Category Archives: Sacred Mundane

I had only been gone 5 minutes when it happened. Onions were simmering for soup. Christmas music floating through the house. Dutch intense over Legos. Heidi happily coloring. I ran down to discuss church business, ran back up to stir the onions again. I didn’t see Heidi.

Stirring the onions, I saw her come from around the corner, head down. She wrapped her arms around my leg.

“Hey, babygirl. What’s up?”

Head stayed down.

“Heidi, what’s up Sweetie?”

She finally looked up. Her eyes wide, stricken. I lowered down to look in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” She turned and pointed, then took my hand and led me into the living room. Around the corner, she pointed.

A long line of pink marker down the wall.

“Oh.” I looked down into her wide eyes, her mouth started to twist, eyes filled, stricken by the pain of guilt. Tears spilled over her eyes. Oh I know that feeling, babygirl. That feeling of Oh, What have I done?

I scooped her up, ignoring the sizzle of onions behind me, and took her, crushed, crying, to her room. We slide down into the rocker. We rock. She grieves. I’ve been there:

Godly sorrow, it’s good–got to let it do its work. 

This girl’s not yet 4 but has a spirit opening, like a flower, and I never want to miss an opportunity, thinking she’s too young.

“Heidi, does your heart feel sad and yucky inside when you do something naughty?”

“Yes,” she sobs.

“Me too. Mommy does naughty things too sometimes, and it makes my heart feel so sad and yucky. It’s a terrible feeling, I know.  You know Mama does naughty things sometimes too, right?”

She nods. (A little too readily, if you ask me.)

“Do you know what those naughty things are called?”

She’s on it: “Sin.” She says it like she knows it, hates, it, hates the feeling of doing it. How early on we are acquainted with it!

“Can I tell you something wonderful?”

She nods.

“Do you remember why Jesus died on the cross?”

She’s recited it a hundred times: “To take away our sins!” but now, in the midst of her own sin, she can’t remember.

That happens to me too.

In the midst of my sin, I forget why Jesus died on the cross. I can’t see it. Don’t know it. Just can’t remember. Can’t think straight because the frustration and darkness of my selfishness eclipses the light of His love.

“Can I tell you again?”

She nods.

“Jesus came as a baby–at Christmas–and died on the cross, because He loves you so much He wanted to take away ALL your sin–even writing on the wall–and forgive you and take away all the sadness and yuckiness from your heart and make you all new and clean on the inside. Do you remember that?”

She nods.

“Mama forgives you, babygirl. I’m proud of you for showing Mommy your sin instead of hiding it. That’s the same as confessing. And now we’re going to pray and then go clean up the wall together.”

Now she’s stricken again. “But Mommy,” she sobs, “I tried to clean it up, I can’t. I tried with my finger and I can’t. See?” She shows me, pink ink smudged on the pad of her pointer finger. She looks down, now hopeless again.

I smile. “But this time, Mommy will help you. Do you believe Mommy can do it?”

A glimmer of hope: she nods.

After praying, we walk together to the living room, hand in hand. She shows me how she tried to get it off. How the pink just smudged and got bigger, worse.

Again, I ask: “Heidi, do you believe Mommy can do it?”

She nods.

I grab the spray cleaner and a little doggy-puppet wash cloth. She’s laughing as puppy makes silly voices and gets soaked with cleaner.

“Now, Heidi watch. Do you know what Jesus does with our sin? Watch carefully.”

Her eyes are wide. I spray the wall, and in one smooth action, wipe with doggy-puppet-washcloth and all trace of pink-pen … is gone.

Her face is light.

And I’m reminded, why Jesus died on the cross.

~

{Bless you, friends, as we begin the Advent season, watching and waiting for Christ. Thanks for reading.}

It’s late when she asks it.

She’s sleeping on the floor that night. Nana is here, so Heidi gets the special treat of camping out, next to Brother’s bed, in her princess sleeping bag. I lay out blankets, make it soft, then snuggle her into the nylon pink fluffiness. She wiggles down into warmth, and I lie there next to her in the dark. My eyes are puffy from crying. I’m so tired.

