Christmas pictures

Thanks to my sister, I won't need to post pictures from Christmas. She created this awesome slideshow on her blog.

According to...

Peter.
Update number one from DC.
Before we arrived, Peter's room was cleaned. Deep cleaned. Dusting, vaccuuming, organizing occured. And new sheets were placed on the bed. Not by him, of course.
Then, Peter came home the night before we arrived. He, understandably, slept in his own bed.
He did what he normally does. He rolled into bed, with his clothes still on late in the evening. However, on this occasion, his normal, innocent action was detered.
As he slept, his nocturnal activity proved a demise to the great preparation effort made by my mother and sister. When he awoke, he found he had ground into the sheets small chocolates my sister had placed on the pillows.
Boy's eyes. The male powers of observation once again proved genetically deficient.

Departure

We are still in Phoenix. We delayed our departure for the holidays to DC a few days. We learned that there was a chance that our friends would be saying goodbye to their mother yesterday. We wanted to be available for them as this would be an understandably difficult day. We were grateful for the opportunity to serve them and stand by them as they walked through the "valley of the shadow of death" as a family.
Joneen Ross passed away sometime early yesterday morning. We were grateful for God's mercy to take her and not to prolong her struggle. According to the doctors I work with in private practice, only 5% of people survive her kind of heart attack, and of those, most live out the rest of their days in a nursing home.
The tragedy is very raw and real. The Ross family now faces Christmas, and life, without their mother, wife, grandmother and mother-in-law. Death may be inevitable, but always leaves us with the reality of loss. My mother said to me:

"...your compassion is from the Father’s heart….i just read again this morning from John 19 that “near the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden”….there is always a garden near our sorrows…a place where “he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am His own”

Her departure is felt deeply by our community. She was a wonderful beautiful woman of God. We will miss her. But we are grateful that she is with her Savior. That is our deepest comfort and abiding joy in the midst of sorrow.

Prayer needed

Please continue to pray for the Ross family as they continue to wait for the doctors to determine a safe time to monitor their mother's brain function. We wait with them, our prayers finding comfort in God's promises from 1 John 3:19

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, [4] and God [5] in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

Prayers are needed...

Please pray for our friends' mother, Joneen, as she remains in a coma after a heart attack last night. Please pray that the damage to her brain would be minimal and that God would be comforting the families and our friends though this time.