Jesus loves me, this I know. This category is about Jesus, the Living Word, my prayers to Him, my worship of Him, His relentless pursuit of my heart and His invitation to me to come to Him in Sabbath, my Savior, my Rest.
We are not static. We are not just standing still. We see ourselves: growing, going forward, whole, healed and changing for the better on good days. On the not so good, we feel like we are one step forward, 2 steps back, like we’ve lost footing, we’re not where we should be, want to be, like changes we didn’t want have been imposed on us, upsetting the settled lives we had planned so carefully. We judge ourselves everyday, don’t we?
2 Corinthians 3.18 “And we all, with unveiled faces who contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His very likeness in ever-increasing glory.”
David C. Cookjust released the first video session of Staci Eldredge’s Becoming Myself series. In it, she says we long for change in us because we are meant to have it. She says our very dissatisfaction with our weaknesses reminds us that they are not our destiny and that God promises to transform us – in ever-increasing glory.
How intriguing is this?
“What if change is simply Me unveiling who you really are?”
You know how certain people in churches (preachers) complain that other people in churches (slackers) will go to football games and scream and yell and cheer when their team (the Broncos) are playing for 3 or 4 straight hours? Then they’ll tell you (with grave disappointment) that you need to be cheering for Jesus because He made the ultimate touchdown when He came to earth to die for our sins.
No? You’ve never heard that? Oh, must just be my tribe (aka my own particular people-group/slice of ecclesia-pie), I guess.
Anyway, especially back in the days when a true test of righteousness (or “churchianity” perhaps) was going to be about whether you attended the Sunday night service on Super-Bowl Sunday, the topic would come up.
{I may have even used this particular brand of “worship-motivating” my-pious-self in times past, *gulp} Shhhh….don’t tell.
If the speaker was really fired up, he might add, with a slight hint of disdain, “There aren’t three people here who would stay for a three-hour sermon, let alone get on their feet and shout,” hoping, I am sure, that the whole crowd would suddenly erupt in cheers and actually start acting like they were at a football game, doing some sort of spiritual wave.
A few vigorous “amens” would shoot back to get points with the pastor, those Sunday-night-faithful-head-bobbers letting their fellow-pew-dwellers know, Well, I’ll never stay home to cheer sports teams on a Super Bowl Sunday night when I can be here cheering for the Son of God!. Uh-huh!
Since Sunday night services have gone the way of sawdust floors and dinners on the ground, we have all been set free from that particular law of sin and death associated with cheering on our football teams so zealously and then failing to do the same for the pastor, er, for Jesus on Sundays. Whew, thank-goodness!
Just in case you missed it, the Denver Broncos had a good Sunday. They won a play-off game which means they’ll face their arch nemesis this week to see who goes to the super bowl. The devil is coming to town in the form of a man named Tom Brady and his merry band of Patriots, and all true Coloradoans loathe him with a passion.
Home runs
I don’t really even like football and I don’t understand a lot of the details (I DO know getting home runs is important….JUST KIDDING, simmer down. I know they’re touchdowns). Please don’t bother trying to explain it to me, I’m fine with the little I know. I know enough to cheer for the guys wearing the right colored uniforms…usually. Sometimes I do have to ask Dave which uniforms we are cheering for that day. But I digress.
Sunday’s game was right here in the Mile-High City. That works in the home team’s favor, generally, I think. One thing the fans did really well was make a lot of noise. And when our team was doing great, it was “joyful noise” and happy cheering, for sure! But they also made some strategic noise and LOTS of it when the other team had possession of the ball. From what I could tell, it made it very difficult for the opposing QB to execute a good play against {my} team, (go, Broncos!). And so, in the case of this particular game, a certain quarterback actually threw a bit of a fit and his team got a penalty for holding up the game.
Now, I know this is a little simplistic because I don’t totally understand the game, so I am going by what the talking heads were saying, but, think of it – the Denver Broncos, the team – they are on the field doing everything they know to do in the face of their opponents who have come to crush them. And maybe that would be enough. But then these crazy fans in the seats become so loud, so uproariously vocal and physical, clapping their hands, stomping their feet – they actually send the opposition into a state of extreme confusion. The thunderous roar of the crowd threw the “enemy” off his game. The fans in the stands were so loud – they confused and confounded the plan of the opposing team! How cool is that?
