Memories

I love Christmas.  I know a lot of people don't...and yes, it is commercialized, etc, but I still love it.  Perhaps it's because Christmas was a magical time when I was growing up. Grandma made the best sugar cookies and you couldn't eat too many.  Mama Jig took us shopping with her (the only time she went grocery shopping) for the ingredients for fruit cake.  We didn't really eat it, but it was still fun to watch her make it!  I know we didn't have a ton of money, but Mama and Daddy always made Christmas a time for miraculous gifts to appear under afghans and old quilts.  How we never saw them behind the couch, I will never know!  Jamie would come in and wake me up first and then we would drag Bethany out of the bed to see that "He came, Melodie!  He came!"  Shhhh...we can't wake Mama and Daddy up yet...so we sat in darkness by the Christmas tree.  On Christmas Eve we caroled to people in our church and opened gifts from each other.  My parents gave us money to buy a gift for our siblings and that was one of our favorite parts of Christmas.  Crab stew and broccoli cornbread on Christmas Eve...I'm telling you, my parents aren't perfect, but they did a jam up job of making life special, Christmas time and other times as well.

I'm going to miss them this year.  I'm not going to pretend like it won't be hard to be away from my family when we have so many memories and traditions together.  But, there's something about being away that simultaneously makes me appreciate them even more and be incredibly grateful for my family here.  I have a boyfriend who loves me in a way I can't even grasp.  I have his family who has adopted me and treats me like I've always been a part of their family.  I have friends who are family here in Jeff City.  I am loved and that is plenty.

We are making new memories and traditions.  The past impacts the future.  Because I have been loved well I can now love well.  It's a gift I have been given and now I can share it with others.
Let's make some memories together!

Thoughts

"Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself."

 I'm a thinker.  Sometimes I think too much.  I can't stop my brain from going here and there and everywhere...it's a circus in here.  I'll admit that I have a hard time understanding that fact that when Chris tells me he isn't thinking about anything, he really isn't.  

Thinking can be a very productive thing, or it can be destructive if we don't allow God to hold every thought captive.  Mary probably thought a whole lot...in the beginning she most likely thought about her reputation and went back and forth between knowing that she was doing something God called her to do, and then wondering if Joseph could really love her and believe that all this was true.  During her pregnancy, she probably thought about the life within her, with thoughts of joy and excitement when she could feel him flutter within her and kick out as he grew.  She also probably worried, like any mom, for his safety, for his life, for what would become of him.

And then he came...she experienced the sacrificial act of giving life to another...and life was given to her.  And others started to realize what a gift that had been given to the world...and she treasured it...she went within herself, into her thought world and just sat there in silence.

How has God brought wonder into your life so far?  Take a moment and hold those thoughts captive...sit and be still...embrace what the Holy Spirit has done in your life...treasure it and look forward to what is to come.

Figured Out?

Do you have everything figured out?

Do you have God figured out?

Are you working out your faith, or are you living in such a way that God doesn't have room to work or move?

I've always loved the story of Abraham and Sarah...of their journey toward faith and the way God taught them and made them into something they couldn't dream for themselves.

Abraham and Sarah are considered parents of our faith...not because they had everything figured out, but because they finally realized that maybe they weren't supposed to figure God out.  Maybe they were supposed to let God surprise them with joy.  They allowed grace to spring up within them and they waited for the fulfillment of God's promise to them.  

The same elements are present in the Advent season.  We recognize that we need grace to break into our hearts and spirits to heal us.  We need to believe that God's promises to us and to the world will be fulfilled.  We need to laugh at ourselves...because we don't know what we need; God does.

Longing, hoping, waiting...these are quickly skipped over in hot pursuit of the celebration.  But in the longing for something better, for something more...in the hoping for God to work and move and fulfill promise...in the waiting (hard as it may be) for whatever is best for us...

That is where we begin to know what our faith means to us and to the world...and to truly celebrate...for unto us a child is born, a Son is given...and his name shall be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Not for one day, but for an eternity.

Joy

Let's think about joy.

It's the next focus of Advent.  

Joy...my sister's middle name.  Joy...the beginning of a very familiar Christmas carol.  Joy...something that seems elusive in our world this day.

