Category Archive

Hoping.
Waiting.
The Spanish verb “esperar” means two things: “to hope” and “to wait.”
I wonder how they translate this verse:
Psalm 130:5-5
5. I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

A few months ago, our pastor did a series on the seven Hebrew verbs translated “wait on the LORD” in the Old Testament and the things they teach us about waiting for God. Waiting is not something that is easy to do. We grow tired. We become discouraged. We think that perhaps we missed the bus and there’s really no point in waiting anymore. We give up and throw in the towel and go away–if you were waiting for any activity on this blog, you probably gave up a long time ago!

But Pastor pointed out that waiting on someone shows how valuable they are to us. And it’s true. Think of how a parents waits for his baby to be born or how a gardener puts in seedlings in hopes of a good harvest at the end of the summer. But I know it’s true even more from my own life as people often end up waiting for me. I have heard over and over that being on time shows a regard for the valuable time of those I am meeting; true, but being waited for has showed how much those waiting for me regard me. Not that I am making them wait as a test to see how much I am loved! God forbid! No, the tardiness is an attribute I am both learning to accept about myself and working on changing. But I know sense of value that comes from being waited for without a mention of the sacrifice the person waiting for me has made , and I know the sense of worthlessness that comes from being berated for my slowness. I want to say, “If it was so difficult to wait, then why in the world did you do it? If you didn’t want my company, why did you bother waiting for me?” On the other hand, I feel safe, accepted and loved just as I am when someone has waited for me and hasn’t complained (much).

Today, another message from another pastor reminded me about waiting on God. When we wait, we wait because there is hope. And even when we cannot understand what God is doing, we can wait for Him because we know that when He is finally ready to unveil his work of art, it truly will be a masterpiece. Today’s message reminded me that to wait on Him, I need to commit to Him the issue I am having trouble understanding and then carry on with my life, trusting Him to take care of things. The message I am sending to Him as I wait for Him is “I know that you can’t fit things into my timetable right now, but I trust that You are working things out so that they will be the best. I’m willing to wait till You’re ready to show me.”

My sister and I waited up for my parents to get home from their trip tonight. It’s late, but waiting up for them was worth it. They are worth it. [seeing their reactions to the changes we made in the living room was worth it, too]

Hoping.
Waiting.
Because He is worth waiting for.

Estoy esperando para El.

Salmos 130:5
5 Esperé yo a Jehová, esperó mi alma;
En su palabra he esperado.

Grandma broke her measuring cup the other day–one that she’s had for a long time. She had put hot tea into it (it’s one of those glass pitchers that measures up to two cups) and then, after pouring that out, had put cold water into it. You guessed correctly: it cracked down the middle! (last week was a bad week for breaking glass containers! I had done a similar thing a couple days before!)

That incident sorta connects with a quotation I found in Oswald Chambers’s writings a couple days ago:

“Wherever one’s hopes are founded, there will that person’s idea of prosperity be. And whatever the soul conceives to be prosperity will become that person’s measurement of hope.”
~ April 18 Devotions for a Deeper Life Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.

I didn’t even finish reading the day’s reading right away; I had to stop and ponder that statement. What do I consider prosperity? How do I measure my hope? I know what the “Sunday School” answer is. But the “Sunday School” answer gets its bad rap from the very fact that it’s pat rather than practical, easy rather than real. I have a vague notion of what I’d like the answer to be. But I wonder what the answer really is, what my life shows it to be. And I wonder what it is becoming, what God is making it into.

How do I measure success? Am I a success because I averaged 10 minutes per book that I had to write assignments in tonight? I think it’s a good average by the estimates I have heard, but will my boss think so when she arrives on Monday morning to find that there’s still a little more to do to get ready for the evening? Do I measure my success by my own estimations or by others’ opinions? or both? or neither? Not “how should I measure them?” but “how do I measure them?”

It’s got me pondering–not morbidly, but curiously; not fearfully, but interestedly.

Obviously, I’m not measuring my success by how early I get to bed at night. Maybe I ought to . . . =)

Trust in him at all times; [ye] people, pour out your heart before him: God [is] a refuge for us. Selah
Psalm 62:8

Hi, God.

I’m trying to do what You said to do with my heart–pour it out before You–but I kinda have a problem. See, I tip it over to pour it out, and nothing comes out. I think it’s dried up and caked in there, maybe a little like spices do when they’ve been sitting in the cupboard too long and gotten a little moisture in them. And, well, I’m not really sure what to do now because I can’t really pour it out, see?

