Christmas

Megan and I had a wonderful Christmas this year!  On Christmas Eve we got to spend time with Megan's family in Decatur, spend time with my Grandma Eva and my dad's family before going to the great Christmas Eve Service at CrossRoads Christian Church.  Then Megan and I went home and opened the gifts that we got for each other.

On Christmas day Megan and I slept in a little bit, then we got up and went over to Brock & Emily's to give them the gift we got them and Ryker the gift that we got him!  Ryker's first Christmas was quite something.  He has all kinds of stuff that he'll remember this one from.  Megan and I got to take some pictures of the Dieu family together, hang out and just talk for a little while, but then it was on to the next.

We went to Sue & Fred's to exchange gifts between Sue & Fred, Katie, and Chas (Katie's boyfriend).  We ate brunch with them, exchanged gifts and it was off again.  The next stop was my parents' house where we were having all of my mom's family over for lunch and exchanging more gifts.  Everyone had a really good time, but my Uncle Bob wasn't able to make it this year.  Megan and I are going to be going with my parents and my sister and her boyfriend to an NBA basketball game in March!

After spending time with my mom's side of the family, it was time to see Megan's mom's side of the family.  We drove out to Mark & Cindy's house where everybody was getting together.  Of course we ate some more food and exchanged gifts, but then it was time to play some games.  So there was a group of 9 that sat around the dining room table and played Apples to Apples for like 2 or 3 hours!  It was a lot of fun and a great way to end the night.  There were a lot of laughs!

The Season

Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror and Christmas is coming fast.  Luckily Megan and I are taking some time during this busy season to spend relaxing.  We are going to go on a small trip to the other side of Ohio here pretty soon to see some of our good friends! (Ry & Heather).  We really miss seeing them and have talked about going to see them for awhile now.  So, it will be nice to get away a little bit during this crazy time of year and spend some relaxing time together and with some of the people we love.

If you get overwhelmed a lot during this time of year, maybe you should save some vacation time for just this season.  Take a couple days off and go for a short vacation, even if it's just to relax and do nothing.  It makes its so much more enjoyable to know that Megan and I are going to have a few days where we won't worry about anything except which way do we want to go to get to Ohio!

Celebration

I got to preach for our Wednesday night service last night.  I am going through a series right now that's focused around the History of Spiritual Formation.  After the first week, in which we redefined Spiritual Formation and showed that you can't be a judge of Spiritual Formation in others' lives, we moved on to ways of preparing our hearts for God to mold our hearts into what He wants this week.  

We looked back at Deuteronomy 16 and specifically talked about how God called the Israelites to Celebrate.  They were to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles.  And they were to celebrate every year, in order to pass these celebrations on to the generations to come.  God didn't want his people to forget about what God had done for them or how God is involved in their lives both through the good and the bad.  He was with them as they were slaves in Egypt, and He continued to be with them after He got them out of Egypt and they were wondering through the desert.  

After all my study about these celebrations, it really made me think about the Acts 2 church and how they got together daily.  And one of their reasons for getting together was to celebrate together as they added daily to their numbers.  They celebrated every day.

Why is it that we really only seem to celebrate the big stuff?  Why is it that we focus so much on Easter, Christmas, and Thanksgiving and leave out so many other chances to celebrate what God is doing in our lives, in our families, and in our relationships with friends?  

Today, I write all this because I want to celebrate my marriage.  Sure we have times where we disagree and we'd probably rather not be in a bad mood, but even in those times, we know that we love each other.  We know that we are going to be there for each other no matter what happens.  We are committed to God and committed to each other.  As we grow closer to God, we are going to continue to grow closer to each other, and one of the ways that we are going to do that is through celebrating our marriage!

Relaxing

We were able to spend some time at home this past weekend.  It was so nice to sit down together and play cards, eat dinner, and just enjoy some quiet relaxing moments.

Yesterday when Megan got home from work, dinner was ready and I had lit a wood wick candle, so we were able to eat our dinner with the sound of a small fireplace in the background accompanied by soft music.  Again, it was nice to sit down to a meal with just the two of us.  It's been really nice to have these times after seeming like we've been running from one thing to the next for so long.

I'm sure most people feel like things are going none stop, all the time, but we just didn't seem to have time for anything.  I can't wait until tonight.  We have some business to take care of with Life Insurance and things, but after that we should have another short time to eat dinner together and enjoy the evening.

Ketcherside Story

We were engaged on January 24th, 2009, and we got married September 19th, 2009.  Megan and I have been a couple for many years and now we are enjoying life together as husband and wife.  We like to go out with our friends and we spend a lot of time doing things with the church where we are members, CrossRoads Christian Church.

God is the essence of our lives.  We know that He is the most important one in our lives and we would never want to do anything without Him.  He's our Guide, Support, and Purpose to all of life.  We will never measure up to His expectations and thanks to Christ living a perfect life, dying on the cross and resurrecting again three days later, we don't have to worry about measuring up anymore.  He paid the price for us, and He has given us everything.

Megan is a nurse at a Family Practice Clinic in Cayuga, IN and I am the Associate Pastor at CrossRoads Christian Church in Danville, IL.  We know that our jobs are both important because we are serving people.  But our relationship with each other and with Christ is what we have to take care of before we can ever really help people with really important issues like living as a Follower of Christ.