MY CHRISTMAS LETTER TO YOU

Hi friends and family! December 2008

I'm so glad to be in touch with you! I don't do the Christmas letter thing every year, and so I'm glad to be getting my act together and sending one out to everyone. Its so important to me to keep in touch with all of my relationships. So I'll tell you about my life right now.

I am a child of God, deeply loved, still surprised by the gospel, and who has a life that has lots of ups and downs. This year of 2008 has been a really hard year. But I have some terrific relationships at the same time, and that is a big part of the ups of my life. A doctor has discovered some great ways to help me feel better. I've realized that I have felt bad all the rest of my life as I have begun to feel better, and the cure is largely just replacing some missing minerals and vitamins in my body. Its been frustrating though, in that it has been very time consuming and a lot of work. Its meant radical diet changes, cooking all my meals from scratch, learning to eliminate wheat, corn, dairy, eggs, and sugar from my diet, taking pills 4 times a day, and giving myself 10 shots a week. At my worst I was taking 6 naps a day and I still couldn't get through a day of work! I was kind of bummed the day I realized I had been working on this a solid year, and I'm still needing to move uphill. The struggle to get well also resulted in a 5 month stretch of struggling with depression. I seemed to get worse before I got better. It was much more of a physical based depression than I have ever had - before its been more emotional at the root. But it was depression none the less - having a horrible time getting out of bed, not having energy to take a shower, feeling like it doesn't matter if I don't take a shower...

I have some incredible relationships in life, including my church in St Louis. Crossroads Presbyterian Fellowship is a church where I was a part of the original church plant. We are a Body that walks with one another through all aspects of life, helping each other know Jesus more clearly.~ Check out our web site and you'll get a glimpse of the place I love to be a part of: www.crossroadspres.com. You can go under sermons and here our fabuilous musicians do a Christmas program, or hear our wise pastor teach on Hosea. I also still love to go to Charleston, SC to visit my friends there who are practically like family there. There are also others around the world that are a delight to keep in touch with!

There have been some hard relationships this year, like the fact that I fell in love for the first time, and then that relationship ended after 7 months. I find myself struggling with idolizing marriage at times and have to try to repent of that idol (again). I have also had some friends in a relationship where there's abuse, friends having to deal with death, friends having to go through intense counseling. I realize that its very hard to walk with friends through the very messy parts of life, but its also one of the most intimate places: I appreciate the vulnerability, and then I have a front seat for watching God work.


Please keep in touch!

Lots of Love!
Ann Louise