It’s always been our custom as a married couple to sit down during the holidays and write a Christmas letter. We’ve seen it as a chance to reconnect with friends and family we don’t see very often, reflect on the year, and give thanks to God for his faithfulness to our family. It has always been one of the few non-negotiable to-dos during the Christmas season.
This year, it didn’t happen.
There are a number of reasons that it seemed downright impossible to accomplish this year, but there are three little blessings in particular who have been the primary reason for the delay in this letter. Little blessings that eat all day, create mounds of laundry, are unsatisfied unless every toy bin and cabinet has been emptied, and who, if left alone for 43 seconds, will find a way to climb on top of our minivan.
They are wonderful. We are busy.
It, however, did not seem right to ring in the new year without reflecting on the old, to begin anew without recounting what the Lord has done for us this year. We are overflowing with joy for what He has done, if a little exhausted from the journey.
One of the primary sources of that joy and fatigue is our dear little Genevieve Grace, who arrived on January 10th after a frantic 104 minutes of labor (including the drive to the hospital!).
The only way to adequately describe her is delightful: she has the sweetest little spirit, a gentle temperament, and the most infectious baby giggle one can imagine. She’s very active (now almost walking), but she always comes back to snuggle. We love her fiercely, and she has brought so much joy to our family in the past year. Still, the leap from two children to three has proved greater than we anticipated. After her stay in the hospital with meningitis, three months of sleeping in shifts because she wouldn’t suffer being put down, and recent lack of sleep due to colds and teething, we have discovered that parenthood may be weathered only with strength from the Father, caffeine, and grace. We could not have survived this year without any of these three.
As long as we are on the topic of additions, we have one more to share with you: in early August, Karriza, a friend from church, moved into our home. She needed a place to live and we were delighted to offer her our extra bedroom. She has quickly become a part of our family, affectionately referring to us as “Uncle Dan” and “Aunt Jill.” Originally from Guam, she shares our island sensibility and love of spam fried rice. She has been a blessing to all of us; the kids adore her and she has been a great source of help and companionship to Jill. Her presence in our home has been a tangible reminder that Christ makes family of those who are not. We are grateful to be able to live in true community, to bear each other’s burdens, to pray and encourage one another daily, and to pour out the grace we have received on one another.
We strive to make grace the heartbeat of our family, and nowhere is our need of grace more evident than in our parenting. We enjoy Ava and Timothy immensely, but we are always aware that we are sinful, broken parents bringing up sinful, broken kids. We fail constantly. It’s a pleasure to see how God uses even our failings and our shortcomings to shape them, and how He is priming their ears to receive the gospel every day. They are, of course, incredibly beautiful kids, and we have been blessed to continue to discover how God has made them.
This year has been one of discovery particularly for Tim, two-and-a-half, most notably because he is now talking so much. After six months of chronic ear infections and fluid on his ears, we decided that the wisest course of action was to have tubes put in. Since then, he has very quickly learned new words and is now speaking in full paragraphs! It’s been a joy to finally hear the things he’s thinking, though it’s revealed him to be more of a rascal than we previously gave him credit for. A rascal he may be, but he’s also a sweet little kid, the most conscientious of our bunch, the most likely to say “thank you” and truly mean it from the bottom of his little heart. It melts my heart to hear him say, “I loves you!” He’s going to make some girl a good husband one day.
Ava is now four-and-a-half, which doesn’t sound too daunting until I realize that she will be five in April and will start school in August. We still have not a clue what we are doing for schooling, but we have been doing reading lessons as often as time permits (perhaps once a week), and she is getting the hang of it. She is ever the social butterfly, and it makes my heart happy to see her love without reservation. She is gifted at making people feel loved and accepted, and I am constantly challenged to love people better because of her.
Together, Ava and Tim are a force—they lend new meaning to the term creative destruction. A few of their favorite things to do: play with Legos, build forts, pull the couch cushions onto the floor, play darkout, pretend they are anything they please, demand stories, and attempt to drive their mommy batty. They certainly keep Jill on her toes. She mostly finds herself in triage mode, trying to figure out what the most important thing to do is at any given moment. She fights daily to balance the tasks that keep the family running (laundry, cooking, cleaning) with those that keep the children feeling loved (reading, cuddling, playing). She is learning more and more a posture of dependence and that her approval from God doesn’t rest on how many of the items on her to-do list get checked off.
Daniel has struggled this year in different ways. His job had become progressively harder to bear—forcing him to work in a discouraging work environment, to pursue business in a difficult economic climate, and taking him to India again in October. Shortly after he returned from India, however, a new job opportunity presented itself at Halvorson & Partners, a firm in downtown Chicago. He accepted the offer and started a few weeks ago. He is excited to be working where his gifts are being used and where he is learning. We are so grateful to God for providing this opportunity for him.
We are ever more aware, as 2012 has closed and 2013 has begun, of the depth of God’s goodness toward us. We find ourselves more thankful for his grace, provision, and steadfast love toward us and confident that he will provide all we need in this new year. We pray that you would also hope in him this year.
Love,
Daniel, Jill, Karriza, Ava, Timothy, and Genevieve
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. ~Ephesians 3:20-21
