Category Archives: Devotional Thoughts

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
    but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

(Prov. 13:12)

Everything can change in an instant. 

Five minutes before Jesus said, “Come forth!” Lazarus was dead.

Five minutes before Jesus broke the bread, thousands were famished.

Five minutes before Jesus said, “Ephphatha!” the man was completely deaf.

Five minutes before touching His garment, the bleeding woman was 12-years hopeless.

Five minutes before Jesus said, “Talitha cumi,” the little girl lay lifeless.

It’s darkest before the dawn, and it’s bleakest five minutes before the miracle.

As I journey through Genesis again this year, I was struck all over again by Joseph, faithful in prison, completely in the dark the day before he interpreted Pharoah’s dream and was instantly promoted. Overnight, he was put in a position of power, in order to save many lives, was given a wife, and saw the incredible fulfillment of God’s plan for His life.

But just the night before, as he was sleeping alone in jail, he must have felt confused, alone, lost, forgotten.

I remember last year, I had shared with our Bible study women about an area of discouragement. A long journey. Years. Some confusion.

And five minutes after I closed my eyes in sleep that night, a message buzzed on my phone.

The answer.

Literally, it had come to pass, I just didn’t know it. As I listened, and learned, I realized God had done what I’d prayed for, waited for, longed for.

In an instant everything changed. 

How easy it was, then, to rejoice in this new perspective on challenges! I was ready to shout to the world, “God does answer prayer, people! Trust Him! It might take time but He is faithful!” In the rearview mirror, that long rugged path of struggle and confusion is just a distant ribbon of road, past and forgotten. I was brim-full, overflowing with hope, ready to encourage any weary travelers along the road of prayerful perseverance.

But two days later, another hope plummeted.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. How quickly my hope wavers, heartsick. Yes, God accomplished one amazing feat, but this one? Maybe this is the one that’s too audacious. I’m so foolish for praying for something so seemingly impossible. Why risk disappointment? Why subject myself to these tears, this heartache?

Why not just “accept” the circumstances and move on?

Because Jesus didn’t tell us to do that.

Because just that morning in my Bible study with the kids our passage was Matthew 7:7-11. Heidi had moved her tiny finger along the lines, slowly reading aloud in her sweet little-girl voice,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

The kids giggled at the thought of me handing them a  stone for lunch, or dishing up a bowl with a slithering snake in it. Of course not! They understood this lesson loud and clear.

Jesus knew we’d need encouragement. He knew we’d lose heart and lose hope. He knew we’d be tempted to believe that our Father doesn’t want to give us good gifts. He knew we’d be stray from truth and begin crafting theologies to justify our experience instead of pressing in to see our experience fall in line with God’s Word.

He knew hope deferred would make our hearts sick, but He urges us to keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, because that answer is a tree of life. It will buttress our beliefs and give us new strength to fight. There’s nothing like experiencing the power of answered prayer.

No wonder there’s so much opposition, urging us to quit.

But let us remind ourselves: Everything can change in an instant.

{Keep on asking, seeking, knocking. Don’t give up! Happy Monday; thank you for reading.}

I want you to know, I am resisting the temptation to turn this blog into a steady stream of CS Lewis quotes. Really though, I am falling in love with Mere Christianity all over again. He is a master of brevity, logic, wit, and wisdom. His humility and humor, coupled with candor and keen insight, give him this winsome way of speaking hard-to-hear words without apology, and his complete lack of appealing to sentiment or emotionalism is so refreshing.

In other words, he isn’t trying to make me cry or conjure up some feeling or experience, he’s simply presenting the plain truth of Christianity, and allowing me the space to make an intelligent decision on whether or not I will follow this Jesus Christ with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.

I do. I do want to. And this means also agreeing to perhaps the most difficult of Christ’s commands:

The call to love our enemies. 

When something’s repeated, we do well to pay attention. Thursday morning I had read aloud to the kids from Jesus’ sermon on the mount:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. … For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Then, that afternoon, when I stepped on the treadmill and opened Mere Christianity, CS Lewis spoke on the same subject. I paid attention. Several things I observed, about what this does and doesn’t mean.

