“…God has chosen to make known among {the people in your life – your neighbors and co-workers, your family and friends, the people who work in the places you do business in and the people you know through church} the glorious riches if this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Ephesians 3.17b-19
“…And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ”
Dan Wakefield wrote it. Dave (the son-in-law) just flat sings it, with a stage-full of his prayer and worship buds. “A million stars could not outshine You, a million miles could not out-run Your love. A million songs could not contain the praise You’re due…”
My favorite line of the song?
“A single seed reveals Your Kingdom”
Think about that for a little bit because it so absolutely does! It must appeal to the gardener in me. Truth!
I’ll be home with bells on. I’ll be home with bells on.
Trim the tree and wrap the presents, turn the Christmas music on
This Christmas I’ll be home with bells on.
Can’t you just hear Dolly Parton belting that out? It is a happy place for me: Dolly and Christmas!
Home.
Tredessa and Ryan just moved in to their little, leased, 3-bedroom first home – in time for Christmas. It is so cute. They’ve got a big, fenced back yard with a workshop and garden shed. The house has been renovated and painted and upgraded and spiffed-up just in time for them, but those gleaming wooden floors slant for some good marble-rolling, like any 100-year-old house does. They are near “downtown Frederick,” one of the cutest little towns between Denver and Fort Collins. Everything is small and quaint there, little shops, family-owned Italian restaurants, and parks where young families meet up during walks and soccer practice. They have an alley and live about 7 blocks from Rocky and Jovan and only about 1.3 miles from Dave and Tara over on the Circle. The photos below are realtor shots.
Front of house. Entry and living room (the piano is at the base of the stairs now), family room
Eat-in kitchen, fresh paint and brand new counters and cabintery, and one of the bedrooms.
1200-little-square-feet of love.
When Tredessa mentioned concern about a lack of good closet space and how small the rooms are, her sister Tara incredulously reminded Tredessa: the whole house is yours! You are not rooming with other people now. You have just increased your square footage by like 1000+ square feet! Haha! :)
And Tredessa and I were just talking about how good God is and what a crazy blessed year it has been for them. They met, fell in love, got married and were planning to live in an apartment for a year or two, but the deep desire of Dessa’s heart was a house where they could stay put for a bit and maybe get started on their family. And God just delights in doing good toward us. And so my daughter has a home. Home for Christmas!
Where the Heart is…
Home is a big deal to me. My family moved a. lot. while I was a kid, and both my parents had had rather nomadic childhoods so there was this silly moving thing. Dave and I determined NOT to do that, yet, living in a small Nebraska city experienced some uprooting and movement we did not enjoy. I long for cocooning. I enjoy having a place, being settled. Yes, sometimes I have made it an idol, and I have had to learn that God is my home, He is where my heart truly rests.
5 LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
Psalm 16 NIV
But at Christmastime, like no other time, I think, home is wondrous. A house to hold everything your heart holds dear. Season turns in to season and the children grow and look forward to certain cookies baking and a particular ornament going in an exact place on the tree and new jammies because of the Christmas morning photographs and the traditions make home more than a roof over some walls, but a place, an altar of sorts ~ a warm reminder from Father that we are His family, His household of faith. And He blesses us and gives us family on which to lavish our love and a place in which to enjoy it.
And God has blessed my familia. With homes and family.
Stephanie and Tristan got to buy their house when they had only been married for 3 months! She was still only 19 years old (Tristan was a ripe old 21, I think) when God planted them in the middle of their block, a good-looking young couple who were not even certain yet about becoming parents, when or if it would be in their plans. But o-my-goodness, the delight a year and half later when they presented us with Gavin. Now three of the cutest kids frolic through those rooms and Steph’s home-style has grown (in the 10-years-on-Dec-27-since-they-got-married!!!) and become colorful and jovial, kind of a light, bright, retro-vintage, but wholly modern and extremely hip home base. And she changes up her Christmas decorating every year. And a lot of times I see on Facebook that she has been listening to Spotify and I will smile when I see her, in her very own home with her own little munchkins, listening to a lot of the Christmas music we listened to while she was growing up. Wasn’t that just yesterday?
I don’t think we have a full Kelley-family Christmas-decor reveal yet, but this is from a recent photo shoot Steph and Tris did in their living room. You can see more at www.maydae.com
Dave and Tara travelled so much they were not even interested in buying their own home for years. They’d been able to lease a wonderful, roomy place right after their 4-month-honeymoon-ministry tour when they got back to accept a position at Northern Hills Church.
But suddenly last year, it hit Tara that she wanted to buy a house. Just kaboom. She was ready to commit to a neighborhood and a little bit of stay-puttedness (yes, I know that is not a real word). And just a couple of days before Christmas, they closed on their home, the perfect place for them with lots of parking for lots of people over there all the time and a gorgeous back yard that connects to open space where Hunter can run. And parks nearby. And lots of family near, now. Ahem.
And the house is warm and bright and cozy and light and roomy, yet intimate and filled with Tara’s touches and so super clean and organized (that’s Tara)! We squeezed all of us and Ryan’s family from Florida in there for Thanksgiving and we all became fast-friends and family just because we were so squished and it was lovely. Last year around this time, they got a house for Christmas with an extra bedroom for a new baby – and who even knew that was about to happen!?!
Tara’s at Thanksgiving and after Christmas movies last night
Inspired by Dave and Tara’s success, Rocky and Jovan decided they’d had enough of apartment dwelling and bought their first house right after Christmas last year. And Jovan boldly added color and more color and handmade touches everywhere. Jovan has been madly crafting and creating all season long, some of which you can see on her blog (www.littlebitsandgiggles.com), making life merry and bright for her family. While Rocky continues to work on the recording studio going in to the basement, the girls are enjoying their great big yard and being very close to their grammie and papa (Jovan’s parents). There is definitely room for a baby brother!! Haha.
