One night Melody had a dream,
She dreamed she was walking along through life with God.
As scenes of her past flashed before her eyes,
She looked at the path of their footprints.
Up through the mountains they wound,
And down through the valleys,
Beside peaceful ocean vistas,
And sometimes across jagged hills.
Sometimes the footprints stopped beside still waters,
And other times they disappeared into the valley of shadows.
Sometimes they even led into icy storms and snow.
At this point she was troubled,
For she noticed that when going through
The most difficult storms of her life,
There was only one set of footprints.
"Why Lord," she asked, "when I was going through the most
Cold and difficult experiences of life,
Did you leave me to walk alone?"
Then was the Lord’s beautiful reply, "My dear Melody!
I would never leave you or forsake you. Those times when you
See only one set of footprints...
When the path was steep and treacherous,
Or the way cold and icy...It was then that I carried you!"*

As I look back over the years, the times of good and bad, the times of laughter and also of pain, I'm grateful for the Heavenly Father that I serve and am coming to know more and more intimately. We've had a lot of good times together...yet there have been some real tough times too! But even those times I am thankful for, for it seems in the toughest times is when I grew the most. And God has been there all the time...sometimes I didn't even realize it, but He was actually carrying me! ;-)

As we approach another NEW YEAR...I thank Him for the former years... but I also look ahead with JOY to the future and to what new lessons and new experiences He has in store!

Ok, well...enough being melodramatic...I guess I just got inspired by the footprints I saw in the snow...and it reminded me of the poem and of my own life experiences that God has led me through! Don't we serve an incredible God??

I'm still home in Oklahoma....and still nursing a cough that does not seem to want to go away. We've had the whole Hiner family (about 20 of Mrs. Holland's relatives) here for a reunion this Christmas which has been lots of fun. (I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't been sick the whole time...but oh well!) It's been the first time we've all been together since Grandpa and Grandma's 50th Anniversary a few years ago. And even so, we aren't all together, as Sunny didn't make it home this year! (But she went to be with Tim and his family, so we aren't begrudging her the joy!)

We've had a lot of fun visiting or singing together as we sat around the warm fire. We've played lots of Dominoes, gone to the Zoo...and cooked huge meals. We all took turns, and on our turn, we cooked a huge "Asian meal" in honor of Aunt Denel. One highlight of the whole week was hosting a small family baby shower for Joy. She and Justin are expecting their first child in February. It was good to be with all the cousins again! And I've taken lots of pictures. (I'll post a slide show next week after the last of our family heads home. As it is, part have already left, but we still have Aunt Jan and Jim and Sarah here for a few more days.)

So that's the update from Mel's pad. In the pictures below you can see some of the ice damage that they had here in our back yard with the huge Ice storm that hit in early December. Again I am reminded and thankful by the sad circumstance that, even through the Ice-storms, God still walks with us...and sometimes...He even carries us! What a awesome and loving God we serve!

Be-lated Merry Christmas, everyone!!! And Happy New Year!!

*Thanks to Mary Stevenson for the beautiful poem "Footprints," first written in 1936.