My FAVORITE of all holidays (and holy days), rich with symbolism and meaning. It is not only deeply spiritual, but full of meaning I get to publicly share during the season, my best witnessing days each year!
“God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen,” was never on my top-10 list of most loved Christmas Carols when I was a kid. Or even as an adult. It seemed stuffy, quite formal. Certainly old-fashioned. In fact, there echos in my memory of the song a rather foreboding, dirge-like pipe-organ rendition.
But I do so love a hymn and enjoy contemplating what the writers of those old words, meanings changing over time as they do, were feeling and communicating. And my thanks to Jack Hayford for pointing out the absolute power of the blessing of encouragement of this old “Merry Gentlemen” hymn. I was rather surprised to learn that it dates to the 1700s and was rather shocking, as old English Christmas carols go, as it was danced to and sung in a very upbeat manner. Obviously not the death-dirge I imagined as a kid.
Regardless, I embrace the good news of it now. For the heart of the song is: God rest you (no striving, no panic and fear). Don’t let anything cause you anxiety or alarm. Remember? Jesus came and and has redeemed and rescued you. You have been saved from Satan’s power over you. This is good news, my friends. Jesus came and this should fill our hearts with comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh yes! This is the good news filled with comfort and joy!
Verses 1 and 7 (of 7)
God rest ye merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember, Christ, our Saviour
Was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy
Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth deface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy
Sometimes the heart needs comfort.
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me
I am thinking about comfort. One part of God I am just beginning to see, after all these years, is that He comforts. Sadly, when screwing up royally many-many-many-many times in my life, I have the Adam and Eve tendency to run away from Him trying to hide instead of running to Him, where, as this www.biblegateway.com search of His own Word shows us: HE COMFORTS (click here). In spite of us and even in the face of our ridiculous unfaithfulness, He keeps pursuing and comforts us.
His rod (the Word, the beautiful scriptures outlining His great love) and His staff (the leading of Holy Spirit – right there, never leaving me), well, they comfort me. They are there to comfort me, anyway, even though I often resist or run from them.
2 Corinthians 1 NLT
3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5 For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. 6 Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. 7 We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.
Tidings. Good news. Here’s-the-latest-grace-report: Jesus, our Good Shepherd, our God of ALL comfort, by His birth and life (Is. 61 foretells Jesus’ coming and His purpose being “to comfort all who mourn”) and death and resurrection has made way for great comfort and joy! Oh, tidings of comfort and joy!
Sometimes a heart needs comfort. And comfort is what Father gives, still.
““I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” John 10:14-15 NIV
Merry Christmas. Tidings of comfort and joy! And I mean that!
“Peace is so much more than the absence of conflict. Maybe you can lay your
head on your pillow tonight and thank God that you experienced no conflict, but
that is not the same thing as experiencing peace. If a husband and wife get
tired of shouting at each other and both slip into an icy indifference, that is
not peace.
In Hebrew, the word for “peace” is shalom,
a well wishing that says it all: may you be healthy, whole and complete. May you
know where you fit in the universe, and may you find tranquility there.
Augustine said that peace is “the tranquility of order.” When you know where you
fit into God’s world-that you are higher than the animals, but less than
God-that is the sense of order that brings tranquility. ” Mel Lawrenz
I cannot even imagine how Christmas would be different if Jesus had not been foretold as the Prince of Peace, and if the angels had not confirmed that from on high with great a loud, sure declaration of ~
PEACE ON EARTH!
I am not unaware that at Christmas the battle among individuals and families to find that Peace and live and walk in it rages, maybe even more than at any other time. And isn’t that just like the enemy of our souls? But I meditate on the booming loud and heart-stopping words of the the very Angel-of-the-Lord and the warring hosts sent by the heavenly Father . Settled in heaven and declared to man, I also am in awe and tremble at the power of the message (Luke 2):
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
14“ Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Mary Jean has shared this translation interpretation for peace: nothing missing, nothing broken.
So, Father, for the one on my heart who so desperately needs to know Your peace today, to finally be healthy, whole and complete after years of the ravages of the enemy against his heart, I pray peace-shalom and all it means. And for the places in my soul that long to be complete and ordered aright, Your peace is my heart’s cry. Prince of Peace, I welcome You here.
