Crazy Moore Thanksgiving

With marriage comes the merging of families and since John has 3 siblings, that creates a lot of schedules to coordinate for holidays. When it comes to Thanksgiving, the Moores always celebrate the weekend before, which was today. We tend to be a crazy, fun-loving group with no shortage of laughter, food and some sort of injury each time we get together (however today we managed to escape injuries). There's always something crazy going on with the kids, due to the broad range of ages of the cousins. My nephew, Dustin is the oldest at 21 years old and my niece, Emily is the youngest at 2 years old with many more cousins of all ages in between.

The Christmas Costume Group

As with most holidays, we gathered at John's brother's house since it is ginormous and has an indoor and outdoor kitchen that can accommodate the mass amounts of food we prepare and devour. For the second year in a row, the turkey was cooked in the wood-burning pizza oven. Other regular food staples included grandpa Roger's home-made bread, cheese & crackers, baked potatoes dripping with butter, a fresh baked pizza from the pizza oven, a to-die-for dessert chocolate pizza also from the pizza oven and lots of wine. Needless to say, we ate well!

Ryely gives Kiley a piggy-back, while Kiley gives Collin a piggy-back.

Ryely with Kiley & Makenna.

We were all so happy that my nephew, Ryely, was able to fly home from college in Indiana to join us, it just wouldn't be the same without him. We were also thrilled to have John's Uncle John and Aunt Barbara join us from Northern California and my niece Piper's boyfriend, Jon. Yes, lots of Johns in this family. They got a taste of our craziness when half the family put on Christmas costumes and paraded around. They also joined in on a wide range of conversations including, spiders, morphing cockroaches, the amount of tissues it takes to kill a spider, Facebook quizzes, calculus, physics, public stupidity, who's the crazy aunt, Italian irons and mastering wine tasting. Yes, another Moore Thanksgiving has come and gone, but with Christmas just a month away, it won't be long for the craziness to begin again!

Go Away Flu!

Flu season is upon us and it chose to peek its sneaky head in our home. I already endured 2 kidney stones in just a 3 week period of time when just 3 days after passing the second stone, the flu hit and knocked me out for a good solid 9 days! John was it's next victim, but fortunately he had a much lighter version of it. Makenna was next with a real knock-out like mine. It probably didn't help that she competed in a swim meet the day before it hit her. To make matters worse, she competed in 2 long events, completely exhausting herself. Because of the weekend, she only missed 3 days of school, but unfortunately, one of them was the annual school Walk-And-Roll-A-Thon. :( For me, all this flu meant nearly 2 weeks stuck in the house! Now, I know I needed rest and some time to catch up on a few things at home, but God really knocked it to me. I spent 4 solid days in bed unable to do anything but sleep and catch up on everything on Tivo. Yes Lord, thank you for the rest. I then had lots of time to organize my office, do laundry, iron and everything else I needed to get done. I may have gone a little crazy while in confinement, but God reminded me that He's provided me with a home to live, a family to love and care for and friends that helped run the kids around. I am blessed!

Grace & Redemption

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

Grace is a word I've used to define my life. By "grace," I mean God's unbelievable gift of forgiveness despite my unworthiness. It took me a long time to truly wrap my mind around God's grace. It wasn't until my early 30's that I completely let go of the guilt and shame I'd carried with me up until that point. Although I had been a Christian for awhile at that point, I hadn't released everything to Him. As much as I loved the Lord and had faith in Him, I was still holding onto several aspects of my life; I went with His Will only when it was my will and for some unexplainable reason, I just couldn't let go of that guilt and shame. Although the circumstances that caused that shame were so painful, I'd lived with that pain so long that it had become a part of me. It wasn't until the months following John's accident that I poured myself into prayer and scripture in a way I never had before. During that time, God convicted my heart so much that I slowly released my firm grasp on my guilt and shame. I AM a child of God and God loves me NO MATTER what. My sins died with Christ on that cross and I've been washed white as snow, as long as I'm willing to receive it. Wow! How sweet it is to rest in His grace!

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace. Ephesians 1:7

Around my mid 30's a new word started to define my life. That word is redemption. God's redemption didn't replace His grace, rather, it complimented it. As you see from the verse above in Ephesians, grace and redemption go hand-in-hand. I know God's redeeming love has always been with me, but around that time in my life, the circumstances of that period of my life gave redemption a whole new meaning to me. I was walking through another "growth spurt," in other words, I was going through a difficult time where God was molding me and growing my faith. Some of the things I had began to "expect" to always be there for me, were being moved around and even some were being completely removed from my life. I'm sure many of you can relate to how uncomfortable it is to be removed from your "comfort zone." That's when God's sweet redemption was poured out on me. Our God is a REDEEMER and whatever He takes from us is for our own good and He is ALWAYS faithful to redeem and ALWAYS gives back in great measure. In my case, I count everything I lost as well worth all He gave back to me because of my faith and obedience to His call on my life.

Now, back to my early 30's, as I accepted God's grace, I made a decision that marked me permanently......literally! I had the word "grace" tattooed on my abdomen. So, now the question lingers......do I now add the word "redeemed?"