I took my heart to someone I thought might care to see this strange phenomena that is going on in my heart, but . . . well, she was ready to pour out her heart at the moment and mine wasn’t exactly pour-able. Actually, it wasn’t really like she poured out her heart. It was more like just shaking some of its seasoning out to flavor my life. And I really was glad for it. It’s fun to hear her adventures.

I called another friend today. Wow! Was she ever busy! I really wasn’t expecting that she’d be able to scrape free the caked stuff in my heart. I was hoping that I’d hear a little of how she was doing. I think she needed a little encouragement, and it was really nice to hear a few sound-bites of her life. The call made me smile. I hope it made her smile, too.

Another friend was a bit confused by it all. She was a little panicky, too, as though I was panicky about what in the world this stuff was and was hoping that she would fix it. She really didn’t listen but kept suggesting recipes that I could sprinkle it into. Not quite what I think I’m supposed to do with it . . . hm.

I took my heart to another friend. As I showed her the dried-up stuff that used to be my heart, she listened and tried to understand; but she really didn’t know what to do with it any more than I did. And, frankly, I’m a bit tired of talking about it all. That’s part of the dried-up-ness. It’s like “what’s the use?” Ya know?

Another friend was better able than I to “pour out” her heart. I suspect that I didn’t know what to do with her heart any more than my other friend knew what to do with mine. But somehow the act of listening and trying to understand produced a little moisture. I think the shared moisture helped, but it didn’t last long. I’m dry and caked again.

So, here’s my heart. I was bringing it to You all along; I just had some stops along the way. I’m not sure what to do with it, it’s so dry. It doesn’t want to laugh or cry but it wants to do both; it’s both frustrated and content somehow; it’s tired but doesn’t want to go to bed; concerned but not worried. What do You make of such a heart? Shouldn’t it be crying out to You right now?

Hm. It shouldn’t, huh? This is normal? You say that this is what happens sometimes to hearts that have been working hard and pouring themselves out and opening themselves up to face the elements? So. I guess this means You know what to do with it, then? Whew! What a relief! I was getting a little tired of trying to figure it out. Make something good with it, ok?

I’m going to bed.

=)

“If we cannot believe God when circumstances seem be against us, we do not believe Him at all.” – Charles Spurgeon
qtd in NBBC Alumni Update: January 28, 2008 

I’ve been studying the life of Job lately. (Actually, the whole church was, and the children’s class got behind: we’re still studying that book along with the Psalms that the rest of the church is studying. We’re having a great time figuring out what each of the characters in Job is saying and getting quite an education on the behavior of people discussing things!)

If anyone had a hard time with circumstances, Job was the one. And he had so many questions for God. Questions I find that I have–sometimes even without knowing I’m wondering them.

“God, why are you punishing me? I’ve been doing my best to serve you!”

“God, if things are really truly ok between us, why these circumstances?”

“How is it considered punishment when it happens to others but not to me? It appears the same!”

“How can you still be ok with me when everyone else seems not to be? and when my world seems to be falling apart? and when I can’t tell up from down?”

 Yet, before we begin the series of discussions between Job and his friends, we know the answers to some of the questions. As I say to my kids, God was really bragging on Job.

God: “Satan, see Job down there? He’s my friend. He’s such a great guy!”

Satan: “Yeah, he’s just your friend because you’ve given him everything he wants and needs and even some things he didn’t know he wanted or needed. Take all that away, and you’ll lose his friendship.”

So God let it be tested. And He had something more to brag about when Satan returned from carrying out the terrible deed of stripping from Job everything that he had.

 God: “See, I told you he was my friend! You took away everything, and he’s still my friend! What a great guy!”

Satan: “Yeah, but he’s still healthy. Make him sick, put him into some real, physical pain, and he will start to curse you.”

So God allowed that, too. And still Job didn’t stop being God’s friend. And then (as an added “bonus”) Job’s friends misunderstood him. And they added misunderstanding to misunderstanding. And Job didn’t stop being God’s friend.

But He began to wonder if God was still his friend.

And I guess that when I’m under the circumstances, I begin to wonder that, too. I’m looking forward to the end of the book, looking forward to seeing how God answers some of these questions.