Every time a bell rings
Everytime a bell rings, you hear Zuzu say at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” an angel gets its’ wings. That is sweet, but o-so-much-less powerful than from the words of the old Christmas carol by Bing Crosby, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” and I tell you I love that KOSI 101 plays this and it is declared with authority over the radio waves annually (both by Bing and now the newer version by Casting Crowns:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Every time a bell rings during these blessed Christmas days, I shall recall His promise. He is not unaware of the enemy’s battle against our peace. He sees and He is at work. What He sent the angels and army-hosts of heaven to declare the night Jesus was born is ever more true and is not dissipated by the age or times or depths of our despair. His Word will accomplish what it was sent forth to do. There is for us a remaining promise of peace. on. earth. and good will from Father to us all.
NOTE ABOUT DAVE: It is hard to blog about peace when he is making so much noise. Hahahaha. Getting used to having him around in the mornings before office time.
May you be healthy, whole and complete. May you
know where you fit in the universe, and may you find tranquility there.
I am not going to re-post the video here, but if you hang in Christendom like me, you probably get an email with this very heartfelt song each year in recent history. Maybe you have been tagged on Facebook or Youtube may have actually suggested this song/video to you. I am not re-posting it because the singer is lovely and has a nice voice the part where she sings out about every knee one day bowing and every tongue confessing, with a children’s choir behind her, that Jesus Christ is Lord is kind of a chill-bump moment (and you know how we love those). And she so very obviously feels the message of a “little boy at the mall” who, while all the other children are clamouring to see Santa Claus, wonders “Where’s the line to see Jesus? It’s HIS birthday, after all” Then disappears.
I am not re-posting it because I truly do not mean to disparage it. It is obviously presented with an intent of provoking thought (which it has done for me, for sure), but after recieving it along with 80,000 other people on a FW:FW:FW:Fw:Fw:Subject: the Line to See Jesus list where a little hint of condemnation mixed with a little dose of shame-and-tsk-tsk over Christians merry-making or that we ever even go to a mall (which I truly do avoid at all costs), and then the ever-present dare to re-send to everyone in the ol’ addy book, I cringed a little.
You may or may not know that I CONSTANTLY pray that the Lord will not let my life cause stumbling to some one else, that my actions will not turn people off to Jesus, because nobody knows better than me how little I truly am {like Jesus}, how little I probably do deserve to be called a Christian (whatever that really means, anymore). I am so trying to follow Him close enough that I can just reflect HIS glory. Anything less is detrimental to His love and plan for the people in my life. I need to pray this more, actually…
Oh we Christians are funny, aren’t we?
I just want us to be careful not to watch a video like this and just shake our heads and start condemning the world (and our peeps in the household of faith) for celebrating the Birth of Jesus in the only ways they know how. For yes-they are celebrating His birth even when they don’t understand it. Every twinkling light they hang, for instance, represents Jesus-the Light of the world. He came and the darkness can never be the same! They may not consciously realize it, but it is so. Their hearts cry out for wholeness, too, my brothers and sisters!
Where is the line to see Jesus?
Check it out. It is the bumper-to-bumper traffic you are forced to deal with on your daily commute. It is the crowded bus full of anxiety-ridden, depressed and joyless people who invade your newspaper-reading territory and climb over you unceremoniously to get the window seat. It is formed in the 15-items-or-less line at WalMart anytime this month, where every cart has at least 30 things or more and you better not say. one. word. It is sitting next to you in class. It is the challenging relative who attacks your faith and witness every year because they are really hoping you will prove them wrong about a God they feel somehow doesn’t see them. It is your toddler tugging your shirt when you have no time. It is your spouse and who has been to hell and back with you. Oh the line is there. It’s everywhere.
Look over your shoulder, baby. The line to see Jesus is long and it is growing. It forms right behind you.
Having just emerged from “wedding coma,” or perhaps more accurately a time which could be described as this crazy-fun-season of flowers-and-vintage-and-love-and-romance-and-sister-time-and-planning-the-most-joyous-celebration-of-the-year-when Dessa-married-Ryan, I feel like I closed my eyes for a second and it went from September 23 to December 3. But – yikes, it is actually December 5. Omygosh!