We lie there in the darkness, the silence. Brother shifts in his bed and yawns. Her back is to me and my arm is around her, my hand on her chest. Under her fleece jammies her tiny ribcage rises and falls with her breath. I close my eyes.

After awhile, I feel her turn toward me. She leans her face into mine, her eyes wide to see me in the dark. She reaches her small, damp, starfish hand up and touches my face.

“Mommy?” She whispers, so quiet.

“Yes, baby?”

“Why do some animals eat gazelles?”

Ah yes. That.

I wondered when she would ask.

My sweet girl loves gazelles. She saw them at the zoo, beautiful deer with the stunning antlers, grazing with the zebras. We had just seen the ballet Giselle, and she seemed to think these angelic animals were on par with ballerinas. Graceful and leggy–every little girl’s dream. So she loves gazelles and then one fateful day we were reading some wildlife book, turned the page, and there was the unfortunate full-spread picture of lions …. eating a gazelle.

She had sat, silent. Hadn’t said a word. I quickly moved past the page, and days–weeks even–had gone by.

But now, in the dark, she asks.

“Why do some animals eat gazelles?”

Her voice is equal parts curiosity and sadness. Why do they?, but then How could they? 

I close my eyes again and feel so much sadder than the immediate moment warrants. My mind is on another little girl and boy, that same night, that same moment, tossing and turning in their own beds, asking the same question in another, infinitely more difficult way:

“Why did Mommy have to die?”

What exactly DO you do on the first goodnight without your Mommy? How do you fall asleep? What do you pray?

I pray.

I pray for K. and K., sweet children. I remember when Shawna was round with her first, baby boy. And now I’m praying for him as he faces his first night without her.

Tears slip down my cheeks. I pray more.

Heidi watches my face. I still need to answer her.

“I don’t know, baby girl. I think some things are hard for us to understand, but we know God loves us and uses everything sad to make everything beautiful, someday.”

Miraculously, she is satisfied with this.

She closes her eyes, her hand still on my cheek.

I inhale her sweet-apple-breath and stay right there, watching, until she falls asleep.

{Praying grace for whatever parts are aching in your heart today.May His love cover all that we don’t understand. Thank you for your faithful prayers for Shawna’s kids, and thanks for reading.}

Let’s face it, among the goats and cows and rabbits we purchase this Christmas, we’ll still probably want to buy some gifts for our friends and family. Thankfully, there are ways to buy modest gifts for those we love that show our love and share our wealth. 

So, before you head out to grab  one of those $10 waffle-makers at Walmart (chances are all the workers will have walked-out anyway!), Check out these fabulous finds. And, no need to stand in a line out the door, circle a dozen times looking for a parking spot, or wake up at midnight tonight. Such a deal! A little careful planning and a little creativity can bring some real LIGHT to Black Friday.

Books:

• Revolution in World Missions by KP Yohannen. (free!)
• No Longer a Slumdog by KP Yohannen. (free!)
• A Life of Balance by KP Yohannen (free download or $3 donation for paperback)

• Gospel for Asia Christmas Gift Catalog. Something for every budget, $11 and up. For the same price as a camel-hair coat you can buy an actual CAMEL. Such a deal!
• World Vision Gift Catalog. 5 fruit trees for only $30! You can also buy $385 worth of clothing for only $35. THAT’s a great deal. 
• Compassion Gifts. A cow is only $100 here — I’ve been bargain-shopping and that’s the best deal on a cow I’ve found so far. 
• India Partners. Only $155 (the price of new boots) can dig a well providing water for 500 families in a rural village. 

“Name it and ditch it” has become of my most taught and re-taught truths. It’s convicting but oh, so freeing. Enjoy … And name it and ditch it (again)!

I’m brushing my teeth when I hear her scream from the other room. I close my eyes and wait, since a scream from Heidi could mean any range of things–from just a silly look from brother to a bloodied busted lip. I wait. Her feet patter into the bathroom.

“Bruh-bruh bit me!” Uh oh. Brother knows the line and knows how to toe it. He’ll open his mouth and get near Heidi, taunting her without touching her, just to get a rise.  He follows immediately, protesting.