The Bible is actually full of incredible stories of sound and noise being part of winning battles. The sound of Judah sending up praises at the front of a battle meant a victory at the end. And who can forget the Walls of Jericho, a city God promised to His people? They marched around that city once a day for 6 days, then on the 7th day, they marched, but the priests started blowing those ram’s horns and the people were told to SHOUT. They did and those walls came down, God’s promise was theirs!
“So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.” Joshua 6.20
There are other examples in the Bible where just a thundering sound or some major noise caused enemies to flee. Like the story in 2 Kings 7 of the lepers who were starving to death and decided to just go to the enemy’s camp and ask for food, figuring they were going to die one way or the other. But God caused such loud noise to surround their entrance, the sounds of many horses and chariots reverberating throughout the valley, that the Syrian army just took off as fast as they could, leaving their camp and supplies and food intact. That is crazy! That is a win!
And I was just thinking, maybe, as the Body of Christ, we should be watching out for each other, for those times the opposing team, aka “the enemy of our souls,” comes marching in to our home field. And maybe when we see the thief coming to steal, kill and destroy, when we see a strategic offense being mounted against “our team,” aka our brothers and sisters in the Lord, our family from the Household of Faith, well, maybe we should just start yelling and screaming and stomping and shouting the house down. Maybe we could be making some holy battle-noise to drive the devil back, confuse and confound his plan against one of our people!
I was thinking I’d like to be a person like that, a person who will stand up for others facing huge obstacles by making such a fuss, resisting so decidedly that the devil runs the other way, flees like a frightened chicken.
Well, don’t be surprised if I start screaming like a banshee the next time I see the enemy picking on you. I am, after all, a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter. I should try to put that to good use, shouldn’t I? I’d even show up on a Sunday night to be a part of something like that!
Ugh. I am just going to confess it. Every single year of my life that I don’t get it read all the way through feels like a big, fat failure to me. And I feel embarrassed and guilt-ridden.
I mean – you can read the Bible through start to finish in like 70 hours and 40 minutes at “pulpit rate” if you’re reading aloud. So that’s like, what? 12 minutes a day. Or about 5 pages a day just going at whatever the heck rate you want, depending on your version and print size. But I somehow managed to not get it done.
I know where I was. I spent an inordinate amount of time in Isaiah. But not even the whole Book of Isaiah. I zoned in on chapters 40-55 and may or may not have read them about 40 times over the course of the year. I really felt like the Lord gave that to me for 2013. That was needful. That, I do not regret. However, I STILL meant to read all of the rest of it. Didn’t you, too?
But thank God from whom all blessings flow!
I just feel like He let me off the rigorous Bible-reading hook I had myself on yesterday when two different Tweet-ers posted these things:
I clicked on this link immediately and remembered that James Ryle had shared a similar sentiment some time ago and I had actually loved it so much I wrote about it at this very blog {here}! Good grief, it’s a good thing I write this stuff or I’d forget some may good things.
Among other wonderful things, James Ryle wrote,
“I want to talk today about how to get the most out of your Bible reading. And the simplest and most direct way to put it is to invite you into your Bible as though you are taking a slow walk in a beautiful park — one filled with God’s presence.”
I loved it! What an incredible invitation – just as I had loved it last February when I mentioned it and had already forgotten. Somebody – please help me NOT to forget that this year.
It was the perfect foil for me as sI was trying to figure out how to fit in “finishing” my Bible-2013 reading plan AND keep up on the Read-the-Bible-through-in-2014 plan all at once. James also quoted his friend Buddy Owens:
“When you open the Bible do so determined to read for depth, not distance.”
“Depth, not distance…” I realize my “tribe,” the slice of ecclesia which beautifully instilled in me a love of the word of God, but also perhaps the seeds of condemnation that come from not being able to check off the squares next to the names of the books of the Bible within a very defined time frame, and I, well – we’ve gone some distance. I’ve really loved the years I could say, “What a blessing – I was able to read the whole Bible through this year. Got in under the wire, Praise the Lord.” J/k…haven’t said it quite like that – close, but not actually. Haha. Do not egg me on by asking me which years, please save me from myself!
However, I continued to scroll through Tweets and came across this one from Howard Snyder:
If I read the Bible slowly, to get more benefit, it may take longer than the 12 months or 52 weeks or 365 days…I do worry that me not holding the Bible-in-a-Year standard high will be the deterioration of the church as we know it. I’m terrified to find out if that is perhaps the point?