Thus shall my mantra be: Keep calm and merry on.
For I do so love the Reason for the season and all things Christ-mass (the worship and acknowledgement of a Savior) and even the silly ways we may mark and celebrate it, our humble attempts at being like Him, celebrating Him from lights on the tree (Jesus, Light of the World} to giving gifts (for He was a gift to us from a loving Father) to red ribbon (like the scarlet cord we see in the Word – it has always been about the blood) to the breads we bake and the puddings we make (undeniably, resoundingly remembering Him when we sit to eat),…I love it all and it ALL testifies to my great gratefulness at having been redeemed, bought back, placed in the Kingdom. I can’t help celebrating, both the HOLY wild side and the happy-human ways we try-o-try-o-try to not only receive and consume His great love and faithfulness and then let it out: all wommply-imperfectly-and-sincerely flawed, but sincerely full of our response to His love! And our weird obsessions with sharing it. Forgive my joy, if you must.
I do not have this Christmas album. But I want to. Just because it is stinking cute.
Today there was nothing to do but give in to the beautiful snow on a bright and merry day and do some Christmas decorating.
Decorate & listen to Christmas music: my record albums. I am not ashamed to admit I really-really-really love Kenny Rogers’ and Dolly Partons’ “Once Upon a Christmas” recording from 1984. I love their renditions of every song they do. Dolly on “Winter Wonderland” is kind of amazing, actually.
Dave brought me an early 1960s Santa, sleigh and 2 reindeer, – a small, vintage Bakelite yard ornament from way back when, that he found in storage under the house. I had purchased them a thousand years ago, or 2002 – whichever, and never used them. Cleaned them up, and will need to do some repair and replacing the sled runners. So excited to add them to the Santa Claus collection for 2011.
The honeymooners will be “home” sometime today and wanting the house to look pretty and smell wonderful for them is fun & motivational in the decorating process.
I wonder if Tredessa plans to take her wooden Christmas train, a part of our decor since 1987, now that she is married?? Well, it currently sits next to the big Santa with his list of “good” children (including Gavin, Hunter, Guini, Gemma May, Averi J and Amelie Belle). Plus – I LOVE after-Christmas 90% off sales! Because you buy it and pack it away, no emotional attachment yet, and then when Christmas comes, you open the storage totes and look!!: brand new table-coverings and kitchen towels in the happiest of patterns and there may or may not be some crazy squeals of delight! Don’t judge me.
Rocky is singing in the big Christmas service at Rez in Loveland, today at 4 and 6:30 and both of the morning services tomorrow. He said it is an amazing program and he is really excited about getting to participate. They will LIVEstream it if you want to catch it! (I’ll be at today’s 4:00 pm service-look for me!). http://www.rez.org/live/
I saw Amelie kissing Santa ClausIt took her a little while to warm up to him this year.
It’s snowing. Now re-read that like Alvin said it to Dave on the classic Chipmunks’ Christmas album. {Look, Dave – it’s snowing!} Did you insert you very own Chipmunk voice there? I hope so!
The morning snow delights and surprises. Yes, even though they told us on the news it was coming.
I come downstairs to a fresh pot of coffee and Bedford Falls glowing softly, ready to thrill the grandbebes for Christmas. Snow is falling with white, fluffy enthusiasm and the timing is perfect as now (after all the wedding excitement) we can begin to fully embrace this most joyous of seasons and do our decorating. This is the weekend for it.
Today is our first “official” day in the office for future ministry stuff (to be announced shortly). Meeting our new and most-amazing intern, Emilee, there too. She could not be dissuaded from driving down from Fort Collins even for snow. We will be working on The Christmas Party* (PLEASE COME! admission is canned goods for families in Joplin still struggling to rebuild their lives after the tornado in May). And looking ahead with anticipation.
Then home to unveil the Santa collection, I hope, and perhaps start putting up the family-tree, the one with handmade ornaments and bits and pieces of an enduring family life.
Naturally, Dean is in my head.
*The Christmas Party~
Professional photographers will be on hand to snap family photos and the variety of artists and talents represented is the best show in town! Put it on your calendar and plan to be there!
