First Snow

We had our first major snow fall for the winter this past weekend. I know my friends in Kentucky are screaming at me right now. They are all so tired of the cold and snow. But for us, in Tokyo, we rarely get this kind of snow. It was the most snow Tokyo had seen in I think 10 years and we got close to four inches. I am not a huge fan of snow, but thankfully my husband is. We woke up to find the snow falling on Saturday and it simply kept coming all day long. We let the kids play in it on the balcony in the morning while we sipped coffee and I made a new coffee cake recipe. After lunch, we loaded them in their gear and took them outside. We have a small park behind our building with a nice open field. The snow made great snowballs and snowmen. Funny though...we were the only ones throwing snowballs. Everyone else was working on snowmen and making sure not to use too much of the snow and share with everyone else. They are just so polite here. After four years, it still surprises me sometimes. Miss M enjoyed going down the slide on the playground as the snow had piled up at the bottom to make her slide a bit further. The K Man liked eating the snow. The kids really enjoyed it and stayed in it for about a hour. When they came in, Mama was already inside and I made them some hot cocoa with oversized marshmellows. Then they took a nice warm bath and we fixed warm nabe for dinner. It was a great Saturday at home and we all slept very well that night. 

I mentioned we have been here now four years. We came with the mindset of being here 2, maybe 3 years, and now we just celebrated our fourth anniversary in Tokyo. It is hard to believe. This city and country has been pretty good for us. Everything that I love about it is also what drives me nuts too. It reminds me of that saying "Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness." I often have a love/hate relationship with Tokyo. I am either really loving it, the food, the culture, the lights, the pace, the people, the cleanliness, the effeciency...or I am really despising it with thoughts like "if only I had a car, if only I had a house, if only I had a backyard, if only I could READ (because yes I feel illeterate and have a much deeper appreciation for being taught how to read in English after living somewhere where I cannot read)" and on and on. If we are all honest with ourselves, we probably all have these type of conversations. As my husband gently reminds me, once we move back to the US (and no, we do not know when God will lead us back that way but we both still desire it at this point) there will be something there that I will complain about. We, humans, we just are never truly satisfied, are we? We always want more or think "if I just get this, then I will be happy." Until we learn contentment and satisfaction in Christ, only then will we experience true joy, true happiness, true rest and true satisfaction deep in our hearts. This, my friends, is a very very hard lesson for me to learn.