Hanukkah

Shalom and Happy hanukkah:
Tonight it the 5th night of Hanukkah.
It has been a quiet celebration this year, quieter than what we planned. But that's ok.
We had planned a Hanukkah feast, but the weekend before we found ourselves heading off for the last of The Yellow Ribbon Programs and that meant using the money for gas.
Mark is still unemployed, still looking for work.
We praise G-d his unemployment has been extended. And he does get paid for going to the Yellow Ribbon.
And I shall share about that another time.

That following tuesday, Mark awoke rather sick. It seems he had picked up some stomach virus. Which meant my making a big pot of chicken soup for my beloved instead of potatoes latkes for the first night of hanukkah. Thankfully with ginger-ale and soup, he was right as rain the following day.
So the next night, we had fish and chips, one of our favorite meals for hanukkah, since it is cooked in oil.
We spend a lot of time together, my beloved and I. Mostly because niether of us has jobs.
But while a job is needed, I do not complain about the time we share. We talk so much. We take walks together, study and pray together.
I see the pain in my Mark's eyes. He feels he has failed me in that he has no work to support us. But that isn't his fault. My Mark's isn't a lazy man; just sitting on the sofa, playing vidoe games while we live on the Taxpayers dime.
And yet in those same eyes, I see love. I see how much my husband loves me.
And what does that have to do with Hanukkah?
This is the time of miracles. When a ragtag band with the Hand of G-d upon them, won the battle the Syian-Greacian army that was determine to rid the world of every hebrew man, woman and child. To rid the world of Torah and the hebrew tongue. If it had not been for that hard fought battle, the miracle of a young virgin girl concieving in her womb the Messiah would have never occured. If there had been no Hanukkah, there would have been no Christmas.
The miracle of a war won. Of oil found. Of a Child concieved. All duringing this time of miracles.
And the same G-d of ole is still performing mircales. He still has His Hand upon His people, upon all who would call upon His Name.
And that is why I can light the lights of Hanukkah.