FROM MY CORNER......

Hello, family and friends! I trust that your holidays were happy and joyous ones, spent with those you love!

A lot has happened since I last wrote you. I’ve been home to PA for Christmas, been to New Orleans for a weekend project and…...I’ve switched positions within AIM! Yep, all within the space of two months! How crazy is that? But let me share all of this with you.

Oh, you might want to go grab a cup of something warm to drink so that you

Where to start…

In mid-December, the Fall Real Life Mission Teams returned home from India and Swaziland and had great things to share at their debrief in Atlanta. It was a joy to see them again and to hear of how God worked in and through their lives.

Two days after their return, I headed home to Pennsylvania for Christmas, to spend time with family and friends with those long familiar to me. Familiar faces, familiar landscape, familiar food - just all things familiar.

One thing that I did while there was work with my three sisters (Melissa, Sheila and Charlotte) on a family recipe book. We poured over Mom's old cookbooks (again, something familiar) to pull old recipes that we grew up on. The book was being made for all of the siblings (mine) and the nieces and nephews. The picture on the front was from my sister Charlotte's wedding last September of my sisters and I (we also have a brother, George).

Spending a day with my sisters has become an annual tradition for us since my move to Georgia, one that I enjoy as my sisters are three of the greatest women I know. Do we always see eye to eye on everything? No, we're sisters! (Besides, as the oldest of the four, I'm always right, don't you know?) :) But would we defend the others? You bet! (And this includes our brother, George, too!)

Seeing their children, my nieces and nephews (and great-niece), there has been definite change in the year since I saw them last. Different hairstyles, growing taller, graduation, and in the case of Emily (the great niece), walking and talking. Change.....

There was also change in the landscape of the area I'd moved from. Some new places went up, while old ones were renovated and turned into something new, or were torn down altogether. Change......

Old familiar friends.....those who mean a great deal to me as they have known me the longest, yet even in their lives, there has been change, whether in the physical or otherwise. For some, battling health issues has brought great change in what they're able to do. For others, the change comes in getting older and children leaving the nest. Change.....

Two definitions Webster gives for the word "familiar" are "well acquainted" and "well known". Two definitions for "change" are “to make different; alter" and "to become different; vary." How often we long for the familiar in life. Holding tightly to what we've known brings us comfort and security and yet......we long for change as it brings us to a place where we also long for more. To remainstatus quo isn't always the most satisfactory way to live life and God has placed Himself (through His Holy Spirit)within us and woos us to follow after Him. That means change, and sometimes in amazing and unforeseen ways.