Can I get another ‘amen!?’
Just in case I wasn’t loosening my tight grip on the guilt and condemnation that makes me hide from God because I didn’t do something on “the list,” (the compliant Christian dos and don’ts), my son-in-law, Ryan, came home from a Graham Cooke conference last night and told Tredessa, with whom I’d shared my conflicted, yucky, Bible-reading-fail feelings, that he wasn’t in to Bible-in-a-Year plans and felt they often were part of a religious spirit.
Who? What? Really? Oh, ugh…
2014: I am going to be reading my Bible like crazy, but slowly, thank-you very much. Now check in on me to make sure I don’t slack, that I don’t personally cause the collapse of the church and please make sure next January I am not trying to “catch up” on 2013 and 14 before jumping in to 2015. It is for this purpose that we have hidden His words in our hearts.
I pray that I won’t feel “behind” but right where I need to be on any given day. I’ll pray that for you, too!
Go, you!
If you are on track and enjoying depth as well as distance, if you kicked off a “plan” this year and it’s going well and you are enjoying the garden of His Presence as you read: KEEP GOING! I cheer you on! :)
Amelie and I decided to avail ourselves of the fabulous Storyline Online website to have a movie star read a book to us. Though I tried to steer her towards a couple that looked interesting to me, she was insistent we should “read” A Bad Case of Stripes, written and illustrated by David Shannon and read by Sean Astin.
Amelie loved the story so much she just had to watch it a second time and would have watched it again, except I talked her into doing some “striped” painting and gluing instead.
Anyway, the story is about a little girl, Camilla Cream, who loves lima beans, but she would never eat them because none of the other kids she knows likes them. Classic fear-of-man stuff. Poor Camilla is so nervous about the first day of school and being sure everyone liked her that she breaks out in stripes. Of course the kids at school tease her and when someone yells out, “Let’s see polka dots,” embarrassingly, she breaks into polka-dots.
A variety of doctors, specialists and experts try to diagnose the problem and the more “names” they put on her condition, the more ways she turns into everything and anything other than herself. Every possible “cure” only made her into something further from the little girl we started with. Finally, when an “environmental therapist” advised Camilla that to be cured she should close her eyes, breathe deeply and become one with the room, Camilla, mortified, said, “I wish you hadn’t said that!” Because that is exactly what happened. Camilla Cream slowly melted into the room. Her bed was her mouth and two pictures on the wall were her eyes and a lamp {Amelie was quite intrigued to note} was her nose.
Camilla was upset. Her parents were very upset and Amelie and I became quite worried about what could possibly happen that could help poor Camilla.
But a little plump, old lady came by with some lima beans. They weren’t magic beans or anything, just regular old lima beans. She offered some to Camilla. Camilla resisted at first saying she hated lima beans, but then she relented, because she really wanted lima beans. So, the lady tossed some in her mouth (her mattresses) and suddenly Camilla became herself. Cured!
The moral of the story…
Isn’t children’s literature a wonderful surprise sometimes? The moral of the story just unfolds before your eyes and while Amelie loved it (and I am betting will be watching it again at home — get ready Rocky and Jovan) I got something, too.
I got a great reminder that we were each created to do and to be something so incredible that God knit us specially together in the womb. He knew each of us and saw us and put us on this earth and in His story with great care and purpose.
I am so shocked at myself sometimes, surprised that even though I am very, shall we use the lovely word Tredessa has used to describe me, determined… Even though I tend towards being highly opinionated and have a strong personality (is this why my siblings call me The Godmother?), though I go at everything, Dave tells me, like a house-on-fire, somehow, I am constantly doubting my every move, wondering what people will think, de-valuing my strengths and wishing I could be more like this person in this area, or that person in the other area. And I am so doggone indecisive about my life and who I am and what I should be about. So indecisive. And I find that weird. How can I be able to tell everyone else what they should do {*smile}, but I cannot just make a decision for me?
Are you ever like that? Afraid to jump because you’re just sure it will be wrong and everything will be ruined?
I know life isn’t really ever as black and white as I wish it to be. Some things are right and some things are wrong, but there are things that just happen and experiences that don’t go our way and if they’re not actually fatal (and let’s face it, I am writing this and you are reading it so we are still alive, no matter how hard the things we’ve been through) then they are just the result of life in a fallen word and usually we did the best we could and so we trust God and go on.