• Loving means, first of all, forgiveness

There is no use talking about loving our enemies until we have forgiven them. Love is impossible while grudges are held. Only as forgiveness flows freely can we hope to let love flow as well. I don’t think we have a real grasp on how profoundly difficult real forgiveness is. I have a hunch that most of us hold onto more little grudges than we care to admit. At least I think I do. Last summer, when I went through an extensive exercise on forgiveness, I was surprised how many things the Holy Spirit brought to mind. It was kind of embarrassing, but freeing too.

• Loving doesn’t mean a feeling of fondness. 

We have got ourselves on the horn of a ridiculous dilemma because we’ve redefined love as something overly emotional. If we “fall” in love our out of love, how have we any hope of loving someone detestable? Lewis writes,

” Love your neighbor” does not mean “feel fond of him” or “find him attractive.” … That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagining that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. … Hate the sin and not the sinner.”

• Loving our enemy means hating his or her wrongdoing in the same way we hate ours.

This is what really brought clarity and conviction for me. Do we feel a little tiny bit of gladness when someone we despise does something despicable? Trump-haters: Do you gloat just a little bit when he says something stupid or unwise? Obama-haters: Did you love it, just a little, when he does something else worth criticizing? Do you forward jokes or memes that ridicule, belittle, or rejoice in someone’s faults?

Do I find myself just a little bit happy when that person I don’t care for does something that validates my feelings of ill-will? 

Lewis writes,

“Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. But it does want us to hate them in the same way that we hate things in ourselves; being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.”

• Loving our enemies doesn’t mean they are never punished. 

Here is where Lewis helped me with something I’ve been chewing on for months. Does loving our enemies mean we never report a crime? Does it mean we never fight in a war? Where do individual responses differ from governmental ones? Does turning the other cheek mean that if someone bombs our west coast we invite them to bomb our east coast too? Of course that last one’s ludicrous, but how do we navigate. He goes into a passage on pacifism and makes some clear and helpful distinctions, then says,

“Does loving your enemy mean not punishing him? No, for loving myself does not mean that I ought not to subject myself to punishment. … Remember, we Christians think that man lives forever. Therefore, what really matters is those little marks or twists on the central, inside part of the soul which are going to turn it, in the long run, into a heavenly or hellish creature. … We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoy it. In other words, something inside us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling that wants to get one’s own back, must be simply killed.”

The bottom line is, if we are to love our neighbor (including our enemy) as ourself, then we will despise the evil done while still hoping for redemption. Love never gives up hope. Love never secretly rejoices in wrong-doing. Love yearns for wrongs to be righted and evil to be thwarted. Love rejoices in the truth.

Well, this has gotten far too long and we’ve not even scratched the surface. But hopefully at least the mention of the topic will get our gears turning and let God go to work on those hidden places of our hearts. Let’s RESOLVE to love our neighbors, and enemies, a little more this year. Thanks for reading. 

It was Sunday morning and we were having a little family worship gathering since our regular church service had been cancelled due to ice. I was already thoroughly agitated, feeling like it was wholly unnecessary to have cancelled corporate worship. The temps were rising, snow was melting, and I couldn’t help thinking of faithful believers all over the world who travel through far more treacherous and dangerous conditions in order to gather together. Why were we such wimps?

Please understand: I wasn’t pointing fingers. What bothered me was me. What bothered me was that I was willing to risk my neck in order to go wherever I wanted, but I was all-too-willing to cancel plans that didn’t directly serve me. I was eager to spend money on self-serving purchases, but felt livid when our power bill doubled or when an unexpected medical expense caught me off guard. Wasn’t I grateful for HEAT? For MEDICAL CARE?

I couldn’t quite articulate why I was so sad, but the whole morning just felt off. Then Heidi, sitting on my lap, opened her Bible at “random” and started reading aloud, completely unprompted. She just happened to read Ezra 9:5-15 and I could barely believe my ears.

This is the passage where Ezra discovers that the returned Jewish exiles “have not separated themselves from the people of the lands with their abominations.” That is, they were inter-marrying with the ungodly inhabitants of the land, even though God had clearly forbidden them.

Ezra’s response reflected how I felt.

“As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloack and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled … and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God.”

Ezra then goes on to pray, to repent on behalf of all the people who have mixed-in with the world, and asks God for wisdom on how to proceed, how to make it right.

The answer is one of the hardest, I believe, in all of Scripture.

