Another Year is Passing By

Today 2015 comes to an end. And I feel like I’ve lived it to the fullest – I’m so worn and tired I could sleep it right out the door. I’m serious. Yesterday Emry and I went on a run. It’s been over a week since I ran pushing that two-ton (okay 50 pounds with her in it) stroller up and down three and a half miles of the hills of Pittsburgh. I thought I was fine until I laid down in bed last night – and thought I’d got run over by a two-ton truck. I haven’t felt like this since I, well, gave birth to Emry. And then they gave me painkillers. Or maybe 2015 has just been that kind of year…

Actually, it hasn’t been that sort of year at all. And as I come to the end of it, I see God’s faithfulness throughout. No matter how many worries I had, how many tears I shed, how many fears I took to bed with me – God has been unchangeably faithful, sovereign, loving, generous and kind. We have never been without, never seen a crisis we could not overcome and have seen more than we need or deserve. It has been another year of HUGE changes for Melissa Sturm…Camus (who still forgets her last name sometimes…), but I look at the little girl sitting on her blanket eating Cheerios and corn Chex for a snack and I wouldn’t unchange it for the world.

I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Thy works; I muse on the work of Thy hands.   Psalm 143:5

Christmas in Indiana

We went to my parents’ in Indiana for Christmas. Our good little traveler made the trip very well and enjoyed all the commotion you find at my parents’ house. Honestly, I’m not sure who had more fun – Emry or all her aunts, uncle, grandparents and the four dogs!

With Aunt Abby and Uncle Caleb, who is trying to teach us the “Facebook Pose”.

With Grandma.

Playing with Grandpa!

Playing with our favorite toy we got for Christmas with Aunt Sally.

 

With Aunt Grace.

And with Aunt Jenny.

With Max, who is a Newfoundland “puppy” and about ten times our size…

Our favorite toy is actually Aunt Jenny’s old dinosaur piano, but we were unable to sneak it back to Pittsburgh with us.

My family (+ dogs). Grace is taking the picture…she insisted she didn’t have to be in it since she’s taking it to Kenya and everyone there knows what she looks like.

Christmas Baking

In my family, baking Christmas cookies is about as important as putting up a Christmas tree. We start baking as soon as Thanksgiving is over – gingerbread cookies MUST be baked and decorated the Friday after Thanksgiving. After that, the goal is to fill every cookie tin in the house with cookies, stacking them on the chest in front doorway until they are as tall as me. In our house, dieting is not allowed in December.

I have yet to take on that tradition. For one, I haven’t a single cookie tin to fill. Secondly, while Ed might be happy to eat all those cookies, he doesn’t need to and I certainly don’t need to eat all that wonderful sugar. And this year I don’t have the excuse of eating for two! However, there are a few things that must be baked simply because I love them and this is the time of year to bake them. In the future, I’m sure we’ll have our own slew of cookies. Meanwhile, Ed loves it, I try to limit myself and most of them I give away.

This year, Emry helped. Mostly she sat in her high chair eating Cheerios or waving her own wooden spoon around. But she did help with the gingerbread cookies:

First we learned how to press down on a cookie cutter.

Now it’s time to decorate!

Mmh…what should I do with this gingerbread man?

I know – eat him!

Yes, gingerbread cookies are one of Emry’s personal favorites – with or without icing. If I let her, she’d eat a whole one herself in one sitting! Instead, she shares with me. That way we can both watch our girly figures!

The One and Only

I think I was thirteen the summer I spent a whole Saturday reading Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins. I was extremely intrigued by the book. It was so novel – one lone girl cousin among seven boy cousins! At that time, my life was quite the opposite. My baby sister Abby had just been born, bringing the count up to six girls and one lone brother. Like Louisa May Alcott before me, I became entranced with the idea of so many boys and one lone girl. My own scribblings became much like her Jo’s Boys, Eight Cousins and it’s sequel Rose in Bloom. I had all sorts of characters/families that were predominately male, encompassing one little girl. As if I knew anything about such an experience!