But sometimes fear of failure of mistakes or what people will think or are thinking just paralyse us and no one can actually see us anymore because we look like the wallpaper. We’ve just blended into the atmosphere, having taken on the identity of the room we’re in and the people surrounding us. When really, shouldn’t we be standing out like a “sore thumb of uniqueness,” the one-and-only US made by the Creator of the Universe as the only one of our kind?
Bleh, huh?
If we could just keep in mind, that even if it doesn’t always look black or white, left or right, right or wrong – God loves us, has a plan in an exciting adventure-filled life of wholeness and holiness and then there is the enemy of our soul saying, “You can’t do that. Who do you think you are? What will people think if you try that?” Well, if we understood the differences in the voices, we’d know…
If I am called to impart the love of God, impart wisdom, impart the joy of being God’s daughter, impart the joys of home and family, the opposite is being shut down, told to be quiet, go hide, keep secrets, withhold it all. We let some one who shrugs off our life mission stop us. If I am called to impart so much good stuff and I bottle up my deep treasure – it goes bad.
If I am called to be wholehearted and impassioned and unwavering in zeal for life, for family, for the love of God, the enemy of my soul might diffuse me by pointing out how disinterested or unenthusiastic other people are for the things that light my fire. Maybe even culture tells me that what I love isn’t important in today’s climate. So, I try to get excited about something more “relevant” or important and end up unengaged, off-track, diffused.
Be you, seriously!
So, if you’re a singer, sing. Sing so loud you dispel the darkness. Sing in the night and bring on the dawn!
If you’re a preacher, preach. Let your words fall like rain and wash away injustice and sin and bring the redemptive plan to life, on earth as it is in heaven!
If you’re a teacher, teach. Expand minds and hearts and empower people to know and understand.
If you’re a baker, bake. Writers, write. If you’re a leader, lead (I feel I must mention that some one has to be following). If you’re painter (walls or canvas) paint – bring color and beauty! If you’re a sculptor, sculpt. If you are merciful and compassionate, if you are tender and caring, if your heart is to help – quit letting others tell you to get tough and get a move on. Be who you are – a rescuer, a strong shoulder, a hero, a soft place for some one to fall? If you’re bold and well-spoken, if you see the wrong and need to make it right, if you were born to expose the unfruitful works of darkness, then armor up and declare the charge!
The point: as long as you are trying to fit yourself into anyone or everyone else’s mold, you’ll have a bad case of the stripes, and really, what we all want – and what we all need is: YOU! The one and only you.
Note to self: ALL of it is a note to myself!
Please watch this or check the book out at the library! It has beautiful illustrations and is well-written. My synopsis doesn’t do it justice.
On the 11th Day of Christmas it may or may not be snowing here and in Indiana and South Dakota and LOTS of other places!
I used to really-really hate snow. I’ve mostly lived in places with long winters and snow to the rafters. It slowed me down, snowed me in, made life a little more difficult if it lasted more than a day or two. Then about 20 or 22 years ago, I saw this video on TBN of Carman singing, “Somewhere it’s Snowing,” and forever, the beauty of the thought that grace and forgiveness cover our sin like snow covers the earth and “gives nature new birth,” well, I fell in love with God’s ways through this white blanket of wondrousness.
Snowy days are fun at first and get old fast, but I never cease to be amazed by the even the ugliest, most uneven ground, or sooty factories and broken roads – they all, under a coat of fresh snow, are beautiful again. And the picture of that, the miracle of it, is so profound, I really do thank God for the most vivid reminder on days like today.
I once read in a poem, when snow covers the earth,
That it hides the worlds scars, and gives nature new birth,
And they say when a man turns from sin to the Lord,
That forgiveness, like snow, covers him evermore!
And somewhere it’s snowing –
Now, I’ve heard that the angels lift their hearts and rejoice,
When one traveler turns homeward from his ways, to the Lord.
If somewhere someone’s turning, he’s giving his all,
And God’s grace, like the snow, is beginning to fall!
