My New Fangled Christmas Card: Update from our family

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Well, Merry Christmas Everyone!

After all the busyness of the last few months you guessed it, not enough time or proper planning for a Christmas card. In years past I had mailed out Christmas newsletters, but it just didn't happen this year. So here is the Borders family update for all of you. It will be in list format for easy reading...and that is becasue I care about you and your time.  

  1. Tori- Tori is now 15 years old and has her drivers permit and will be turning 16 next summer. So, the new Geico commercial with the dude handing the keys to his 5 year old sitting in the drivers seat of the their car has great meaning for me these days! She's taller than her mom, still dancing up a storm, reading her Kindle, enjoying her friends and excelling ins school...an all around awesome kid for any dad or mom to have. The future is so bright for her and God could not have given us a finer daughter 
  2. Jack: Jack is 12, built like a bulldozer, studying Muay Thai and Brazillain Jui Jitsu. He kicked me in the leg and almost made me cry! I took him to Alaska this summer and he caught his first salmon and saw his first Moose. It was an amazing trip that we will do again. He is in the 7th grade and growing all the time. I took he and Tori to 5th Street Ministries (our homeless shelter) to serve dinner to the folks there and it was an eye opening experience for him. He saw people thankful for a meal and kids his age with no place to live. He said, "I want to go back on Christmas Day dad!" I think we'll make that happen. 
  3. Tammy: Tammy is as beautiful as the day I married her 19 years ago and we celebrate 20 in 2011. I'm not sure what we will do to celebrate but it will be awesome I am sure. 20 years tolerating me is something to celebrate anyway. She still works at Clearview Christian Academy where Tori and Jack attend school. She cooks amazing food and generally runs the show around the house and she is good at it. We have been reading John Eldredge's book on marriage called "Love and War" and I am finding a new breath of fresh air blowing through our relationship. She really is a Proverbs 31:10-31 woman!
  4. Brad: I returned from Iraq in May and after a few months at home started a new job as the Deputy Group Chaplain at 3rd Special Forces Group at FT Bragg. Its a humbling job to work around so may heroic folks each day. I work there during the week and come home on the weekends. I am on orders there until at least OCT of 2011. I've been reconnected with my friends from Turning Point and done some speaking for them over the last few months. I continue to try to keep my old body in shape through punishing workouts that have become a very real source of mental clarity in my life.
  5. Sophie and Levi: Our two dogs continue to run our lives, but we love them!
In a conversation with my buddy Carl Cartee the other day we were talking about a passage that I am preaching this weekend at my home church here. Its out of Luke 2 and its the "Song of Simeon" Simeon was an old man that happened to be at the temple the day Joseph and Mary dedicated Jesus there. Upon seeing the baby Simeon rejoices that his "eyes had seen the salvation of Israel" We were wondering together if Jesus smiled at him as infant.

You see, Simeon had been told that he would not see death until he had seen the "Lord's Messiah"
We wondered what that must feel like to actually see the revelation of God and to hold the savior of the world in your arms. And then maybe to catch a smile from the Creator in the form of an infant. It must have been something. It must have been something as well to know that he had accomplished everything that God had for him. There was nothing left on his bucket list.
Charles Wesley at the end of his life penned these words
"Oh could I catch one smile from thee, and drop into eternity"

My prayer for you is that you might catch a smile from the Savior this Christmas...catch a glimpse of eternity and live your life emptying out your bucket!




Merry Christmas!

Comments

JaneA said…
God has certainly blessed you and your family, Brad! And he has blessed us - Steve and I - by bringing us into your sphere of influence.....you have inspired and challenged us over the years! Merry Christ'sBirthday, Brad!
5:32 PM
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