When I was a kid, rosettes were my favorite cookie to make. Mom made them especially at Christmastime. It’s been more years than I can count since I made them, but I can still recall the fascination they always held for me. Mom heated oil in a frying pan and mixed up the thin, sweet batter; then she dipped the rosette mold (a flower-shaped piece of iron on a long handle) into the batter to coat its lower half and quickly inserted the mold–batter and all–into the oil. The hot oil immediately fried the batter in the shape of the mold, allowing Mom to lift the mold entirely out of the flower-shaped cookie and leave it to cook, floating in the hot oil until it was a beautiful golden-brown. We would lift the cookies out onto a stack of paper towels in order to remove the ecxess grease before dusting them with powdered sugar. They were the prettiest and most delicate cookies I had ever seen. I loved them!

Like rosettes, peace seems brittle. Sweet, beautiful, fascinating, but delicate. Breathe on it and it is gone like the miniature snowflake on your sleeve. Try to preserve it and it becomes rancid like old french fries (or old resettes, for that matter). So God’s gift that Christmas night of peace on earth seems not only rather unrealistic, but also a bit impractical. Yet it is definitely not a white-elephant gift. Everyone wants it.

One of the most famous Christmas songs of all time is the most peaceful: “Silent Night” by Joseph Mohr, given its perfect musical setting by Franz Gruber. The song’s story goes that it was composed and performed upon the grand occasion of the church’s organ being out of commission. Now, anyone familiar with Christmas programs and Christmas services knows how stressful losing the church’s main instrument can be–how stressful any glitch can be! Yet from that rather inconvenient situation has come a song capturing the peace of Christmas like no other song does. Listen:

Silent night! holy night!
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and Child,
Holy Infant, so tender and mild–
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night! holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight;
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heav’nly hosts sing aleluia–
Christ the Savior is born!
Christ the Savior is born!

Silent night! holy night!
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace–
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth,
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth.

The songs is so gentle, lulling us to restful contemplation. But as I ponder that first Christmas, as I ponder the Christmas story, I see that not everything was still, not everything was hushed. The city being so crowded, how could it be still and at peace? Tensions must have been higher than normal. How could Joseph’s mind not have been churning with the problem of where in the world they would live until the census was over? Childbirth being so full of anguish and pain, how could Mary have been silent? A sky full of angels, how could it have been peaceful? How could one’s heart not have beat wildly after being surprised in such a manner as the shepherds were? Silent night? Did I miss what Mohr and Gruber saw?

“All is calm, all is bright/ Round yon virgin mother and Child.” I remember walking into my mother’s hospital room shortly after my sister was born. I had skipped school and spent all morning in the waiting room of the hospital until finally Dad came to get me: my sister had been born. There was a stillness, a wonder to that hospital room when I entered it (almost on tiptoe). The pain was over, Mom was exhausted but happy. And she moved gently as she let me see my sister for the first time and then allowed me to hold her. In fact, each time I visited them in the hospital a peacefulness pervaded the room, a peacefulness because all was well . . . and because the baby might be sleeping. All was calm and bright. How could it have been otherwise for that tiny baby and his exhausted mother that night? As the new mother showed her newborn infant to his wondering father and later to the curious shepherds, it could not have been other than peaceful–the peace of happy and successful exhaustion, the peace of proud mother-hood, the peace of infancy.

“Shepherds quake at the sight;/ Glories stream from heaven afar,/ Heav’nly hosts sing aleluia.” What a concert that must have been! I’ve been to good concerts, and I have also been on various stages myself a time or two. While applause is nice to receive, a good performer soon learns to crave silence from his audience, and not just any silence. An attentive silence is so concentrated that a performer can feel the audience frozen in time and place, lost in the story he is weaving. I have heard that silence from audiences, and I have felt that expectant stillness myself. I, too, have had my times of sitting silent after the house lights come back on, awed and overwhelmed by the power of the performance I have just seen or heard, pondering the thoughts it has placed in my grasp. Picture the hillside after the heavenly curtain has fallen again and the aerial show is over: wouldn’t you have sat in silence, not wanting to break the wonderful stillness of the moment?

But those moments seem so fragile. The stillness must be broken eventually: the shepherds have to speak, have to move, have to go check out this amazing news the angels gave them; the baby Jesus, like other babies the world over, will cry for the various reasons babies cry. The peace can’t last. Was God’s gift of peace to the world as insubstantial as the rosettes we used to make at Christmas time–beautiful to look at but certainly not known for longevity?