On the 11th day of Christmas, I am overwhelmed as I realize the gift of Jesus, and all He came to bring,
“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow…” Isaiah 1.18
Our sins, all the ones we committed before we knew Him and received Him (“while we were yet sinners”), and all the ones since – they fall powerless in the face of the grace-full and free, forgiveness-laden blood of Jesus Christ. He fulfilled all sin’s demanding requirements and He is enough, setting us free from the law of sin and death. Don’t just sit there consumed by your pain and shame and sin – run to the forgiver.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1.9
Seriously? You can take this to the bank. If you confess – He is faithful, He is just, He is able and will forgive your sins and cleanse you from that stranglehold of sin and unrighteousness. Run to Him for forgiveness, to Him. You’ll never find what only Jesus gives anywhere else. Let the good, sweet and amazing grace of Jesus cover your sin like the snow is covering Colorado!
This year, for the first time ever, I got to have THREE Kings for my Nativity. I finally have 3 grand-boys who represented the Magi. I had waited a long, long time for three boys. We are rather a girl-heavy family. :) Good times.
PLUS – I actually-truly-delightfully-joyfully got THREE new grandbébés this year.
Three in one year!!! I mean – that is a wildly amazing bunch of generousness straight from heaven, I tell ya!
Now, please note, my husband took these photographs. I think he focused so much on the babies that my poor, good-looking son-in-law, Dave, was cut out. There were like 12 pics just like this and Dave is headless in every shot! Haha!
Malakai, or Kai, as we generally call him (which means rejoicing – and he has brought so much of it), was born last January, quite early and just as Christmas had been packed away and was the BEST way to start the year ever! Then, as spring broke in the Rockies, the dazzling Bailey Sophia arrived and just tripled the stunning beauty emanating from Rocky and Jovan’s little house, being their 3rd girl and all. Finally, just 9 days before Christmas, the highly anticipated Evangeline Lilly made her debut and there they all were for our Christmas: three fresh, beautiful, bright-eyed, adventurous, lovely babies – gifts under our tree to last our whole lives long. Our heritage is being increased at an astonishing rate!
Please note how GOOD all these people look (Jovan, Tredessa AND Dave) for just having had babies this year! :)
Hmmmm…
Interesting, very interesting: the 3rd of our new-babies was born 9 days before Christmas. Then, these three babies bring our total to nine grandbebes. I really did not plan all these threes and nines. I promise. I am just sitting here cracking myself up…as I hear the Twilight Zone theme song in my head. Haha. Anyhoo…
Nonetheless – here is what I want you to know on the 9th Day of Christmas ~
I really feel led to encourage you on this message:
Deuteronomy 31.6, 8 NIV “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you… The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
Hebrews 13.5b NIV “God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”
And finally, in case you need to hear this three times:
Isaiah 42.16 NIV “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”
And this is what I heard for you, friends and familia and readers passing by – even if by your own decisions and actions you are in a place of chaos and despair, even if you know you’re on a rocky cliff or a wilderness of your own making, you are not abandoned! It does not matter one iota WHY you are there or HOW you got there. Just know that even though you ARE there, God has not forsaken you, not lost track of where you are. He will NEVER leave you. Because HE is faithful and HE is a God of His Word. If it were based on us, we’d all be sunk, seriously! Sunk! But He is God and He is faithful!
He is so faithful that even if we make our bed in hell, even there you can reach out and find Him…Don’t believe me? Psalm 139.7-10 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths [Sheol-the place of the dead], you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
WHERE could we possibly go that His faithfulness could not find us? He will never-ever-ever leave you. This is Good News, it is joy unspeakable. Are you suddenly aware? Did you just realize He has been waiting for you to notice that He has not let you out of His sights?
Be at peace, welcome His Presence. It’s going to be Ok. Let the merry continue brightly.
If you’re sick? Stay home. Get well. Make lists, lists of every kind.
Places to go
Movies to see
Movies to make of the grandbebes
Restaurants to try
Languages to learn
Books to read
Projects for the house
Blogs to write
People to have coffee with
Recipes to try
Scriptures to memorize
Pre-school ideas for Amelie Belle
And ok, yes, the obligatory get-in-better-shape schedule
So, on the 8th day, it beginning to look less and less like Christmas.
I have to hurry, because my goal is Christmas cards by Epiphany. ;) Oh, Lord, help me.
And for that matter, for real, help me!!!