Dave is teaching for the county here. We went really-really-really almost-above-the-timberline high to get here, over Monarch Pass. Here is a sign Dave saw in the county building:
I am visiting lots of wedding sites and www.marthastewart.com greets me with a countdown each time I log in, which I have to say does not really thrill me.
So, like 75 days now…actually less. Luckily, though, Ryan and Tredessa are having a small family wedding, so we should be able to pull it off. I mean I have got all the talent in the world in my fam!
In other wedding news ::
Elise-the-Niece is getting married to Matt in 11 days.
This gorgeous beauty will be at my house, along with little Miss Sawyer by the time we get home. All the way from hot-hot-hot Texas!
Better bring a sweater, Stef.
Dave and Tara are celebrating their 8th anniversary today.
Love your love, my sweets. 8 very, very good years.
Rocky and Jovan will celebrate their 5th anniversary Friday.
Five beautiful years for two gorgeous lovers! Congrats, my sweets!
So
I am catching up on reading and writing and organizing my computer files and photos and downloading video and editing video and getting room service every morning. From Dave.
And I have suddenly realized I want to start thinking ahead to:
Yes. It is time.
UPDATE 9/14/11 :: Apparently rain in Denver = snow in elevations over 10,000 feet. Living in Colorado this long I should know that, yet am here, expecting up to 6″ of snow tonight, in flip-flops and a hoodie. Hehe.
The Twelfth (and final, *sniff) Day of Christmas ~ Epiphany!
Christmas is not over until Epiphany (January 6, today), the day commemorating the Wise Men, having followed the star, finally finding and gifting the baby Jesus, so let’s just get that straight right now. That said, I could keep blogging Christmas because there was just so much (I wasn’t finished!), but I won’t…for at least 10 or 11 months.
My 12 Favorite Things about Christmas 2010
No. Not really. I can’t be bound. There were more than 12, but I will try-try-try to edit as much as is humanly possible. Please don’t box me in.
Friends.
I wonder sometimes, how I have any friends at all because I am not great at friendship. But God gives them to me anyway. Denise just gave me a gift bag full of Tetra pens. She found an ebay.com source for these discontinued writing utensils (I’d written a mournful blog about them here), once made in France and available everywhere, my pen-love, my passion, and she just got them for me. Who deserves that? I know I don’t.
Then, my 3rd Thursdays ~ we meet once a month. They are my go-to prayer partners, busy, amazing women, but time. They gave me time. And we met at The Olive Garden and laughed and talked and thoroughly enjoyed steak gorgonzola alfredo, no dainty appetites or feigning diets: we eat, we are merry, together we spread joy.
And the young “Ww/God” group? Show up at my house on a December night and let me dispense advice and cheer them on. I was just in my 20s like 5 minutes ago, right? I feel lucky to be surrounded, I am letting their youth and exuberance rub off on me.
Cards from long-ago friends, sweet letters and notes, catching up over miles and years. At Christmas, I thank God for the friends that decorate my life.
Presents with a Past
Our family enjoys the search for treasure and aren’t afraid to gift something used. The girls have become masters at finding things I or some one else once loved and would love to have again. Daughters Stephanie and Stormie run a very successful business selling hip, vintage wares (www.maydae.com) so it is no surprise. But guess what surprised me the most? Pencils! Anderson-Erickson Dairy pencils!My dad was a milkman when I was little, at an amazing dairy in Des Moines, Iowa. He did his bookwork with these lightweight, narrow pencils and always had one tucked in his ear. I spent hours and hours writing and drawing with them as a little girl. I mentioned how I missed those pencils and Tara contacted the company and they sent some out. I LOVE them! I never use pencils, but now, I shall.
I got old issues of my fav late 80s/early 90s mag, Victoria. There are the cool retro 70s TV trays, and some crazy-awesome orange 70s pottery!
Gifts from the heart
My creative family is so fun. Besides the usual gifts and odds and ends you buy at all the fav stores, everybody throws themselves into love-projects and makes things for one another. I got THE CUTEST stud earrings from Little Bits and Giggles (Jovan’s business), bright turquoisy-blue and Jeanie green. She also made me an iPod cover (very cute!). Stormie embroidered me a perpetual calendar (she embroidered a picture of Steph and Tristan for them and a unicorn for Guini, too…and Tre embroidered old-fashioned kitchen towels for Stormie – what a bunch of loves!). So many cute gifts, handmade with love (CLICK HERE TO SEE SOME).
