{Holiday Dates}

It's been a while since I've published a post. The end of the year is a busy, busy time within the ministry. Thanksgiving banquets, Christmas musicals, decorating and Christmas Eve service seem to consume most of the time during the day and by the time I get home, after cooking dinner, all I want is a relaxing bath, pjs, snuggling with my man and sleep! But this Thanksgiving vacation has given me time to relax, enjoy time with family and catch up. Today, as I sit snuggled up on my parent's couch by the fire, watching Madea Christmas [we LOVE anything Madea!!], while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner with our family, I started thinking about all the fun things that go on during the holidays. 

This is my absolute favorite time of year! Starting November 1, there is such an excitement in our house as we gear up for Thanksgiving and Christmas, not to mention our anniversary at the beginning of November and Bryson's birthday at the beginning of December, both which add to the excitement. I always let Bryson choose the type of birthday party he wants and we go ALL OUT for it! I remember as a little girl, birthday parties were my favorite and my parents made me feel so special...I want the same for Bryson. Even if he's not with us on his actual birthday (luckily he is for this year and the next), we always make sure he has a big party and HE is celebrated! [This year its Ninja Turtles...I never thought I'd have so much Ninja Turtle stuff in my life!] November and December are busy times, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Whether you need something to do as a family or a special date night for just you and your special someone, here is a list of 11 holiday dates we've enjoyed!

| Decorating the House | If you're anything like me, there are 2 times to decorate the house: Fall/Thanksgiving and Christmas, each of which have just as many decorations! I used to want my house to have the cutest decorations, placed in the perfect spot. Now, our best decorations are the ones made by our sweet Bryso! 

Bryson painting his THANKFUL tree this year

Making a date night out of it with the whole family is so much fun! Drinking hot cider or hot cocoa, turning on some music and decorating together makes for such a fun night! 

Every year, we go and pick out our trees together. Bryson gets a small one for the porch and together we pick out the big one for our living room. We turn on Christmas music, pull out all the decorations, drink hot cocoa and decorate. Bryson always puts the first ornament on the tree. Sweet memories we will have forever! 

| Tacky Christmas Sweater Party | Bryant and I love hosting parties! Whether it's a football party, birthday party, Valentine's Day party or Christmas party, we love it! This year we're having a tacky Christmas sweater party with some of our friends. I can't wait! We're setting up a screen outside and watching a movie by the fire, playing dirty Santa, Quelf, and having lots of yummy food!...and, we get to see who has the best tacky Christmas sweater. I'm so excited!

| Movie Night Under the Stars | My husband is amazing and created the best date night at home a few weeks ago. He took one of our mattresses, carried it downstairs and outside in our side yard. He hung lights, made a fire and set up a movie underneath the stars. It was the most romantic, relaxing date nights ever! It literally looked like something out of a magazine when I walked outside. He's wonderful and I'm so thankful that the Lord saved Him for me! 

Our perfect date night

| Gingerbread House | Gingerbread houses are a tradition around our house. Every year we watch Polar Express at my parent's house and make gingerbread houses. Bryson loves to decorate the house and it somehow always ends up caving in and making a mess, but we have the best time doing it and that's all that matters to me!

| Mountain Getaway | It's a little more than a date night...it's more like a date weekend, but...we love the mountains! So, for our 1 year anniversary, we took a getaway trip to the mountains. We stayed away from social media, our phones and spent time enjoying time together and our amazing surroundings. We stayed at a little bed and breakfast in Lakemont, GA, Lake Rabun Hotel . They were celebrating 92 years of being in business. It was perfect and I would highly recommend it to anyone else! The restaurant within the hotel was phenomenal! The head chef was named top chef in America in 2013 and it was certainly evident. We spent the first afternoon hiking waterfalls [we LOVE hiking], shopping in Helen, GA and cozied up by the fire while playing board games and the second day was spent horseback riding. It was absolutely wonderful! 

Our perfect anniversary getaway weekend!

| Christmas Movie Marathon | Personally, I would recommend the Home Alone movies, but whatever Christmas movies you choose, get in your pjs, pop some popcorn (make sure to put m&ms in the popcorn so you have the salty and sweet going on), open a Coke and watch as many Christmas movies as you can. There's nothing like being lazy on the couch all day long! Although my busy schedule doesn't allow it often, but during this holiday season, I make sure to plan at least one lazy day somewhere in there. 

| DIY Gifts | One of my favorite things to do is DIY projects. Give me a cup of coffee, my pjs and a DIY project and I'll be set for days! This year, some of our Christmas presents to people we work with and family friends are personalized Christmas plates with our famous Neiman Marcus homemade cookies on top. My husband isn't big on sitting around and painting plates, but to have dinner at home, put on a football game for him and let me paint, it's the perfect relaxing date night! I love the way the plates have turned out! I can't wait for everyone to get them. Not to mention, the numerous orders I've had placed from other people...I've got lots of work to do! 