The people of Israel had to go through, person by person, and make right the wrong they had done. The men who had intermarried had to separate from their foreign wives. Now this might seem harsh to us, or even bizarre, but this serves as a picture to us that God does not take worldliness lightly. He doesn’t just shrug His shoulders and say,

“Oh sure, why not. You can just do your own thing.” No. He says, “I have a better way for you. I want you for myself. If you have intermingled with the world, if you have “married” the customs and ways of this world, you need to go back and painstakingly separate again.”

Honestly, this story makes me uncomfortable. It took three months for the entire process of re-separating, and I cannot imagine the sound of weeping, the hurt and pain and disappointment and anguish that took place. Innocent children were probably devastated. Women were probably left destitute. And we are so quick to blame God and say, “How could you make their consequences so harsh? Don’t you care?”

Yes, He does. That’s why He gave them the prohibition in the first place. That’s why He said,

“Don’t go the way of the world. Don’t marry it. Don’t fall in love with it. It will only lead to unimaginable heartache in the end. Your family will suffer. Your loved ones will suffer. Please, my beloved child. Obey me.”

I knew, as we read those words, that God was highlighting areas of my own heart. Where I had let myself love the world. That’s why I was agitated. Something needed to be made right.

Something inside needed to be fixed. 

Just then our housemate, Michael, stuck his head in the door,

“Jeff! You’ve got a broken pipe in the garage!”

Oh no. We raced downstairs, and there it was spraying like a hose through the drywall and into our (converted) garage, soaking the couch and carpet. (Yes, we had kept the faucets running, but apparently the freeze from earlier in the week had weakened the pipe, and then it finally broke.)

Thankfully, the guys got the water off, the drywall torn out, and quickly found that the broken spot was small and easily repairable. (Grace!) But still, it would take time, money, work.

Fixing broken things always does. 

Jeff took off for Home Depot, and I came back upstairs, curled up under the quilt, and knew exactly what my next RESOLVE would be: Spirit-guided introspection to see where brokenness had caused an inter-marriage with the world. Then, painstaking re-separation from whatever wasn’t God’s way.

{I understand this isn’t the most exhilarating resolution out there. But our Father loves us so much He can’t let us go a way that will lead to heartache in the end. Let’s resolve to let Him show us what’s broken, and commit to making it right, by His strength, no matter what time, money, or work it may take. It will be worth it. Thanks for reading.}

What habits have WORKED? This is the question I was considering last week, as I both reflected on the past and gazed ahead into the future. Even as we considered our own personal failures (and learned from them) we are also wise to consider what has really worked for us, and why. This will powerfully inform our future decisions.

For me personally, there are three (simple!) daily habits I wish every person had. They are not impressive. You will not be wowed when you read them. But they are the 3 daily habits that have most helped me lead a simple, disciplined, healthy life that frees me up to flourish, love, serve, and give my time and attention to what matters most in life. Here they are:

• Read the Word and pray.

  The one simple habit that will truly transform your life, is simply spending time in God’s Word every day. Please.  I’m just starting my 19th time through the Scriptures, and every year there’s something new. Every year things make a bit more sense. Every year I can see the Story of God a bit clearer. Every year He speaks new life into my soul and brings fresh conviction and clearer guidance. I wrote more here about a RETURN to God’s Word. 

Many people ask me, “How do you read the Bible?” There’s no right or wrong way, but I suggest a simple 3-step process of thinking through:

–> What does this SAY? (Think or write, in your own words, what the passage is about.)

–> What does this MEAN? (What seems to be the spirit or essence of this passage? Why do you think the author wants you to know this? Why are certain details included? What is the purpose or intent of this passage being recorded for us?)

–> How will I RESPOND? (Simply praying Scripture, asking applicational questions (i.e. “Like Abraham/Sarah with Hagar, How am I tempted to get God’s promises in my own schemes? How am I tempted to use people to get my own way? Where am I doubting God’s provision?) and asking the Holy Spirit to bring specific conviction on how He wants you to obey or respond to the passage.

Again, there are lots of apps and plans and gadgets and things for helping you along the way. I’m a simple girl, so I just do 3/1. 3 chapters Old Testament, 1 chapter New Testament. All you need is 2 bookmarks and you’re good to go! If you do that you’ll finish by the end of October/early November, so that gives you a little wiggle room for those days you inevitably miss. I highly recommend the simple 3/1 plan!

• When hungry, eat whole food.