When is the last time you experienced true joy?  I'm thinking back to the day my first niece was born and when I held her in my arms for the first time.  It was as if time stood still and only the two of us were having a shared moment...a moment of knowing that we belonged to each other.  Yes, you may think that is a ridiculous notion, but I'm telling you, there's no joy like a new baby, especially one that deeply connected to you.

One of my good friends recently announced that she is pregnant and they are expecting another baby girl.  My heart is welling up right now just thinking about this new life that I get to be a part of.  

True joy comes in the realization that God is continually making things new.  New life in a baby's cry, new life in a sunrise, new life in the transformation of grace in a person's life, new life in a student recognizing the letter "B," new life in waking up for the day, new life in a hug that gets you through the day.

Joy is life.  Joy is not happiness.  If happiness is our goal, we will fail and be miserable.  If joy is our goal, we will see the transformations all around us.  We will begin to see how God is transforming us within to be joy to others.

Joy to the world.

Hear the Christ child's cry.

Look into his face and know that he belongs to you and you belong to him.

Be joy today.

Noel

Noel...good news...a shout of joy.  

Noel...come and see what God has done!

The light of the world given FOR us!

We sang this song yesterday at our Christmas program at church.  It is powerful to think that God wanted to give us such joy, not only in that one moment, but for eternity.  The light hasn't left.  Christ keeps being reborn.  Rejoice!

Our world...

Our world is full...full of people, full of busy people, full of uncertainty and violence.  Our world is overwhelming to think about and to pray for...it's hard to know how to pray for this place, these people, for our own people.  And yet, Christmas comes.  The time has come for Mary to give birth to our Savior...and maybe that's precisely what we need.  We need a Savior.  We need some joy.  We need hope to creep into our minds and hearts again. We need the Prince of Peace.  We need unconditional Love to rule our world.  

"Christmas comes every time we see God in other persons.
The human and the holy meet in Bethlehem or in Times Square,
for Christmas comes like a golden storm on its way to Jerusalem--
determinedly, inevitably. . . .
Even now it comes
in the face of hatred and warring--
no atrocity too terrible to stop it,
no Herod strong enough,
no hurt deep enough,
no disaster shattering enough.
For someone on earth will see the star,
someone will hear the angel voices,
someone will run to Bethlehem,
someone will know peace and goodwill:
the Christ will be born!"

-Ann Weems

Will you let this reality settle into your very being? We have a Savior.  He has come!  He continues to come...in fresh cut grass, in a baby's first cry, in a friend's embrace, in a million tiny moments we ignore each day...Christ is born again and again. 

Hope

The focus on Advent this week, this anticipation of Christ's coming, is HOPE.  The definition of hope is "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen." We have all hoped for something to happen in our lives, whether it be in the here and now, temporal, or whether it is something big that we feel will change our lives for the better.  Two days ago I was swimming and we were doing a workout...my legs were burning and I was already feeling like lead in the water.  I asked my friend, "with or without fins?"  In my head I repeated over and over again, "please say with fins, please say with fins, please say with fins!' I didn't get the result I wanted, but I'm sure my legs are better for it...maybe.

I have friends here in TN that hoped and prayed and waited for a child.  I know this is the story for many couples, but it doesn't make it less hard.  I prayed for them, hoped for them, grieved with them, hurt for them...and it was hard to understand why someone's deepest desire was not met by our loving God.  When our hearts are crying out for something that we feel will make us better or more whole, it's hard to hope...it's hard to believe that goodness will come for us too.

And yet, last October, Dana Claire entered our lives and continues to exude hope and joy every time I see her.  I look at her and hope is reborn.  She is a bright light to all of us.  She is a precious gift and I don't think we could have imagined what joy she brings to life.

If we are all honest, there is something deep within our hearts that we ponder and wonder about...that we think may be realized one day.  And sometimes darkness wins and we try to throw that hope away and just sit in our sulky places and whine about what isn't being fulfilled. 
Maybe hope for us truly comes when we see hope realized in others and embrace it.  We turn from our own deep longings in order to see how God is fulfilling the longings of our world.

When Mary went to visit Elizabeth, Elizabeth's response was not to brag about how she had become pregnant at such an advanced age, but to rejoice at what God had done in Mary.  Elizabeth's joy came from realizing the hope of the world was near.  Maybe that's the preparation we need in our own lives.  Embrace another's joy today and it will become your own.