I was noticing the 8 maids-a-milking on that ornament up there, but I actually only see one and she is carrying two pails. I feel like she has been abandoned by the other maids and some one else might not be carrying their part of the load. And there are times when that is actually true. There are times we are called to carry more than we think we can handle and for sure something some one else should have been carrying.
Sometimes we forget to ask for help {or are too prideful to ask – though I have never personally been guilty of that, really, ever, for sure – are you doubting me here?!}. Sometimes no one else can help us even if we do ask, no one, but Jesus, anyway.
So heading in to the New Year, let’s remember this about HIM!:
Psalm 55.22 AMP “Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail).”
1 Peter 5.7 AMP “Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.”
Hebrews 4.16 NKJV “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Don’t carry the heavy baggage longer and further than is needed. Turns out we have a High Priest with ready access to the God of the universe and He actually knows and understands and empathizes with what we’ve been going through. So READ THESE 5 translations of Hebrews 4, get encouraged, ask for help and lay your burdens down, fresh and light for the New Year.
Was this just like 2 1/2 weeks ago??? It was. Wow, time flies when you’re having fun!
Well, must have been because New Year’s Day = a Walking Dead marathon and that is happening right here at my house. Some sounds are not good for a recovering-sickie and that show has lots of those. Ick…
“Readers are Leaders” – my dad told me that
But he didn’t tell me that until I was married with a houseful of children (with no time to read) because when I was a little girl he worried that something was wrong with me because all I did was read and he wanted me out skipping rocks or something. I had actually been trying to curb my reading appetite. Haha. Nobody reads more than he does now that he is retired, for sure!
I am doing the whole #emptyshelf challenge via Jon Acuff, so until I get my official backstage pass to the shared Pinterest board (I was late), I’ll post my progress here. Most people cleared off a shelf in their houses to put the books they read this year, but since my Kindle Reader has almost 50 books in it now (several only partially read…hehe), I will probably be doing mostly digital (which is so weird to me)…or not. But in any case, I decided to make a chart for myself for the updates.
And though it is true, I have never once actually completed reading 52 books in a one year period, I have probably read parts of 200 or more in that time frame. So, that’s something, isn’t it? With all the Kindle books to choose from, plus, you know, like thousands I own…and then the library audio downloads I have just started getting into, well, it could happen!
Something new I am going to try this year
Donald Miller’sStoryline Productivity Planner. I like it because it is pen on paper, low-tech. Is it ok if I step away from technology and use paper in a notebook? Please, just for this one little area? Ok, then. You should check it out. Just google it “donald miller storyline productivity planner” and you’ll see a PDF link right at the top. If you wanna.
On the first day of a brand new year and the 7th day of Christmas, here is what I know for sure:
He is real, Jesus is real. And that makes everything that is about to happen, in 2014 and beyond, the adventure of a lifetime, tears, pain, love and joy – all of it. And anything that ultimately brings Him glory – it’s gonna be worth it.
This blew me away – shut off your phone for 15 minutes…watch
Happy New Year, people I love, and people I will love if ever I get the chance. :)
Um, I’m wondering – is it wrong of me to add this book to my reading list???
I just KNOW there were literal handfuls of you who were wondering where I’d gone, haha!
It was? I don’t know what it was? It was like Thanksgiving went straight into wild Christmas prep and baby countdown into marketing a production into Baking Day which led straight (and I mean straight) into having a baby which led into tech-week for the play and the amazing production that was Jesus, Mary and Joseph! which threw me headlong into a final shopping frenzy for Christmas and then a wonderful, sweeeeeeeet Christmas with my family which morphed straight into 3 crazy-fun and super-exhausting days with the most delightful grandbebes in the known universe and then suddenly, feeling a little bleh on Sunday (which was my rest day) to full-fledged fever-achy-miserable-moaning-and-groaning-shivering poor-me sickness of some sort.
Better today. How about YOU!?? Are you and your familias staying healthy?
Six Things I am thinking about on the 6th Day of Christmas (after all – this is my *thought – collage*)
1/
Dave got me the Shauna Niequist book, Bread and Wine – A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes. I had borrowed it from the library and could not quit talking about it and now I have a copy I can read again and again and write notes in and underline for emphasis. It’s full of great quotes about the family table, eating together and food and it is just…delicious. Even as just a book, it heightens all my senses because of the words… And as I have written about food and meals together around convivial tables many times here at this very blog, always struggling to find the right/perfect words, it makes me happy that some one else has captured what I have experienced and felt and yet challenged me to embrace and pursue more of it – of the life around the table. She writes so beautifully, I wholeheartedly recommend it!