  This one is two-fold. I realize I’m treading on sensitive ground here so please hear my  heart: Most of our nation’s weight issues could be resolved if we only ate when we were hungry. I know that sounds obvious, but I know from past experience that many of us don’t even know what waiting for true hunger feels like. We eat when we feel like it, when it’s “mealtime,” and often obsess over what we eat without giving much to whether or not we even need to eat at all!

True hunger is very clear. It isn’t the same as craving. It is a burning, empty feeling with an accompanying rumbling or growling in your stomach, located just under your ribcage on your lefthand side. I find that if I simply surrender my body to how God created it, and only eat food when my body actually asks for it, I naturally land at a healthy weight. Then, when our stomaches do growl, we are wise to simply eat food, actual food, the kind that God created, that grows out of the ground or comes from nature. Again, we can get twisted up in the latest food fads or diets, and don’t get me wrong, I love nutrition and think that food-science is fascinating, but for the most part, if we eat whole foods when we’re hungry, we’d be good to go!

The great thing about just simply waiting for hunger is that it forces us to surrender control. For me, the hardest part of fasting is giving up control of doing and eating whatever I want whenever I want. By choosing to only eat when you are hungry you are acknowledging that God created your body with a God-given mechanism for determining when you need to eat, and that you will surrender your cravings to His will, and choose to submit to His design. It’s a way to worship God with our bodies!

• Walk.

Again, there are many exercise programs out there, and I’m all for you finding the one that works just right for you. But I’d also suggest, the most simple exercise, for any fitness level, that will keep you decently fit and able to be actively involved in life: WALK. True, you won’t get any medals or t-shirts, you can’t post pictures of yourself flexing, you won’t get ripped abs or a so-called Beach Body, but you will be putting into practice a powerful habit or moving every day, of getting fresh air and getting your heartrate up and blood pumping and breathing deep.

I make a simple habit of walking 40-minutes a day.  We have a hilled driveway, so it makes for a great workout, going up and down the hill. 10 laps is about 2.5 miles, and that makes a good amount for me. Again, I’m not knocking all those great fitness programs out there, but I find that many of them tend to be very self-focused. I don’t want to be focused on self or spend an inordinate amount of time or energy worrying about my body because Jesus told me not to! I want to exercise it enough that I have energy for the life He’s called me to live. Walking does that for me.

So there you have it. I told you it wasn’t impressive. 🙂 But perhaps there’s someone out there who needed these three simple things. I hope they can be life-giving and encouraging. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar, you don’t have to find the magic diet, you don’t have to do the hardest workouts ever. Spend time with your Father and ask Him for some simple guidance in what simple habits might help you this year. These have been my three, I hope you find yours too. Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year Friends! I’ve been chewing on some New Year thoughts, and wanted to share a brief series called RESOLVE, reflecting on some of the ways we can grow in a happier, healthy, God-honoring life. Just some food for thought as we intentionally determine the course of our days this year. Hope it’s helpful! Thanks so much for reading.

~

Sometimes my friends and I reflect on how different it is now that Google and smart phones and Pinterest are at our fingertips at all times. Back in the day, you learned from a person. If you were a young wife and wanted to bake a pie, you asked your mom, or aunt, or grandma. She probably slipped you a butter-stained well-worn recipe card, then showed you how to roll the dough and pinch the edges just so. At least, that’s how my grandma taught me to bake.

Nowadays, if you want to bake a pie, you thumb “Best pie ever” into Pinterest or Google and approximately 3 million recipes, all with professional pics, come flooding before your eyes. You probably choose one from an expert: Pioneer Woman, Martha Stewart, or Ina Garten perhaps. At least I do.

Then, when we want to get in better shape, we turn to Jillian Michaels, and when we want to lose a few pounds we fork out a fortune for the top-notch nutrition system, and when we want to get our finances under control we sign up for Financial Peace University. All of these are great, and there are most certainly some awesome experts out there and I commend any efforts to learn and grow in these areas.

But sometimes the onslaught of all these experts can leave us feeling a little overwhelmed. I remember reading a book on marketing and the author insisted that in order to make it big and sell lots of whatever you’re selling, you have to bake in the Wow. That is, it has to be beyond the best. It has to absolutely WOW everyone.