“No I didn’t! I didn’t bite her!”  I can see the wet mark on her shirt. I look him in the eye.

“I didn’t bite her … I just …  I sawed her …” He pauses and adds, “…with my teeth.”

I display valiant self-control by not laughing out loud.

“You sawed her with your teeth?”

He smiles. “Yeah!”

Needless to say, the same disciplinary measures that apply to biting are applied to “sawing with teeth.”

Call it what you want. It’s still a bite. Amen?

Oh but don’t we do that? Don’t we dance around our sin and use fancy language to skirt real confession?

• “I’m just not really feeling appreciated enough by others.”  Pride.
• “I’m just having a hard time because they have so much and I don’t.”  Envy.
• “I’m just struggling with getting frustrated all the time with my kids.” Anger.

Don’t get me wrong. I hate admitting sin as much as you do (probably more, unfortunately), but more than that I just hate sin. I hate that it binds us, steals from us, keeps us living at arm’s length from God and from each other.

But we can’t be freed from sin until we confess it. And so often we’re so scared of calling it what it is, amen?

We’re staring at our toes before God and each other, shifting from one foot to the other, saying that we just “sawed them with our teeth.”

Don’t we avoid the biblical words because they just sound so bad? “Bite” sounds so bad, almost as bad as “jealousy” or “fits of wrath.” But the works of the flesh do have names, God’s spelled it out for us. Why?

So we can name it and ditch it. 

We’ve all hear the “name it and claim it” movement. Let’s start a better one: Name it and ditch it.

I recently had a refreshingly honest conversation where we did just that.

Named it, ditched it, and prayed it’d never come back. 

Isn’t it freeing? Why because Scripture says,

“When we confess our sin He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

But if the confession isn’t real neither is the cleansing! We don’t find true freedom until we call it what it is. Scripture also says,

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” (James 5:16 NLT)

Don’t we want to be healed? Cleansed? Given great power to see wonderful results? We might find more power when we quit dancing around the sin and start ditching it instead. Amen?

Whew! I didn’t mean for this to be such a hard-hitting post … just know, girlfriends, I write this first and foremost to myself. I’ve used fancy words to dance around a lot of sin …

But I’d really rather name it and ditch it instead.

You too?

{Question: What sin have you “renamed” in your life? Greed? Gluttony? Pride? I hate those words as much as you, but so appreciate your honesty and desire to know Him more.  Thanks, friends, for reading, and growing alongside me. Bless you!}

My parents maintain that they’ve only had one fight in their 42 years of marriage.

When Mom changed the family diet without warning.

“We’re now eating fruit every morning for breakfast!” She announced cheerfully. I don’t remember it (thankfully), but apparently Dad about blew his top. You see, the man loves his sausage and eggs, his oatmeal, his hashbrowns. The man don’t want no fruit for breakfast if you hear what I’m saying.

She quickly learned that changing the family’s traditions needs to happen slowly.

I often hear this question:

“How do you make your family follow along with your new giving priorities?”

That is, when you are newly burdened with a desire to give to poor, to live simply, to avoid the cultural tradition of crazy-Christmas debt-accumulation and you want to change your holiday-habits, how on earth do you do so without disappointing everyone else? What do you tell your kids? What about grandparents? Do you forbid them to buy your kids toys? What about Christmas morning? The question pertains to one particular day, but the principle can be applied to every day:

How do we establish new gospel-centered traditions?  

I’m certainly not the expert, but here are a few thoughts:

