Why you wont be getting a Christmas card from us this year…

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I thought it only fair to give you a heads up as to why you wont be getting a Christmas Card from us this year…

After all, I consider myself a direct human being and I don’t like beating around the bush.

It’s because you unfriended me on Facebook…

No, not really (if you couldn’t tell, I don’t really use my personal Facebook page anyway; if you really want to keep up with my family and our adventures, I suggest you follow us here or on Instagram).

But that brings up a good point, if you do know anything about me beyond 140 characters, you already know that this year has been a tough one for me and my family.

Collectively, we’ve gone through some marriage issues, job loss and even school changes.

To say 2013 was a time of turmoil and upheaval would be an understatement (in my modest opinion).

So as the time came to take the obligatory family picture to stamp upon dozens of Christmas cards, something just didn’t seem right.

Don’t get me wrong, we were going to do it, but things kept getting in the way: rainy weather, hectic schedules, the inability to find coordinating outfits… (I know, first world problems…).

We even went on different photo sites to try to pick out what template we liked, but we just couldn’t get everything aligned.

So as November crept into December, we stopped and took a step back. Could we sum up our family’s year in one picture? On one card?

All of a sudden, it seemed so inauthentic (like those Facebook friends that you approve even though you have no idea who they are, yet you continually share the deepest, darkest details of your life with, but I digress).

And I’d be lying if I didn’t say vanity played a part in our decision either. If you count the weight I lost during the first few weeks of our crisis in February, I have put on 40 pounds since then. I honestly don’t fit in much these days and I wasn’t about to go out and spend money on a new outfit to fit a body I don’t like and then take a picture in it for you all to display on your fridge for God knows how long!

Just keepin’ it real.

I know, I know…I’ve probably given many of you a hard time for not sending me a photo Christmas card over the years. I LOVE THEM! I’m one of those crazy people I just alluded to who not only waits for them, but displays them until the last possible minute in January. THEN, when etiquette dictates that I take down my Christmas card display, I turn them into clever memories like a Prayer Poster or put them on an O-ring and hook them onto our fridge so we can remember and pray over you all on a daily basis via our Family Prayer Shield.

But 2013 just wasn’t our year. Not for one of those cards.

In fact, I felt a Christmas letter would be more appropriate…but I’m not a Christmas letter card enclosure kind of girl…but I am a blogger!

So that’s when it hit me. I could save printing, shipping and postage by simply sharing my heart with you all on here.

And while I do want to wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, I felt it MUCH more important to encourage you not to take any moment for granted, to cherish each opportunity that comes your way, and to try to make a difference in at least one person’s life each day.

I also felt it important to tell you that we’re on a good path. While Ricky and I still don’t feel it’s the right time to share the details of our story, we do feel confident sharing that we are moving towards the same goal hand in hand.

I think it’s important to remember that anything can happen to any of us at anytime. What you need to look deep down and discover is simple: How will you respond and who will you turn to?

For me, even amidst the hurt, shock and disappointment, I quickly realized that all of us are sinners saved by grace and none of us are immune from the enemy’s evil schemes. What happened to one of us could just have easily happened to the other. No person is perfect just as no marriage is perfect.

Instead of looking at how fast we could fail, we focused on how hard we could fight. Luckily, we both wanted to fight for the same thing.

So fight we are and fight we will: for our faith, our marriage, our children, our family and our future.

We are beyond grateful for the people that came alongside us and stood for our marriage in a time when neither of us could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In the end, you may not be getting a Christmas Card from us this year, but I ultimately hope you will receive so much more as the result of this blog post. If you absolutely can’t move forward without a picture from us this year, then we couldn’t think of a better one to sum it up than this:

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!