Ok, fine. But as I read that, I mentally sifted through all the different arenas where I am called upon for leadership or love. I thought about being a wife, I thought about my home, my meal-planning and cooking, cleaning and organizing, I thought about raising and discipling my children, about homeschooling them, I thought about being a discipler of women, of being a pastor’s wife, a blogger, a conference speaker, a children’s ministry teacher, an author, a friend, a daughter of a disabled mom, of being a housemate and neighbor. And then I’m also so crazy as to think it’s not too much to ask that I even sneak in a hot shower 2-3 times a week!

I wrote in the margin of the book: I cannot bake in the Wow to every area of life. 

And that’s just it. The challenge with being surrounded by experts is that these people bake in the Wow to their own area. Great! But then we turn to all of them, and assume we need to bake in their wow in that area as well, and with a quick click we can turn to so many experts at once and begin thinking we need to bake Martha Stewart cakes while rocking Jillian Michaels bodies living in Pinterest-worthy homes. Back in the day, we would have turned to maybe 1-3 people to help us grow in some area. Now, we have hundreds right in the palm of our hand. 

Last week, I had the joy of getting together with a friend and teaching her to sew a skirt. It was a simple thing, and I’m sure she could have figured it out on her own, or YouTubed a tutorial. But we had such a fun morning, cutting and stitching, singing along to worship music. Heidi joined us, and we all we were able to have rich conversation in the midst of learning a new skill. And I realized that morning, the thing we miss when we only tap into experts, is learning through relationship. 

This is why downloading a podcast or even reading a book will never be the same as sitting together with people who know you and studying, learning, growing, discussing together. They are the ones who can read your body language, see a tear in your eye, ask you a hard question, speak a Spirit-led word of encouragement. They are the ones who know your mom is sick, or your husband lost his job, or you’re trying to get pregnant. They are the ones who will you see you fail — and succeed — and weep and rejoice with you all along the way.

There is just no substitute for learning and growing in community. Real community. No celebrity or expert can come close the value of learning from each other. From living in community and asking questions, asking for help, making known our weaknesses and struggles, and also offering our gifts and talents and wisdom as well.

So, though it might not top most people’s lists, I RESOLVE this year, to learn and grow in relationship. 

{Thanks for reading.}

Tears stung my eyes as I read the words. Why? Why this division? Why this strife? It feels like just when one group is happy, another is upset. One person’s victory means another’s defeat. One group’s gain seems another’s loss. By advocating one truth, it seems to pit one against another truth of equal importance.

Thankfully, there is good news.

There is THE Good News.

I have had this song echoing in my heart all week. It’s #6 on our Seeds Family Worship, (you can listen here) and sometimes I’ll just sit, all alone in the car, after the kids have gotten out and run into the house, and I’ll just worship God to this song, letting the tears slip down my cheeks, lifting up my hands like a crazy lady, just so grateful that the gift of God, that Jesus Christ, that the gospel is …

joy that will be for all people.

Jesus isn’t the savior for only Americans. Or only Syrians. Or only Democrats or Republicans. Or only Jews. Or black, or white, or rich, or poor. His Good News knows no borders or bounds. It is Good News that is joy for all people. 

There is no one excluded. Ever. To all who receive, it is joy. It is peace. It is hope.

And then, in the song, near the end, the choir sings out in Glory to God in the highest, Glory to God in the highest, and my heart gets caught up because Oh yes! We will sing those words and give Him praise and thanks because He is good and has done great things. And for all who sorrow, for all who mourn and weep, for all who ache and yearn and hunger for Him. We will sing He is good, He is holy, He is mighty, He is awesome. Glory to God in the highest …

And on earth peace to men, on whom His favor rests. 

On whom does His favor rest? Who has the favor of God? 

This isn’t a trick question. It isn’t black or white or rich or poor. Those who are in Christ Jesus have the favor of God.

The only way we can have the favor of God is if we are reconciled to Him. We were enemies of God, but Jesus Christ is our peace:

Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

Because of Jesus Christ, God’s favor rests on us. He has killed the hostility, between us and God, and between us and others. Because Jesus Christ preached peace, He is the joy that shall be for all people. So we can move out courageously and generously. We don’t have to be “right.” We don’t have to prove our point. We can misjudged or misunderstood or even mistreated. We can love and give and hold our tongues or turn the other cheek or overlook offenses or just let stuff GO. Why?

Because the gospel’s grace is big enough. The gospel’s grace means you don’t have to demand your own way. We don’t need to be disappointed if we don’t get the perfect gift, or family, or experience.