Makes the perfect gift for teachers too! This one is for Bryson's Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Melton, who has been absolutely incredible to us and we love her so much! 

| Ornament Making Party | This is something new we're adding this year. The week before Christmas, we're having a ornament making party at my mom's house. We invited some of Bryson's friends, we'll watch a Christmas movie, bake cookies and all the kids will be able to make an ornament for their tree. Everyone is so excited! 

| Lights | This tradition started many, many years ago when my sisters and I were small. My parents take us every year to Fantasy In Lights at Callaway Gardens. We always ride the trolly, go see Santa Claus and take tons of pictures. I have carried that tradition over into my family. Bryson LOVES going to see the lights. This year, one of my closest friends, Tierney, is coming in from med school right before Christmas and will be joining us for our Fantasy In Lights trip! 

Last year at Fantasy In Lights 

| Ice Skating | I am terrible at ice skating! TERRIBLE! When I was younger, my parents took us snow skiing every year. One of the evenings, they decided to take us ice skating. After two sprained ankles and many tears, I came to the conclusion that ice skating and I don't mix. Recently, I've given it another try. I obviously haven't perfected the ice skating skill (see pictures below) but it's more fun now! And it makes the perfect date night...especially during the holidays! 

Ice skating...well, falling...

| Bonfires | Last but not least, bonfires! They're a favorite of ours! Sitting around a fire, making s'mores and laughing with my favorite boys makes for the best date night! 

Making s'mores with the most handsome guy around! 

My prayer is that this season is filled with the hope, love and peace of Jesus Christ! All my love ~Chelsea 

the bypassed temptation

Temptations are thrown your way everyday. Some may be considered "small" in your eyes and others considered as the "danger zone" temptations, but regardless of how we try to classify them, they're always present. We often hear about the obvious, "really bad" ones such as adultery, drunkenness, drugs, sex before marriage, stealing, and so on...but, I think there's one that is more present within our lives than we feel comfortable acknowledging. [the temptation to give up.] 

A picture I took about 4 years ago while I was in school at Southeastern University in Lakeland, FL. It wasn't the best time in my life, but this picture reminds me of all the Lord pulled me through and how gracious He is! 

Have you ever read through parts of the old testament and asked, what is the point of this book? Take Lamentations for example. If you have never read through this book, let me go ahead and warn you, its quite depressing. The name itself, Lamentations, means the passionate expression of grief or sorrow; weeping. All 5 chapters are filled with sorrow, hurt and despair. The first part of chapter 3 specifically, is a cry of hopelessness and many times, looks like situations we've found ourselves in.  It's easy to think about the obvious temptations; ones that we've been taught as children and young adults to fight or steer clear from...but how do you fight the temptation to give up? When you've taken all you can and everything within is begging for you to wave that white flag in surrender...when your situations often mirror the desperate cries found within books of the Bible such as Lamentations...how do you resist and conquer the temptation of giving up completely? The answer, as always, is found within the Word of God. Here are the top 5 ways I've found from within The Word. 

.one. [allow the Lord access to all situations, no matter how hopeless] 
The author of Lamentations is not known, although most people like to think the prophet Jeremiah wrote the book. Jeremiah, was a mighty warrior of God; one that was called to preach the gospel to the crumbling Israel, begging them to repent. He was known as the weeping prophet because of his urgency and tears of sorrow that were shed while pleading with his people to turn back to God. Eventually, because of the rejection and non compliance of his people, discouragement and depression got the best of him. His cries are recorded in Jeremiah 15 and the despair within his writing is evident. If not for any other reason, (which I know there are many other reasons I have not yet seen) Lamentations was written to show us that despair comes to all. This life is not an easy thing to live. Depression can easily slip in. If it overtook a mighty prophet used by the Lord such as Jeremiah, what makes us think it won't affect us? Lamentations shows the battles this life can create, but also shows the desperate situations we can find ourselves in; situations that the Lord is able to step in and be the lifter of our heads if we allow Him to. The only way to overcome the temptation to give up is to allow God to carry you through it, meaning He has to have access to everything...even that painful past or dark secret you feel your can't let go of. 

.two.[guard yourself] 
When you're in a place of brokenness and despair, it gives satan the perfect opportunity to sneak in and destroy what joy you may have and steal any hope for the future. The perfect example of this is laid out in Nehemiah 4. Nehemiah had been called to lead a team to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, but the task before him seemed to be much more than he could bear. 

