Snow, Stuffed Ballerinas and Reflection

So it's snowed a few times in "The Big D" this past month. Somehow I seem to miss it most of the time because I'm out of town (be it OH or south TX)...but yesterday, I did observe some huge, beautiful snowflakes falling in this southern city. These native Texans (no offense if you are one) are HYSTERICAL with "winter weather advisorys"/warnings/"artic blast" (if it's below 50*!) and the de-icing of the planes at DFW. CRACKS ME UP. We are at war in a number of 'theaters', we had an underwear bomber try to do us in on Jesus' birthday and this is college football Bowl week--and the top story on all the news is that it will "plummet" to 48*!!! I LOVE IT!

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A completely un-related but almost more funny incident occurred when I reviewed my receipt from Tom Thumb (a.k.a. Randall's or Safeway in other parts of the country) on Monday...I confess I don't usually check it, but there was a particular sale that I wanted to be sure rang up correctly. Much to my confusion, I saw "STUFFED BALLERINAS" for $3.99 as one of the items. Hmmm...I did not buy, nor do I know what, a stuffed ballerina is. It's certainly not what was in my (they're worthless for re-using because they're so thin) Tom Thumb bag. By process of elimination it was one of these:

Apparently, somewhere in the giant, invisible world of UPC codes, someone entered "stuffed ballerinas" as what should come up when the UPC code for a candle-lighter was scanned. I'm sorry to admit I've thought long and hard about this and I can't for the life of me think of a correlation...so it just makes me smile and I hope you get a chuckle out of it as well!

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Today is New Year's Eve. Another year has come to a close. Everyone says it in their Christmas cards/letters, but I promise it's more and more true every year--time does FLY! It seems not very long ago that my niece was born (she's 2 now). It seems like last night when my good friend B had baby E...and it's been nearly 2 weeks. If time passes more quickly the older you get, then pretty soon I'll be ancient (never mind the fact I feel ancient sometimes...that's another post for another day...)

As I'm sure lots of us do, I try to be reflective at either the end of the year or the very beginning of the next...renumerating all the myriads of blessings from my gracious Heavenly Father...the prayers answered in ways I liked and asking for peace and patience for the prayers that were answered by "no, not right now" and/or "no, never." I'm guilty of this too, but why do we say "praise the Lord for answered prayer"???? God answers ALL our prayers--some with "yes", some with "no" and some with "wait"...but we seem to only give Him glory when the answer is "yes"...I know I'm very bad about this.

The Bible says in Psalm 116 (these verses are from The Message translation):

^{1 -6} I love God because he listened to me, listened as I begged for mercy.
He listened so intently
as I laid out my case before him.

Death stared me in the face,
hell was hard on my heels.
Up against it, I didn't know which way to turn;
then I called out to God for help:
"Please, God!" I cried out.
"Save my life!"

God is gracious—it is he who makes things right,
our most compassionate God.
God takes the side of the helpless;
when I was at the end of my rope, he saved me.

^{7 -8} I said to myself, "Relax and rest.
God has showered you with blessings.
Soul, you've been rescued from death;
Eye, you've been rescued from tears;
And you, Foot, were kept from stumbling."

So whether it's today, tomorrow, this weekend or in the next couple weeks, let's spend at least a few minutes remembering God's faithfulness to us this past year. Though things like jobs and friends and any number of situations may change, He never does. He is the same today, tomorrow and throughout the rest of our lives, all praise to Him!

I may not know what a "stuffed ballerina" is, but I know the one and only God, and after it's all said and done, I think that's really all that matters.

Happy 2010, everyone...may it be a year filled with God's best blessings on us and our families, and may we be ever watchful for those blessings ready to give Him the glory!