From my own “about page,” and you may quote me on this
“My true SOUL FOOD belief – breaking bread, enjoying even the humblest meal at a convivial table filled with love and laughter: The best meal you will ever eat. And may you have many of those in your lifetime!”
2/
Dave and I are in a bit of a Christmas compromise. There is a big cast-party at our house this weekend and while it is bright and sunny and a fresh New Year almost is here, I would love the feeling of packing Christmas away for all fresh clean surfaces and new beginnings. Yet he, Mr Christmas, well, he would leave it all up until truly, the 12th Day of Christmas (Epiphany, January 6). In my post-sick weakened state, I figured I’d have to give in and let everything remain, but he got downstairs before me this morning and packed away the Christmas art work and Santa collection and most of the Nativity sets and the kid’s Christmas books and games and cleared surfaces and made room and though the outside lights will remain lit until Epiphany and two gorgeous trees and a greenery-laden bannister remain, things still look fresh and clean and I didn’t even have to do a thing. How sweet is that?
3/
Anne Graham Lotzposted a blog yesterday called “2014: The Year of God’s Presence,” and that has just hit my heart with a breath of joyous, forward-leaning possibility.
4/
2013 was a year of such stripping away. I am not really one of those people who can seem to comprehend that God loves him/her just because He is love, gives love and not because of what she/he does to earn it. Even though I know technically we are saved by grace and not our works, I still have the old “consider the ant and don’t be a sluggard” mantra playing in my mind at all times. Also that scary picture of Jesus cursing the tree that didn’t bear figs. I have always struggled with working my ever-loving behind off trying to force the fruit so I don’t get kicked out (or cursed for eternity, as it were). But the truth is, fruit comes cyclically, in seasons, and then the tree has to go dormant to prepare for the next season.
I asked God, somewhere near the beginning fo 2013, to give me a symbol of my life, some sort of motif that would help me understand the purpose of my very existence and He gave me the tree. A tree. A tree planted by the waters. And at the time it didn’t seem particularly exciting, but later in the year, when I found a note I had written to some one else at a time of despair in their life, I was encouraged by this passage from Job 14.7-9 that I had shared for them:
“At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.”
And I can tell you that trying to remove a tree from your yard is hard work. I tried this summer with several seedlings that had self-planted and it was an ongoing battle. And that is how the devil should see me. At the scent of water…
5/
God can make all things new. He can redeem any situation.Anything! What the enemy means for evil, God uses for good to accomplish His plan and His purpose. His ways are mysterious and too wonderful for me to comprehend. I don’t know how He will fix all the broken pieces or heal the bloody parts in the messiest parts of our lives, my life, but we have this hope –
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53.4-6 NKJV
6/
My dog is old, going blind, losing her hearing and pretty arthritic, but when I give her the tiniest bit of attention, pet her and love on her, she leaps and twirls and wags her tail, acting just like a young pup. That is what a little time showing love can do – for anybody, really. We should all do it more for the people and pets in our lives, shouldn’t we?
I leave you with this, today’s verse-of-the-day from Bible Gateway (because it is so perfectly perfect):
This is what the Lord says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:16, 18-19 NIV
Good-bye, 2013. Thanks for the stripping away, for the renewal and growth of our familia – for the 3 beautiful new grandbebes, and for the time with my love. And now – for the new thing to spring up… :)
Some very GRAND-bebes introduced us to these super-fun videos on YouTube and even if this one isn’t the funniest of them all, it is so very appropriate for the season.
On the 4th Day of Christmas – Four really amazing things Jesus went around doing:
“Go and tell John how the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the Good News is preached. Blessed is he who has no doubts about me.” (Luke 7)
The Christmas story didn’t stop in a stable, but marches on through eternity. Jesus was born to be the Savior of the world. I love that it is not just some big, lofty whole-group kind of love and saving, but that for each of us, personally, salvation is the gift of God through Jesus Christ.
Keep opening our blinded eyes to see what You see, to see how You see, Lord. And open our deaf ears that we may hear Your voice and the songs of heaven. Raise our dead dreams and broken bones to life and let us be carriers and couriers of the Good News as we represent You day to day all the way to the end of our days. In Your Name!
