back from prayer. I noticed that there was a huge puddle on the lawn outside of my room. Since my room was freezing cold I decided to go with my roommate to school. We got our stuff together and grabbed our umbrellas. Then we walked to the corner to cross the street. It was totally flooded around the corner. I had to step in and get wet. But then, when we got to the other side we realized that the water was deep. We waded through the almost knee deep water. There was no way around it. Once we had crossed I noticed that the water flooded half the street. I found it amazing that a city street would not have better drainage.

I won't be going back across the street until after my final this afternoon.

He is My Beloved

I was recently thinking about my purity ring again. When you wear something on your finger all the time it kind of stays in your mind. I wrote about my purity ring last year in October. You can find that post and read it if you want to. I was thinking a little deeper in the symbolism of my ring. I can look at my ring two different ways.

1) The cross is in my heart. The cross symbolizes Jesus' love for me. It also stands for Jesus Himself. He is the dearest thing to me. I love Him more than anything else. I will follow Him anywhere and will never let go of Him. I can't bear to separated from Him. I am utterly miserable without Jesus.

2) The heart is not mine it is Jesus' heart. The heart symbolizes His love for me. He loves me so much that He died for me. He has been pursuing me since I was conceived. He is the ultimate intimate lover of my soul.

So there are two ways of looking at my ring. It stands not only for my love and promise to God, but for His love and promise to me. Now my ring seems so much greater.