Then Stormie. The baby of the family – she bought her very first house just before her 25th birthday this past April. And she has made it uniquely hers this Christmas season. Her very busy schedule and roommate/sister leave to be married resulted in her deciding on something very “scaled back,” though her version of that includes an actual antler “tree.” Yes, antlers. And she even put a few lights outside. And did some very different, non-commercial-type things for her little home Christmas decor. This is Christmas for her and the dog, Saber, whom she lovingly calls, “The German.”
Stormie’s house. And antler tree.
Everybody is safe in their homes tonight, where little lights twinkle and Christmas is expressed in many new ways, but also just like we have always done everything. And I am home and the house is festive and the ghost of Christmas past just walked down the hall and when she opened the door, I heard the 5 little Rhoades kids giggling and making merry – like it was yesterday. My heart is no longer at home just here. A little bit of it lives in 5 other lovely homes nearby…
Congratulations, Ryan and Dessa! There’s no place like home for the holidays!
The {BEST} way to spread Christmas cheer is {SINGING loud} for all to hear.
Read this blog this morning on nine lessons you can learn watching the Will Ferrell movie, Elf (2003), already a Christmas classic for sure. {CLICK HERE} I most love the scene where Buddy hears that “Santa” will arrive at the store the next day. He jumps up and down screaming
“S a a a a a a a n n n t a a a a a a a a a !!!!”
Everyone thinks he is weird, but hardly able to contain his exuberance he explains,
“I know him!”
I want to be like that about Jesus, my Savior! I want to be almost unable to contain my excitement because I KNOW HIM!!
~
Gemma showed up for pre-school this morning, and upon seeing the family-tree lit up waiting to be decorated, exclaimed, “Well I didn’t see that tree coming!”
Later while doing some school-work, she exclaimed, “Aw, nutcrackers! I forgot my bookbag!” **hahahahahhaha!! THAT is some Christmas cheer, too!
This is ME singing Really loud-can you hear me?? HARK, the herald angels sing….**
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.
“My whole life history, every event, person, place, time and thing – has a song attached to it. Song is my native language.”
~Jeanie Rhoades, true story
So this was my just-before-waking dream this morning in the wee hours:
I was in a car on a bright, blue-sky day with a little girl. She had a dark complexion with deep set, beautiful brown eyes and a chubby face framed with raven-black hair. I think she was about 11 and I was fervently trying to get her to make an important decision, as important as life itself, as we drove in circles around some European town square (I guess Europe because the steering wheel was on the right).
I was saying to her: You have to decide the words in your hard-back book. You have to see them and figure out what is there then you will know everything you need to for the rest of your life, but as long as you can’t see them, you’ll ever know. What words are there? What do they say and how are they written? They are already there – look!
She would falter and seemed nervous, afraid to make a wrong move. But I urged her on: It is like a novel and this is your story, your novel. What is in there? What do you see in your book? You have to find this out so you’ll know just what to do.
She was unsure. She hem-hawed. Then I remember feeling a pang of guilt, thinking to myself, I never even found out what was in my book. I never found out what my words were. I don’t know my own answers…Still I knew that the story was already there, waiting to be discovered.
Yet, still, perhaps even driven by the fact that I didn’t know my own words, didn’t know the eternal story or what the type and font looked like in my own book, I all the more encouraged her to look, really look, really find out…
Suddenly she burst into tears of great relief said, “It’s songs – my words are in songs. That is what is in my hard-cover book!”
In my dream, I hugged her little neck and by now we were on a soft carnival ride going in circles in that same town square, sort of flying gently through the air. And in the dream, the second she said it, I realized that those were the words in my book, too – as if when she said it everything in my heart and soul suddenly bore witness, and had understanding. When she said “the words in my hard-cover book are songs” I started crying, I burst into tears.
Me too, I excitedly realized, that is what my book is, too. It is song. My hard-bound book is written in melody! Me, too!!
I was crying so hard in my dream, I woke up with tears in my eyes. It was joyful, an amazing realization.
Dreams are so funny.
It was so vivid and intense. Yet so full of holes, reality wobbly. Then when you write it, it is like what?? It is making me laugh to re-read this. But it also is making me think of book titles I could write
My Life is an Old, Red Hymnal {I grew up C of G where the red hymnal not only ruled, it caused plenty of feuding, haha. But its’ pages paper the walls of my memory.}.
Whatever it Takes {the Lanny Wolfe song I sang a lot at age 14 – words so strongly indicative of my gritted-teeth determination to prove I could be what God wanted. A million times since, I have proven that I could not do whatever it ook and that it has all been by His faithfulness}
My Desire {from my 1975-1977 singing, “It’s My Desire” – another loud, intense anthem declaring my life intent to follow and wholly live for Jesus}
Maybe I will write all these stories someday…in hardback editions.
SONG FOR A SUNDAY
My little sister sent this to me again recently. It was good to hear again.
I am actually running around like a crazy woman doing wedding stuff, Thanksgiving stuff, wedding stuff, company-coming prep, wedding stuff, and etc…
One of me and the girls’ all-time fav songs from my best-ever movie::
And a teeny-sneak-peek into one of today’s projects.
Now off to the chapel to decorate…
Am I deliriously happy for Dessa and Ryan? I am. Will I live through the extreme joyousness? I will. Do I love it all, all the craziness, and zany, over-the-top preparation and celebrating? I do. I really do. For real!