“Love’s pure light/ Radiant beams from Thy holy face/ With the dawn of redeeming grace.” Perhaps beyond the ordinary stillnesses, a different kind of peace was embedded in that night, a peace more beautiful, more realistic, more substantial, more satisfying than those natural yet fragile ones described in the first two stanzas; a peace I have glimpsed like a hummingbird out my window; a peace I have tasted but not grasped; a peace I want more of. It’s the peace that comes from God Himself, from seeing His face and knowing that everything is as it should be between us.

God’s Word, in Philippians 4:7, aptly dubs it the peace “which passeth all understanding.” I heard it described at a New Year service in which people were given the opportunity to give testimonies of how God had helped them through the year. One couple spoke of living life after a devastating house fire. The wife spoke of the first night after the fire and of the peace inside which, in the face of loss and devastation, whispered to her, “Let’s see what God is going to do with this.” And I recognized something about this incomprehensible peace, something I have been learning but having trouble putting into words: this peace comes with a built-in sense of adventure! Somehow it can look trouble in the face and see it as a ride at an amusement park. This peace is not a fragile flower; it’s tough as rope. It makes absolutely no sense at all as it grins in the face of adversity. No, it’s not a bitter grimace nor a starry-eyed smile. It’s a grin, an infectious grin that’s like a rainbow through the tears. And it enables the possessor to rest–to “sleep in heavenly peace,” something that seems impossible at first.

So, how does one get it? And how does one keep it? Well, to answer the second question, we don’t keep it–it keeps us. Philippians 4:7 goes on to promise that it will “keep [or guard] our hearts and minds.” It’s an active, strong peace, stronger than we are. How do we get it? That one is just as easy and yet infinitely more difficult to answer. We get it from God. We get it, Philippians tells us, by pouring out our hearts to Him, letting Him have all the things that we are worried over or concerned by or angry about or longing for. John 13-15 says that as we do this we must allow Christ’s words to become part of us, expecting that He will answer those longings. That part isn’t so easy. In fact, it seems almost an impossibility that we will ever have enough of His words within us to purchase His gift of peace. Bother! So much for that thought, nice though it was.

That’s the difficulty: peace involves trust. And trust comes from love. I have been re-reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. And the marvel to me is that my favorite chapter, the chapter that moves me most, is the one about her time in a German extermination camp. As she and her sister lived through those days of hell on earth, their confidence in the love of God shines, beams out in defiance of all horror, radiates in the face of evil itself. There’s a peace on those pages that I want in my life. A beautiful, yet unbreakable peace.

It comes from knowing God, from knowing His love. Not from loving Him–oh, no! How many people have we loved and yet feared that our love was unrequited? How many times have our hearts been broken by insensitivity, ingratitude, betrayal? No, loving God cannot bring us peace. Only being loved by Him can. Just as we rest and relax the best in the places we feel safe, just as we feel safe in the presence of those who love us, we will only have heavenly peace when we know the love of Christ, a love “which passeth knowledge.”

How can we know something that’s too big to fit into our minds? Can a child fully understand his father’s love? Can he completely grasp the arms that encircle him? Does he really care that the arms are bigger than he is? Of course not! That’s what makes him feel so safe. We never outgrow that need for love. God’s love is the only love that will always satisfy that child we carry within us forever. That’s why He calls us His children.

Hungry for some peace? It starts here: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.”

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

My Grandma (the one I live with) has a wonderful theory about cinnamon: she heard somewhere that it is very beneficial to our health, so she tries to find things that contain cinnamon to eat or drink or else she adds a little extra cinnamon to thing that already have cinnamon in them. It’s a joke at our house that we can eat sweet things (such as pie or cookies or candy) because they have cinnamon in them and cinnamon is good for us.

One of the things that cinnamon is supposed to do for us it to stop the sniffles. My first reaction to this news was one of slight disbelief; but if Grandma’s theory is correct, I have the “cure for the common sniffles”: snickerdoodles, lots and lots of snickerdoodles! Snickerdoodles are such fun cookies! Even the name sounds fun. And making them is fun: take small balls of dough (containing cinnamon, of course), roll them around in a cinnamon and sugar mixture to coat them really well, and then put them in the oven to bake. When they come out and are done to perfection, these cookies are a little crunchy on the outside and a little soft on the inside. So good! They REALLY keep me coming back for more. And if Grandma’s theory is correct, they will keep away the sniffles, too. Grandma has tried taking extra cinnamon when she has the sniffles, and she has found that it works. Why not give cinnamon cookies a try when the common cold comes your way? (I know, the sugar content would probably conflict with the medicinal properties of the cinnamon, but still . . . )

