Thursday, December 25, 2014

He came in a manger

Last night was my first experience at midnight mass. I enjoyed it. Although admittedly the Christmas candlelight service is still my favorite by far. I missed that this year. In the homily the priest pointed out that Christ came in a manger, to one of the messiest places on earth instead of to a throne. He came to a barn with smelly animals and to a bed made of hay. I don't often think of how awful it must have smelled in the barn. Normally we talk about how Jesus was born here because He was born humbly. Which is also true. But the priest made an important new point. We often are afraid of how messy our lives are and are afraid to ask Jesus to be involved unless we have everything all together. We are never going to have everything all together for one. And Jesus made a point by coming in a manger. He wants to be a part of our mess. He wants to help us right where we are at. Bad smells and all.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Proposal

A few months before, I was laughing and Nick said I was like a little hyena. I didn't like that so I told him I was more like a little tiger with my claws up for effect. He now loves calling me his little tiger. We love going to the zoo. We especially have fun watching the baby tigers. Potter Park Zoo was having a wonderland of lights during Christmastime (December 28, 2012) so we had to go. We wandered around looking at the lights and animals and eventually ended up in the tigers den. It was busy in there, but the monkeys started howling, which woke up the lion. He started roaring loudly back and all the people went down to that end. We went to check out what was happening as well, but then Nick brought me back to the tigers. He was holding me close and started to tell me he loved me just as I was starting to say "I love the animals! Oops, I mean I love you too!" He asked me if I would be his little tiger forever and I said yes. Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I started tearing up and immediately said "yes!" I am marrying a man who loves me and is always willing to be ridiculous with me.