"Then the people of Judah said, 'The work crews are worn out, and there is too much rubble. We can't continue to rebuild the wall.' Our enemies said, 'Before they know what is happening or see a thing, we will be right in the middle of them. We'll kill them and bring the work to an end'. " Nehemiah 4:10-11

When the mountain in front of you seems too big for you to handle, its easy to become fatigued, frustrated & allow the fear of failure to creep in. Nehemiah's team began calling out all the reason why they couldn't rebuild the wall. [the crew is worn out. there was too much rubble. our enemies will only destroy it again and kill us.] Many times, when life gets hard, we begin throwing out all the reasons why we can't do something...at least, I know I have time and time again. [the money just isn't there; i can't get over what they did to me; i'm not good enough to do this; they just make life too hard.] The reasons can go on and on...but, instead of calling out the reasons why you can't, try calling out the one reason why you can: 

"If God be for us, who can be against us?...What will separate us from the love Christ has for us?...I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. We can't be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything n the future, by forces or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation." Romans 8:31, 35, 38-39. 

If you continue reading, [I would highly recommend reading through the story for yourself, but for now, I'm going to paraphrase] you see Nehemiah quickly reminds the crew of who they are serving and that the Lord had already taken care of their enemies. Because Jews lived near their enemies, they over heard their plans to attack and sent warning to Nehemiah. Nehemiah then positioned armed people around the wall with swords, spears and bows. He reminded them to not be afraid of the enemies and to remember how great their God is. Word got back to the enemies that Nehemiah knew of their plan to attack and the Lord had prevented it from happening. Many times, the things you're worried about in life, the Lord has already prevented them from happening; don't give up when hard times hit- learn to trust Him in  all times and know that He protects His children! 

.three.[first things first] 
I want to go back to the 1st chapter of Nehemiah. The book is opened by the horrible news of the persecution of the Jews in Jerusalem and the destruction of the walls. If you read the first chapter, before Nehemiah begins crafting his plan to rebuild, before he sets out on his journey to Jerusalem and even before he asks the King's permission to rebuild the walls, Nehemiah sits down and prays to the Lord. 

"When I heard this, I sat down and cried. I mourned for days. I continued to fast and pray to the God of Heaven." Nehemiah 1:4

Its okay to cry...too often I keep my feelings inside and somehow have adopted the mentality that crying is for the sissy girls whose emotions are a wreck. But, Nehemiah, a man used of God, weeped and mourned when he heard the news of Jerusalem, a place he loved dearly...it's okay to cry! But, after you get done crying, don't call it quits and give up. Don't give into the temptation of surrendering to the troubles of this life. Call out to the Lord and allow Him to intervene! 

.four.[fresh vision]
The easiest way to set yourself up for giving in is by staying in the exact same spot, thinking the exact same way & revisiting the exact same heartache. After the initial pain (that everyone will have at some point within life) allow the Lord to bring fresh vision. Allow Him to renew that passion you once had & rekindle the fire. If you continue to focus on the bad, the failure or the hurdle, you're always going to face the temptation to give up. After Nehemiah was broken, crying out to the Lord for help, he didn't just stay there. No! He got up and did something about it. 

"During the night I went out with a few men without telling anyone what my God had inspired me to do for Jerusalem." Nehemiah 2:12

He allowed the Lord to inspire Him and from there, he acted on that and began taking steps to rebuild the wall. 

.five.[press on]
 The wall was rebuilt in 52 days. Considering the people Nehemiah had and the conditions in which they were building, 52 days was amazing! It certainly grabbed the attention of their enemies:

"The wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Elul. The wall took 52 days to finish. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence. They realized we had done this work with the help of our God." Nehemiah 6:15-16

If you fight the temptation of giving up and you press on, I can promise you, your enemies will see the Lord's hand working in you, whether they want to or not. When life gets the hardest, those who are critical of Christianity watch to see how you handle the hard times. 

"We also brag when we are suffering. We know that suffering created endurance, endurance creates character, and character creates confidence." Romans 5:3-4

Press on! Don't give up! Sometimes you have to look your enemy in the eyes, whether that be an actual person, a sickness, a task that is more than you can handle, a situation, a certain temptation, whatever it may be, and remind them who goes before you, just as Nehemiah did:

" 'The God of Heaven will give us success,' I answered them. 'We, his servants, are going to rebuild. You have no property or claim or historic right in Jerusalem.' " Nehemiah 2:20

Remind satan that he has no place in your life and that you WILL rebuild! You will carry on! You will finish the work the Lord called you to! 
_________________________________________________________________________________

I don't know what you're going through; I don't know the battles that you face. I do, however, know that although our circumstances may not be identical, we all have things that weigh on us; things that try to pull us down and force the white flag of surrender to go up. 

Go back to the very beginning of the blog when I opened up with Lamentations. After Jeremiah desperately cries out to the Lord, something begins to happen. HOPE.

"But this I recall and therefore have hope and expectation: It is because of the Lord's mercy and loving kindness that we are not consumed, because His tender compassions fail not." Lamentations 3:21-22

Don't give up...keep pressing on! His word promises that you will not be consumed, He will go before you & He will protect you...and as I've said many times before, He's the most faithful promise maker you'll ever meet! 

All my love ~Chelsea 

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." -Albert Einstein