We’ve already been given the greatest gift. It is a joy that will be for all people: It is Christ the Lord. 

Glory to God in the highest. 

{Merry Christmas, friends. Thanks for reading.}

Last week, I was up to my eyeballs in Christmas preparation — Pinterest projects and online shopping and making lists and checking them twice. I felt that nudge of conviction that I was probably getting distracted, a little too caught up in trivialities. Then, wouldn’t you know it — Oma falls and suddenly it was all-hands-on-deck surrounding her, it was daily trips to the hospital, cancelling plans and rearranging schedules and suddenly I could care less what got done and what didn’t. And it was exactly what I needed most. Of course I’m sad for Oma suffering, but I’m so grateful for how it reoriented my heart around what matters. It reminded me of this, from last year. I love how our gracious God works in our lives. Bless you all!

~

“Are you ready for an emergency?”

My stomach sank. What was it?   I had been having a low-key, relaxing morning. The night before I’d hosted our Renew ladies’ Christmas party. I was leisurely washing dishes and sweeping up crumbs, putting away platters, and letting the kids linger at their play. It was 9:26am and I was still in my jammies, enjoying the Christmas music floating through the house, relishing the idea that we had nothing planned that day.

Then Jeff called. I don’t know about you, but texting is the norm, so when my man calls, I know I’d better answer!

His first words: “Are you ready for an emergency?” 

I waited, anxious.

“That luncheon is today.” 

Oh no. Oh NO. No no no no no!

Months ago, we’d been asked by a dear local pastor, if we would come together and speak at a Christmas event at their church. We were so honored at the request, and gladly accepted. The invitation had come while we were on our road trip, and we were so excited to serve together in this way, so we mentally made note of it …

… Get that?

We mentally made note of it. 

Now, understand: I speak dozens of times a year, we have a full life, we have lots of things on the calendar. We know how to schedule, people! We do a synch every week to make sure we have all our ducks in a row, make sure I know his stuff and he knows mine. We plan ahead. I’m a planner!

How, oh how, oh how, oh how did I MISS THIS?!!

This was 9:30am and we needed to be there at 11:30am. I had no plan for the kids. No notes. I was still in my JAMMIES, PEOPLE!

How could I have missed this? How could I be so woefully unprepared?  The overwhelming emotion I felt was shame.

Shame at being so unprepared. 

But then, I turned my attention to my Only Hope. The Only One I really have to please. And I poured out my feelings of shame and failure and feeling unprepared, and so clearly I sensed in my heart,

“You aren’t unprepared.”

Suddenly it all tumbled down, the truth, straight into my heart: I was prepared. I realized that every single day, every day when we wake up early, we spend time with the Father in prayer and the Word. Every single day as we abide in Him, commune with Him, fellowship continually with Him.

Isn’t that preparation? 

And the revelation rang so clear and true in my mind:

Being prepared is a matter of the heart. 

The truth is, I could have perfectly-scripted notes and be completely unprepared to speak God’s heart to His people.

I sat down with my Bible. I needed to look no further than today’s journal entry to see a message from God for His people. It was just my own personal study, my heart-wrestlings, the things the Father had been showing me that morn.

Sure, I hadn’t written it to preach, I’d written it to live.

And isn’t that just so much better anyway?

How often have I been “prepared” for something with everything external? How often have I worked to have my ducks in a row, but my heart has been misaligned? 

Being prepared is a matter of the heart.

How often do we think that being “prepared” for Christmas is having all the presents wrapped? Lights hung. Stockings stuffed. Cards sent. House cleaned. Boxes checked off.

How about my heart? 

When Jesus came to earth, there were some who were ready. Prepared. Their hearts had been fixed on the God, patiently waiting for the coming Messiah. They didn’t know when, how, where. But they were prepared because their hearts were ready.

On the one hand, God birthed His Son into a situation where nothing was ready: To two dirt-poor clueless engaged teenagers, in a filthy manger, in a barn. On the outside, nothing was ready.

But their hearts were ready.

The one item left on our Christmas To-Do List today: Let every heart prepare Him room.

Lord, let our hearts be prepared for You. 

{Thank you for reading.}

As some of you know, my sweet Mama took a bad spill last week and broke her femur, so we’ve been a bit busy and haven’t had a chance to write more on the Advent traditions. We’ll continue! For now, I’ve been thinking about this, from last year. It seems so appropriate again. Perhaps it will speak to a situation in your life as well…

~

We’ve all gotten one, right? The gift you didn’t ask for. The thing you’re not sure how on earth that person thought was  just perfect for you.