There are few things more annoying that getting the sniffles: being in the middle of something and suddenly needing to dive for the box of tissues does not help productivity very much. Looking at life, it seems that sniffles plague us more than just in the cold season. O. Henry, the famous short-story writer, made this comment about life in his story “The Gift of the Magi” when his female character collapses into tears over something: “Which [action] instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.” I agree that life seems to bring sniffles up an awful lot; sometimes even when we are laughing, we are hiding a sniffle or two. Not that we spend our lives blubbering about the hard lot we have been given; no, we try to face things as bravely as we can, knowing that life is not fair and that we should not expect it to be. Still, we can’t really help the sniffles.

But what is there for solving the sniffles of everyday life? If–as O. Henry suggests–sniffles lead the statistics of our lives, eating cinnamon cookies for such a frequent amount of sniffles will add weight problems to the woes of the heart. Is there a balm for them?

There is. It’s an unlikely one–as unlikely as eating cinnamon for common sniffles. But it gives promise of truly working.

A King.

Now THAT sounds preposterous. Any American can tell you that a king is not necessary for a nation to work properly. And gone are the days of Britain’s autocratic kings. Who needs a king? Not us. We don’t need a dictator to run our lives, and we don’t need a figurehead to take all the credit. So the words of this Christmas carol have a hard time making sense to us.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders of His love.

~Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts is not describing a weak figurehead king here. His king has power–power to bring about changes. Look at the things He can do: send His blessings on everyone, reverse the effects of the curse, rule the entire world (notice there’s no mention of bureaucracy here–He is the One ruling, not His government), and prove His love to the world through the way He treats the nations. That’s power! And, to be honest, sometimes we long for that power to be seen in our lives. Having the curse reversed would be wonderful; and if blessings are being served out, pass me a generous helping! Also, I agree that it would be nice for the world to be full of love rather than hatred. Maybe I do need a king. I certainly wish for someone sometimes who will step in and make the decisions that seem impossible for me to make, someone who will pull out the necessary resources when mine are running dry, someone who has influence over others when I am getting a raw deal or do not know how to communicate with them. Yes, a king would be nice. A king looking out for my interests would definitely cure the sniffles.

But does it have to be a king? Giving someone else the reins of power is more than a little disconcerting! Put this thought in everyday shoes: we want advice from people, but we hate it when they step in to try to run our lives–we want to make the ultimate decisions (esp. since we are responsible to live with those decisions once they’re made); we want others to listen to our troubles, but we are terrified of what they might do about those problems–we want their help and we don’t want their intereference all at the same time. We have a relative amount of control over our own lives; we know what we are thinking before we do it; we know how we hope that things turn out. We don’t know these things about others. We have no control over them, well, very little. We may do our best to manipulate others or dominate them in order to get what we think we want, but those who refuse to be dominated or manipulated scare us. In our experience, a loss of personal control can lead to MORE sniffling rather than less. Is it worth giving up control just to have what a king can do for us? ummmm . . . pass the Kleenex, please!

But the price is joy.

And we don’t really have much of it. We find our hearts getting hardened and numb, and we walk through life in a half-fog, just trying to survive. We are more than fully aware of the curse, seeing its blight on our lives everywhere we look, especially when we look inside. It’s scary to realize the evil we are capable of and overwhelming to see the wounds we suffer from. And the worst part is knowing that really there’s little we can do about the problems within us anymore than we can control the circumstances around us. Our small measure of control is just that: small. Maybe we do need a king after all. We don’t want one, but we need one. We need one badly.

And to have Him, we are going to have to trust Him. Even though we don’t know what He’s going to do, even though we can’t control Him, we are going to have to open our hearts to allow Him to come in. As Watts wrote, we must “prepare Him room” in our hearts. We can’t keep Him relegated to the stable of our hearts, we have to allow Him to have the throne if He is going to do us the good we so long for Him to do. Watts was writing this song not about the first coming of Jesus–when He came as a baby to be born obscurely, live humbly, and die sacrificially–but about the second coming when He will come to rule the world and to make all things right. The Bible contains many prophesies of what He will do when He rules. All wonderful, all badly longed for, all in the future. But His rule in our hearts does not have to wait that long: it can begin now. And what He wil do for the world someday He promises to do within our hearts today: weed out the thorns and weeds of sin, heal the wounds, make us new. We find it easier to trust someone when we know towards what goal he is heading; has the King not showed us enough of His goal to inspire our trust?