Fast forward 22 years later…to when I have the sole girl. This past week, my two pregnant sisters both had their sonograms (ironically, on the same day – it’s “ESPN” as Abby once said). And both announced they are having boys this spring, probably a few weeks apart. Add my 2 ½ year old nephew Jay to that mix and you get Emry – the sole girl among three boys cousins. I have to confess I’m a bit delighted. Not because she’ll be spoiled rotten, the sole recipient of cute clothes both bought and sewed by Aunt Jenny or dolls and princess stuff – I’m just a bit excited about witnessing the one lone girl among three rough-and-tumble boys (if they’re anything like Jay!). Yes, yes. I’m as guilty as any parent of wanting to live vicariously through my child. On the other hand, think of the first-hand knowledge that could lead to a wonderful book!

P.S. Truly, I am delighted to simply be the aunt of two more little boys. What a blessing children are!

Happy Birthday, Jenny!

Eight Months!

Today Emry is eight whole months old! It’s a bit hard to believe that this time last year I was thinking about what fun it would be to have a baby around for Christmas – and now she’s here! And she is a lot of fun.

It seems we’ve grown a lot this past month. Well, that’s a bit relative with her. She’s reached just about 13 pounds. I have packed away all her 3-month clothes and had to buy size 2 diapers for a trip to Indiana! She eats just about anything we do. Her favorites are green beans, sweet potatoes and Chex cereal but she also likes apples, bananas, carrots, black beans, peaches, pears, potatoes, Cheerios…the only thing I now feed her on a spoon is yogurt. But we do not like peas or avocadoes.

As yet, no teeth have come in. Nor are we crawling. But we are making our way around everywhere! The other night I was in the kitchen and heard Ed, who was lying on the couch while she played on the floor, “Emry! Did you come over here to visit Papa?” Very rarely is she in the same place I put her when I come back. She also LOVES making noises. Squeals, laughs, whistling (which she actually can do), flipping her bottom lip with her own little hand, blowing raspberries. And she has now learned to shake her head “No”, although she doesn’t seem to know quite what it means yet.

Eight months! – what a blessing!

Getting bigger…

Sitting with Sock Monkey.

Being silly.

Decorating for Christmas

Last Saturday we went out and bought our Christmas tree. We have to confess that Emry was not overly impressed with the whole process. Perhaps because she only took a short morning nap and refused to go to sleep after her lunch. I don’t think she smiled the whole time we wandered about, measuring and picking out the “perfect” tree. But we did manage to coax some smiles later as we strung the lights on it. The next day when we put out Ed’s train, we were in better spirits. So while the tree still doesn’t seem to impress, she is enjoying the new “toys” to play with.

Helping Papa string the lights.

Papa, I want that Santa hat!

Okay – maybe not!

Her favorite ornament: it has bells in it that ring.

Train Conductor Emry.

We also like Mama’s carousel.

Emry's First Thanksgiving

Already holidays are much more fun with a little one in the house. (Okay, perhaps a little bit more stressful, too, but the fun outweighs the stress.) Emry is only 7 months old, of course. Lord willing, we have many years ahead where she will be more and more apart of the holiday season. But we’re still off to a very good start.

First, she helped decorate. Ed wanted the mantle looking nice for Thanksgiving, so we went ahead and decorated it for the season with lights, and candles, and ribbon, and evergreens. Since we were in the mood, I went ahead and unpacked my Christmas village (which is always nice to enjoy longer than a few weeks in December). Emry helped me unpack it. As you can see, she liked the lights best (although the ribbon was fun, too):

For Thanksgiving, we had Ed’s parents (who are divorced) and his father’s girlfriend over for dinner. When they first arrived, Emry wasn’t quite sure what to make of all the old people cooing all over her. She sat on her blanket and just stared at them. Then Grandpa Camus got down on the floor to play with her. Ed joined them and I soon heard her squealing with laugher. She wasn’t shy for long.

She joined us in her high chair for dinner and enjoyed just about everything we did. She had some green beans (one of her favorites), sweet potatoes, a little bit of turkey, pieces of a roll and a couple of tastes of cranberry sauce. She was very happy with all of it. For such a little thing, she has a very hearty appetite.

She only showed her unhappy side once. She simply did not want to go down for an afternoon nap, certain she would miss something. But she needed to lie down, so she got put in her crib where she did eventually fall asleep. She woke up much happier so she could charm everyone one more time before they left. All in all, I think she enjoyed her first Thanksgiving very much.

Justifying

At church, our pastor is going through an interesting study in Sunday school he has entitled: “Gay Marriage, Women Pastors and Applying the Bible Today”. As any good writer knows, a catchy title is the starting place for selling a good book.