1. Go slow. Guaranteed, if you all of a sudden declare that there will be no more gift-giving or holiday shopping ever happening again, you will have World War III in your home. No bueno. Consider making small steps over the next five years. You’ll have much better results. (That same can be said with establishing new eating habits, as my mom learned!)
2. Make it fun. Over the past few years, my family has done more and more giving through Gospel for Asia. We buy pigs, goats, rabbits, Bibles, clean water. But we keep it fun. One year I gave my brother a rubber chicken and a stuffed bunny rabbit from the dollar store (symbolizing the gift we’d given in his name). Another year I gave hard-boiled eggs to everyone (again, chickens). Last year my brother gave Jeff an old Bible (sent Bibles to unreached people) and gave me a bottle of water (he drilled a well in my name).  There’s all sorts of creative ways to celebrate and keep it fun without heaping up more and more junk that we really don’t need. Get creative!
3. Let others be free. Personally, I feel that I am only responsible for the people under my roof. I’m not going to tell my parents, Jeff’s parents, or our aunts and uncles what they can and cannot do with their money. Plus, for heavens sake let grandparents be grandparents.Wild horses couldn’t keep Jeff’s and my parents from spoiling their grandkids. So we let them. We personally do not buy our children gifts. We do for their birthdays but not for Christmas. However, it’s wonderful that their grandparents do!  We’re free and so are they. (And I appreciate their amazing generosity!)
4. Never say, “We can’t afford.” Sometimes it’s easy to pull a cop-out and tell people or our children that we can’t afford certain things. But this communicates that we’re victims, which just isn’t true. Some people in our world are victims of absolute poverty. We are not.By saying, “We choose  not to buy those gifts this year so that we can bless some people in need,” we communicate an important truth. We believe that poverty-stricken people matter. We are choosing them.
5. Keep it real. Showing our children pictures of other children in need is so helpful in teaching them compassion. Daily look at pictures of children in need. When doing the Operation Christmas Child boxes, look at children in the age-group and talk about who might receive the box.  Help them see how real need is, and their hearts will be quicker to follow your new giving-traditions.

• Our little Picassos at the children’s museum.
• That I didn’t have to go. 🙂
• Daddy day.
• A house! For us! (Details to come!)
•  A great week. Just a great week.
• Falling in love with my man all over again. (You really should do this gift! It’s an amazing exercise!)
• Praying circles.
• Kimmee. Precious, precious, precious friend. 
• Generosity.
• God’s constant provision.
• A feast of firsts–pumpkin pie, beef stew, biscuits, fall salad. Yum!
• Looking forward to Thursday and celebrating with family.
• Sleep.
• Fire burning.
• Full week, full weekend … off to RENEW, that’s all for now…

Isn’t it crazy that overnight the stores shelves went from Halloween costumes to Christmas lights?

The Word says we live “from strength to strength” but the World says we live “from shopping season to shopping season.” Guaranteed the minute the Christmas lights come down the Valentine chocolates and teddy bears will line the shelves. Not that I blame them. Truly, if we didn’t have the joy and wonder of Christ to celebrate of course we’d have to buy stuff to celebrate!

But we have something so much greater to celebrate, don’t we? And don’t we also have to be intentional every single year, to actually honor Christ at His birth instead of being swept along in the sea of consumerism, forgetting Him altogether? I know I do. And doing so doesn’t mean we can’t have a Christmas tree or bake cookies or give meaningful gifts, but it means deciding–ahead of time–exactly what kind of holiday you want to have.

How can we do this?

First, decide Why your family is celebrating Christmas. I recently read a book by an author who very openly opposed to Christianity. Her words,

“Some of the major holidays are not ours, including any that commands its faithful to buy stuff nobody needs.”

Ouch.

But this is why I like reading non-believing authors. They give an honest critique, and we are guilty as charged.

It is sad that “our” holiday can be described in that way. That when the world looks at us, during the holiday season, they see nothing that distinguishes us from the rest of the world?

So, as we head into the holiday season, take some time to consider: What kind of holiday do you want to have?  Try to remember what material items you received last year. Where are they now? What toys did your kids “HAVE” to have that they’ve forgotten about now? What were the highlights of years past, and how can you capitalize on blessing others, worshiping Christ, and making family memories?

Go ahead, today (before you see the Black Friday ads!) and set your course for the holiday season. Spend time in His Word and prayer and ask Him what sort of holiday you want to have. How can you be intentional with how you spend your time, energy, money?

For today, will you please watch this brand new Forgotten Christmas video, and share it with others. Consider also reading No Longer a Slumdog over Thanksgiving (click here for a free copy!). {Thanks for watching, considering, and reading.}