Advent devo

I grew up in a Christian home-- if I had to break that down and really explored what that meant to my family growing up. It would be defined as:

•Highly valuing what was going on within our local church. 

•Being very involved in church, mainly within leadership roles. 

•disliking many people we go to church with and often bashing them and what they are doing to the church on a regular basis

•eating dinner as a family at all suppers- praying together as a family before taking your first bite (the prayer is alway the same: "Lord, thank you for today and the food we are about to eat, bless it to our bodies-amen")

•my mom always read her bible and did "the daily bread" devo before we got up, she never talked about it, but I could catch her in the act if I got up before she woke me up. 

•we sometimes played bible trivia- kids vs dad--- we were really competitive in it. 

So, as you read over this, it seems very normal way to be raised in a Christian home in America. It was obviously how I was raised and many of my friends growing had it this way as well. 

So in this upbringing, talking about my actual relationship with God and how things are going NEVER HAPPENED!! NEVER!! 

When you were at camp on a retreat/mission trip situation, you could talk about it then, but outside of these special experiences it wasn't a subject to talk about. (My parents never were at camp or on youth trips with me--they missed out on this) 

I went to college, my roommate Lacey grew up talking about God at home. And in our friendship, I became a person who likes and wants to talk about my relationship with God. I like that openness and vulnerability with people. I like that my relationship isn't just personal, but something that I can share with others. 

So as I changed, I wanted this change to happen within my immediate family too. It hasn't. It's been 9 years, my family in this is still the same as high school. 

It's almost awkward now. Like I am constantly being fake in their presence, they don't know about the biggest and deepest part of my life. 

They are clueless about my journey with Skip. They just think I am a pathetic single girl with no hope. 

I want our relationship to change. So I asked my mom to do an advent devo book with me. It's 25 days (December 1-25) and I am hoping that this will spark a change within our family. 

Exciting, very very exciting. And hopefully,  life changing