Oh-oh-oh: platform boots! AND the James Taylor/Carole King Troubadour Reunion Tour DVD/CD set (since I didn’t get to see them live…next best thing).
One fun project was that we all painted Stephanie red-haired-girl portraits. She has an entire art collection now – of images inspired by her likeness! CLICK HERE
Plus other gifts – like my favorite Jack Hayford sermon ever from Tredessa, worship music from Dave and Tara. There is this awesome travel mug and a Starbucks certificate. Jewlery and clothes and books and music (and my husband still is insisting on getting me a new phone (iPhone – because I adore my iPod Touch so), but I haven’t let him yet. We’ll see. Too many wonderful gifts, from so many wonderful, thoughtful people.
My Christmas card.
I just love how it turned out and how I got to preach it up on the card. I HOPE some one read it and was encouraged! Yeah for sweet, longsuffering grandbebes and their ever-enduring parents. Cheers-bells-and-love to Stef and Wrex for the use of the farm and animals (and baby Sawyer to play Baby Jesus!)! Thank-you, Tredessa for snapping madly over the course of the fastest 7 minutes in the world. And thanks to Stormiekins for putting the card together and somehow fitting all my words on there. My Christmas card makes me ever-so-happy!
Family
Gavin & Hunter wrote and performed their worship song at the pj party. The kids made presents for their parents.
Dinners and craft sessions, thrift store shopping and ice skating. Christmas movies and Christmas concerts and Dave starring in the community theater – with family, all the more delightful. Grandbebes everywhere, pj parties and pancakes. We got to borrow the Phipps’ on Christmas since their families are far away. Dana came for a visit from Indiana early in the month. And right after Christmas, Elise-the-Niece and her little sister Christiana from Aberdeen came for a week to hang out. “God sets the lonely in families…” Psalm 68.6a
Elise with Stormie; Christiana with the kids on move-in day at Tara’s
Christmas morning
I am so blessed. My grown kids still love the magic of a Christmas morning at our house. How cool is that? So, at about 9 am, they begin trailing in and we meet in the living room until everyone arrives. Then the grandbebess line up waiting to go see their “big” unwrapped gifts from Nonna and Poppa. The chaotic joy begins!
9:30 am While the kiddos enjoy the first of the gifts (o, there are more) and the contents of their stockings, breakfast is served. The grown-up-kids are very particular about breakfast and have determined very specific food they must have so I let them. Cinnamon and orange rolls. Little Smokies. Mini-bagels and cream cheese, juices and good, strong coffee – right next to the Hot-Cocoa-Makin’-Station. Eggs and whatever else. We eat, the little ones play.
10:00 am My husband gathered everyone. He read scripture and exhorted the family. He prayed over us all.. Then we dive in to gifts!
10:15 am Paper flies, laughing, loudness. Squeals of “Oh-look!” and “Thank-you, I wanted this.” You hear “I am opening a gift from you,” so no one will miss an important reveal. Paper fills bag after bag, is mounded high. The kids are on overload. Your face gets tired from smiling. I sit is a nice chair and sigh with satisfaction at all the thought and generosity that is shared among siblings on Christmas morning. We open gifts for over 3 solid hours, alternately trying to go just a few people at a time and just everyone tearing in with zeal.
1:30 pm We look at everything and take pictures and smile and play with our new toys. We reveal secrets that almost didn’t make it to Christmas and how we hid things from one another all season long. We exchange gift receipts for wrong sizes and the little ones love the family gift-wrap wars (balling up used gift wrap and declaring a battle with some one lse – usually Uncle Rocky!).
4:00 pm The Phipps’ arrive and there are piles more presents all around. Then a big family Mexican meal and Christmas movies on the big screen until we are so tired we nearly drop.
10:00 pm Silent night. Holy, peaceful night. Thank-you for this blessed day, Father.
These are a few of the things, my favorites, that made this past Christmas season so warm and sweet. Seasons come and go, times change and things may be different in the years to come. So, I hold these days close and thank God for them. It was a Merry Christmas, not pain free, not perfect, nor idyllic, but in its zaniness and realness, it was merry. Hope yours was, too.