Inwardly you think, This most certainly was not on my wishlist. 

Out loud you say, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!”

I think we’ve all been there. You might be there again next week. *smile*

But what about when it’s bigger than the contents of a gift-bag?

What if you find yourself staring at the content of your life, overwhelmed, and find yourself, in weak or tired moments, saying these same words…

“I didn’t ask for this!”

I’ve heard these words, from others. I’ve silently said them, in my heart. Not necessarily talking about utter despair, but haven’t we all looked at some certain aspect of the hand dealt us, and shaken our heads, 

This most certainly wasn’t on my wish list. 

It’s silly, perhaps, whether I intend to or not, I subconsciously craft my life-wishlist. And then, each day is handed to me as a fresh gift of grace.

It is unwrapped and often there are squeals of delight.

But some days there are moans. Disappointment. Really? THIS is the gift for today?

I didn’t ask for this.

I’d venture to say we all have aspects of our life where we battle this. Sometimes I’m tempted to redraft my wish list, spend a little more time in prayer to let Him know, Whoops-a-daisy! I think you gave this to the wrong gal! I actually didn’t want this AT ALL. Thanks! 

But He smiles. Patient.

“Oh no, dear daughter. I knew this gift was perfect for you. I know, it’s not exactly what you had in mind. But it’s so much better. It feels a little awkward when you first try it on. I get it. I knew it’d be a struggle for you at first. But I promise if you’ll just trust Me in this. I promise you’ll be so glad someday. I promise you’ll see that this was, indeed, the best gift for you.” 

And so we take that sting of disappointment, or that ache of longing, or that weariness of carrying a gift that feels heavy and hard … and we ask the Father to help us see this gift the way He does. To help us trust Him in the meantime. To help us fight evil but love people. To see beauty in broken places and celebrate victories in the midst of what feels like disastrous failure.

Heavenly Father, our Good and Perfect God, thank You so much for the gifts you give us that we don’t ask for. The ones that aren’t on our wish list. The ones that feel confusing, just a little bit. Thank you that You love us so much, and that LOVE is what we rest in, no matter what we feel. Thank you that You equip us to carry whatever load you call us to bear. Thank you that Your burden is light and there is new mercies every morning. Thank you for Christmas. All Your gifts are good, and perfect. 

{Thank you for reading.}

For our first Christmas after we were married, Jeff gave me the book Treasuring God in our Traditions by Noel Piper (free PDF here). It had just come out, and it was perfect timing. We were a brand-new family, deciding together what traditions we’d keep, leave behind, or begin.

These days, tradition sometimes get a bad rap, at least in some circles. We’re looking for things that are new, fresh, innovative — not old, regular, same. Why do the same thing again and again when you can do something NEW?

But tradition isn’t good or bad in and of itself, it’s simply a vehicle. It’s the transmitting of customs, beliefs, behaviors, from generation to generation. It’s a way of passing down. Or, quite simply, it’s a way of remembering.

There’s a Jewish proverb that says,

“Put something where you can see it so your eye will remind your heart.”

Yes! We observe a tradition because it reminds our hearts of what is good, right, and true. The reason God gave the nation of Israel various feasts to celebrate, various rituals and ceremonies, was to remember. By speaking certain words, eating certain foods, and engaging in various activities, they were reminded again of the truth, of God’s faithfulness, of all that He had done.

Tradition is simply something we do again and again, for a particular purpose. So even if we say we don’t “do” Christmas traditions, we probably do.

We shop. We wrap. We use bows. We decorate with green and red. We eat cookies. We throw parties. We get a manicured fir tree. We string lights on it. We hang stockings on the hearth, but not real stockings that we wear, huge decorated boot-shaped things for the purpose of stuffing full of stuff. We listen to certain music. We watch certain movies. We wear ugly sweaters. We exchange gifts and eat pie and all of these are traditions.

So the question isn’t, “Do you do traditions?” the questions is, “What do your traditions do?” When you observe a tradition, what do you see? What do your traditions say, what do they imprint on our hearts, what purpose do they serve?

