Hope
Merry Christmas from the Cottings. We are all doing OK, but it has been a pretty stressful year. For the last several months we have had one incident after another, every month, that keeps piling on things in our lives. But we have hope that things will get better. Thankfully we still have our God, our faith, our family, and our home.
We got to go on some fun trips this year. We went to Hurricane, UT during spring break for some mountain biking. We also went to San Antonio to visit Wendy’s parents. As always, they treated us well, and we had a great time. We only got to go up to our property as a family once this summer. We had hoped to do more, but other things just kept us from being able to go. Cody and Jason got to go up for a two night stay for what was named man camp as Mia was away and Wendy was working.
Cody and Mia have continued to play competitive soccer. Cody got to move up to a better team this year after tryouts in May. He likes playing defense. It’s been fun to watch his soccer abilities grow. He is also gaining a joy for the game as he likes going in the backyard to practice soccer on his own now. He also gets to trade backyard soccer time for screen time (2:1 ratio). We will be going to southern Utah for a tournament in January. It will be Cody’s first time to travel with a soccer team.
Mia also moved up to another team with her tryouts back in May. She is on a team that does some traveling. They play locally in Utah in summer, fall, and spring. During the winter we are traveling with her for games in Colorado,Idaho, and Utah. Outdoor winter soccer is something new for us. Thankfully the winter has been mild so far. It has been fun to see her continue to improve. Her coach has been doing a great job of pushing her and helping her become more competitive and confident. Mia normally plays defense (outside back, center back). She played for her middle school team in the spring, and really shined with that group of girls. Unfortunately we had to stop doing Krav Maga this spring with the kids as our schedule just got too busy.
Wendy is doing well. Her atrial fibrillation has gotten under control. It still bothers her some, but it’s stabilized. She is still teaching a 4 year old Sunday school class at our church on Sundays. Her Pediatric Urgent Care job is stable. Now that we have entered flu season, her shifts have gotten even busier. She mainly works evenings, but she has been trying to get more day shifts. Wendy enjoys cooking, playing games with the kids, reading, and watching our kids soccer games. She has been involved with helping with Jason’s parents. She was in a car crash back in November. Praise God that she was able to walk away from the crash. A person ran a red light and totaled our car. Running red lights in Utah seems to be a favorite pass time of Utah drivers. We recently replaced it with another car.
Mia moved up to 7th grade this year. She is doing great in middle school. Much like her mother, school work comes naturally easy for her. Her friend group is growing, and it is fun to see her become more mature and confident. She enjoys soccer, reading, drawing, painting, writing, and has started taking an interest in cooking with Wendy.
Cody moved up to 5th grade this year. It is his last year of elementary school. We realized that last week was the last elementary school Christmas program we will be going to. Much like his father, school is more challenging for Cody. He has continued to work hard and we are happy to be seeing improvements because of his hard work. Unfortunately, some of Cody’s friends have moved away. He has made one friend that he enjoys hanging out with. Cody enjoys soccer, reading graphic novels, minecraft, playing with dogs, and video games.
Jason still has a career with little to no focus. Most of the time he plays the role of dad. He spends his evenings driving kids to soccer practices, going to games, warming up the supper Wendy made earlier in the day, and getting the kids to bed. He still works for our church doing computer work and managing our security team. He also volunteers weekly at our kid’s school where manages that security team as well. He’s tried to do part time work with the University of Utah providing medical coverage for their events, but time keeps getting filled with other items. Jason still enjoys road and mountain biking, watching the kids play soccer, visiting with other parents at school and soccer, and trying to play a video game at night while falling asleep at the keyboard.
During the year we have had to put both of our dogs to sleep. Panzer had a very sudden diagnosis of cancer back in the spring, and Daisy had TMB (too many birthdays). We managed to get another dog over Thanksgiving. Our neighbor told us about an older lady who had an 18 month old German Shepherd that had already had some training and was just too much for her. So now we have a new dog. Cody has named him Pax. He’s a great dog. Good demeanor, smart, and taller than Panzer, our previous German Shepherd. We are working to get him trained now.
While many events throughout the year have tried their best to wear us down, we are still hopeful because God has us in His hands. When things seem too much, we go to Him for help. He provides us with answers we could not have come up with on our own. We believe our hard times are being used by Him to sanctify us into becoming more Christlike.
In the Bible we read about how man, through our sin, has fallen away from what God wants us to be. But God has always had a plan on how to reconcile our sins so that that relationship can be renewed. For thousands of years, God’s chosen people waited and hoped for a savior that would reconcile them. They thought that savior would come as a conquering king to drive out the political earthly enemies that held them captive. What they didn’t understand was that the conquering king, who God was sending, was there to drive out the sin in their lives that was holding them captive. This was so that that relationship with God could be renewed through the forgiveness of sins. The Jewish people had hope, not just optimism, but assured belief that God was going to deliver. He did deliver in the person of Jesus Christ.
Now we have hope. Assured belief that God has delivered us from our sins. We as a family also have hope that our earthly circumstances are not the end of us, but that they are allowed by God in order to build us up into what God wants us to be. God is using it for His glory, not for our suffering.
This Christmas, let hope guide you as you celebrate Christmas. Hope that God loves you and that He wants you to be in a relationship with you. Hope that Emmanuel, God with us, has come to be with us.
Merry Christmas
The Cottings