And a Sunday school class. In actuality, it is a class on hermeneutics, which is the study of applying the Bible in one’s day-to-day life. Of course, there are thousands of things one could study in such a class. He has chosen some “hot topics” as his launch pad, although the class will cover other things outside of women pastors and homosexuality. In our church, you could say he is speaking to the choir. However, the sad reality is that these heinous sins are slipping quietly into the church. In fact, it may be hard to come by a church in Emry’s generation that doesn’t stand against these serious problems.

This past Sunday, we started the study on homosexuality. Apparently, there is a book out that is pretty popular in evangelical circles right now entitled God and the Gay Christian. I haven’t read it, so I won’t sit here and denounce every single word it contains. But, first off, why would anyone take their theology from a guy with a degree from Harvard? We all know that college isn’t putting out Puritans today…

That aside, the title alone should be a red flag. I’m not saying there aren’t Christians who struggle with the sin of homosexuality, but can any true believer cheerfully stand up and proudly call themselves gay? I’m going to say no. No more than a true believer would proudly call themselves a liar, cheat, thief, murderer or adulterer.

Which is what I started thinking on Sunday. Homosexuality and gay marriage is an extremely hot topic in our world today. Like most people, I live in a neighborhood with at least one such “couple”. So it’s no surprise that “Christians” are putting out books trying to justify homosexual behavior. (Such as saying Sodom was destroyed because of the sin of gang rape and inhospitality. The former, certainly. As for the latter, how many straws can you grasp at here?)  But if we’re going to sit around and justify a heinous sin that is condemned both in the Old and New Testaments, why stop there?

I mean, isn’t it interesting that we don’t find a book on the Christian best seller list trying to justify lying? I think someone could make a pretty good case for that with the story of Rahab. How about murder? Surely God didn’t curse Cain because he killed Abel, right? Maybe someone should write a book justifying covetousness, or disobeying your parents, or cheating on your spouse? There are a myriad of sins we could sweep under the table, twisting the Bible so it supports our natural ways.

I think the reason you don’t find such books is because Christians (both those who truly are saved by God’s grace and those who claim the title in name only) agree that murder, adultery, and stealing are sins. Mostly. There are those who call murder by other names (abortion, euthanasia, etc.). And people will forever be trying to justify their actions. But I don’t see any books on the shelf entitled: God and the Christian Liar. So, why is homosexuality different?

Honestly, I don’t have an answer to that. Maybe it’s because it’s not just a “church topic” but a political one. Or maybe because gays are loud at demanding their “rights”, being heard over anyone else and getting on the front page of the news. In the end, I suppose, the answer is that man is by nature a sinner. And sinners want to be justified in their sin. So, they write books with ridiculous titles and incredulous ideas. And, sadly, it works.

At least for now. Because eternity is coming. A time when the only justifying that matters comes from a Holy God (instead of ourselves) and the only book that stands is His. A wonderful and blessed time for those of us who truly are Christians. But for those who twist God’s Word to justify their sin…well, they’ll soon know that Sodom wasn’t destroyed because they were “inhospitable”.

Lord, come quickly! Amen.

Five Minutes of Thanks

If you were given five minutes to thank the Lord for the things He has so richly blessed you with, what would you say? Well…I’ve set my watch…here goes!

Emry. Ed. Salvation. God’s faithfulness. My sisters Katey, Sally, Grace, Jenny and Abby. My parents. My brothers Daniel and Caleb. Andrea. Allyson. Caleb, Violet, Seth, Silas, Laurel, Marigold and Lemuel. Friends. Family. Snow. God’s grace. Jesus Christ my Savior. Prayer. Health. My nephew Jay. My coming nephews and/or nieces. A church. Hot chocolate. Oatmeal. Chapstick. Lotion. Indoor plumbing! God’s love, truth and unchangeableness. Unexpected e-mails from old friends. God’s provision. Safety. A warm place to live. Sleep! Electricity. Color. Rainbows, flowers, green grass, leaves changing colors. The ability to read, write and figure things out. Clean water. Clothes. Running, walking and biking. Wonderful books to read. A library. God’s Word that is ever true, timely and faithful. A heartbeat, blood pumping and every breath I take. God who knows my future and holds me in His hand. Technology. Pandas, and dogs, and all of God’s unique creation. Answers to prayer. Tirzah. Karen. Letters in the mail. Packages are even better!

And, oh, if I could type as fast as I can think!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!!