I’m really not sharing all this to poo-poo the “traditional” traditions. I love exchanging gifts. We have a tree and stockings too. The point is, if we’re going to go through all this hassle to “keep” such elaborate traditions (I’d say paying money to cut and haul and prop up an actual tree inside our house is elaborate), then let’s make sure that at least most of these traditions point us in the direction we want to go!

The direction of Christ.

Some prefer to say Advent instead of Christmas, but no matter what we call it, both are about Jesus. Advent simply means Coming. Jesus’ birth is His first coming. Christmas comes from the words Christ’s Mass, the church service held to honor Jesus’ birth.

Advent is fun because it’s not just about one day, it’s the 4-5 week period of preparation and anticipation. It usually involves a daily countdown to Christmas day.

So, where do we begin? Here are a few ways to celebrate Advent as a family:

• Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp — we use this as a daily Advent reader, and Heidi and I made felt Jesse Tree ornaments using these as a rough pattern. I love these ornaments!

• Tomorrow, Dec 4th, will actually be the second Sunday of Advent. So, on Sunday, perhaps at dinner, you can explain that we are anticipating the coming birth of Christ, and will be lighting a candle each Sunday, leading up to Christmas. On Christmas morning you’ll light the final candle. My friend Anna has a great script you can follow for each Advent Sunday, with songs and scriptures (hoping to share soon). Or you can simply choose one Christmas carol and one Scripture to read each Sunday. Keep it simple, especially for small kids. Isaiah 9:2 or John 1:1-9 is a great place to begin! There are dozens of scriptures talking about Jesus being the LIGHT. Do a study and dig them up on your own then share with your kids!

• Advent cake. You can bake a simple bundt (round) cake, and decorate with green frosting and green-tinted coconut flakes, as an advent wreath (see pic). Use red-hots for decoration, and celebrate the beginning of Advent with this sweet treat. You could also do sugar cookies instead, decorated as wreaths, or any special treat you choose. The point is to make the beginning of Advent a celebration, a treat, a special opportunity to point your family to Jesus. 

• Advent calendar. These are readily available in every store, usually including chocolate. I have the fabric one from when I was little, which my mom would use to write notes and verses.  Now, the kids each have a special little “mailbox” on the Christmas tree, and each day they receive “mail” from me— a love note, a treasure map to find a treat, or some special fun instructions about the day ahead. The kids love receiving their mail each morning!

So, this is all for now, there are many more fun things to share in days ahead. We’ll talk about St. Nicholas Day, stockings, nativity scenes and activities, Christmas day and Epiphany.

I’ll leave you with a fun little Christmas story Anna read to us, for perspective. 😉 Thanks for reading.

Joy to the Mall

Chris Dolson

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from the U.S. Treasury that all of America should go shopping. (And this decree was first made when leading economic indicators dipped to their lowest point.) And all went out to shop, each to his own mall.

And a Christian also went up from his suburban home to the city with its many malls because he wanted to prove he was from the household of prosperity. And with him was his wife, who was great with economic worry. And so it was, that, while they were there, they found many expensive presents, pudgy-faced dolls, trucks that turn into robots, and a various assortment of video (and computer) games. And the woman wrote checks for those they could afford and charged the rest on many different kinds of plastic cards; she wrapped the presents in bright paper and laid them in the garage; for there was no room for them in her closet.

And there were in the same country children keeping watch over their stockings by night. And, lo, Santa Claus came upon them; and they were sore afraid (expecting to see the special effects, they had seen in the movies). And Santa said to them, “Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people who can afford this holiday. For unto you will be given this day, in your suburban home, great feasts of turkey, dressing, and cake – and many presents. And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find the presents wrapped in bright paper, lying beneath an artificial tree adorned with tinsel, colored balls, and lights.”

And suddenly there was with Santa Claus a multitude of relatives and friends, praising one another and saying, “Glory to you for getting me this gift; it’s just what I wanted.”

And it came to pass, as the friends and relatives were gone away into their own homes, the parents said to one another, “I sure am glad that’s over. What a mess! I’m too tired to clean it up now. Let’s go to bed and pick it up tomorrow.” And when they had said this, they remembered the statement that had been told them by the storekeepers: “Christmas comes only once a year.” And they that heard it wondered at those things that were sold to them by the storekeepers, but the children treasured all their things in their hearts, hoarding their toys from each other. And the parents, after a drink, went to bed, glorifying and praising each other for all the bargains they had found in the stores.