Hymn of the Week--Have Thine Own Way, Lord

We have missed being at church for the past few weeks. We get some great communication pieces though that help us keep up with the life of the church. This week our church focuses on prayer. To that end, we chose the hymn "Have Thine Own Way, Lord." Over the years, I have struggled with prayer, especially as I began to trust more in the sovereignty of God in all things. It seems to me though that this song captures what prayer is about. It is our chance to tell God our desires and ask him to shape our desires to be more in line with His will. I am still struggling with this issue. It seems to me to need some more reading and thinking.

Hymn of the Week
Have Thine Own Way, Lord
Words by Adelaide A. Pollard
Music by George C. Stebbins

Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way,
Thou art the potter, I am the clay,
Mold me and make me, fester thy will,
While I am waiting, gilded and still.

Caleb the artist

One of the gifts that Caleb got for his birthday was some new colored pencils, crayons and some drawing books. He loves drawing and its getting pretty good. Every week at Wednesday night church he colors a picture. It is always really good. We save it and put it up on our bulletin board. This is one way that we can really celebrate him. Here's a sample of Caleb's latest work from this morning.

Alpena highlight

From Alpena

One of my favorite things that we did in Alpena was building a quinzy or snow cave in the huge pile of snow that the snow plow left. We started it on Christmas day with Alex and then finished it the next day. It was big enough for me to sit up in and we even lit some candles. My dream is that someday we'll dig a huge snow cave and sleep in it. I think it will be a while before that happens. It sure was fun though.

Happy Birthday Caleb!

From Alpena

Today Caleb turns five-years-old. Wow. Caleb is so much fun and energetic. He loves to be around people and spend time with kids his age. He loves art and is very creative. We celebrated his birthday at Gigi's house with a "Michael Phelps" party. This amounted to lots of American flags, some gold medals and doing our best to put away 10,000 calories. We ended the party at the Plaza Pool in Alpena. It was a ton of fun and I think Caleb really enjoyed it. We got Caleb a tape recorder and an Indiana Jones outfit. We've already gotten some good recordings. Maybe I'll try to figure out how to put some of those online. You can see all of the photos here.

Merry Christmas from the Gammons Family

On behalf of our whole family, I wish you and yours a very merry Christmas. I hope that this Christmas, each of you are gripped by the wonder of our savior being born as a baby, living a perfect life and offering himself as a ransom on a cross. We have definitely had glimpses of this wonder, intermixed with sled rides, fires, sleigh rides, vomiting children, diarrhea and family. One of the best parts of our time together was the Christmas play that Mom and Shube put together with the kids. You can see a snippet below. Enjoy!

More sleigh ride

Here is a video from last night's sleigh ride. It continues to snow here and we continue to have a great time.

Just hear those sleigh bells

From Alpena

Today we went out to Gary Jones' land for one of the best times I've had in a while. We took a sleigh ride through his beautiful property behind two of his horses, Agnes and Annie. We have so much snow here, it was perfect. My highlight was seeing the smiles on all of my kids faces during the sleigh ride. I also really enjoyed hearing Gary, with great pride, talk about his land, his two new cows, his successful try at maple syrup last spring and how he is learning to live off his land. We even got a brief tour of the log home that he built 15 years ago. As I have written before, I have had (and still do) have dreams of living on some land in the country. It was great to hear of the success of one man in accomplishing his dreams. When we were done, we roasted marshmallows, drank hot cocoa and sat by a great bonfire.

If you are ever in Alpena, Michigan and want to have a wonderful experience with your family, contact Gary Jones. Tell him that the Gammons family sent you. You can see all of our pictures here.