Interesting thing about snickerdoodles: they get hard after a while. As they sit in the cookie jar, the moisture leaves them and they lose their softness. They’re still tasty, but not quite as addicting. Unless they’re dunked in milk. Dipped and held there until the milk has soaked into them through and through. Then they’re delicious. A joyful taste if ever there was one. Preparing our hard hearts for receiving the King is as simple as milk and cookies: it involves soaking in Him, bringing our hearts to His moisture and soaking in it until our hearts are saturated with it. Just soaking.

Happy soaking this holiday season!

The first recorded Christmas song in the Bible did not come from the heavens with a full choir to back it up. It was sung composed and performed by an amateur to an audience of one. The composer was Mary, the mother of Jesus herself. Here’s how I imagine it:

“Only a few more turns to go, and I’ll be standing at their front door,” Mary thought as she trudged wearily along. She had already hashed things out in her mind countless times on this journey. Why did I decide to leave Galilee? Well, I needed to leave. I’m starting to feel the symptoms of pregnancy, but I can’t talk to anyone about it. There’s no one to tell: Nazareth’s too small a town to hide things in for very long. Tell one person and the whole town knows in a minute! I can’t live there, growing more and more pregnant and raising more and more questions. I have to leave. I have to get away for a while. Why Elisabeth’s house? I know it’s a little risky–after all, Zacharias is a priest and might have trouble buying my story. But I think they will understand; after all, things have not been normal with them, either, according to the angel. Imagine! Having a baby after all these years! In fact, I suspect the angel told me about their current miraculous situation just so that I would know that I have a place to turn. Surely they will not reject me. And Elisabeth will help me. Each question had raised itself to be answered over and over again until they were all silent–all but one, that one haunting question that had lingered long after the angel-radiance had left the house feeling drab and colorless that amazing day. Is this all truly from God as the angel said it was? or is there some sort of horrible mistake? I couldn’t be dreaming this up, could I? But who will believe me?

Elisabeth’s house appeared over the rise of the hill, a welcoming atmosphere about it. Tired and road-weary, Mary concentrated all of her thoughts on reaching that inviting doorway ahead. Time had not allowed her to send a letter pre-announcing her arrival. She would just announce it herself. Too tired to work out the words ahead of time, she would just have to wait for the moment itself to bring the words. Somehow she would tell her story and hope to be believed and understood and welcomed.

“Who is it?” a low, pleasant, parchment-paper voice replied to her knock.

“It’s Mary, your cousin.” A pause. She realized she was holding her breath, but she couldn’t help it.

The door flew open, and she found herself tightly enveloped by a little old lady with excited eyes and a warm smile. “Mary! Oh, Mary! So good to see you! Oh! You are the happiest, most favored woman on earth! You were chosen to carry the Savior of the world! Oh! I’m so happy for you! What in the world did I ever do to deserve having a visit from the mother of my Lord and God? Come in! Come in!” Another bear hug. Elisabeth talking and chattering and drawing Mary into the house. A rather dazed Mary wondered how in the world Elisabeth could have known, but she couldn’t find the words to speak at all.

Elisabeth was still speaking excitedly. “I just knew it! Oh! The minute I heard your voice I knew! Well, actually little John here knew,” she patted her protruding stomach to punctuate her sentences as she continued. “The minute we heard your voice, he jumped! He jumped–must have turned a somersault in there! And I knew what had happened to you! Oh! I am so happy for you! And so happy that you came here of all places! You are more than welcome to stay with us!
“And, Mary,” she paused to regain Mary’s focused attention, “Mary, bless you for your belief. You truly will be happy that you believed God’s message. God has promised you something, and He will keep his promise to you.”

There was a stillness in the room for a moment, Elisabeth wisely being quiet for a moment to let her last words sink in. She had lived long enough to know that believing is not easy–even after an angel has spoken to you and told you what will happen. Even after the predicted event had begun to unfold itself. Believing can be very difficult.

When Mary found her tongue, it was to sing. To sing the song that had been writing itself within her over the miles of the trip from her hometown to her cousin’s house. Her question had been answered in a way she had not looked for: how could it not be from God when Elisabeth had known before she had even been told? how could it not be from God when even Elisabeth’s baby had known who Mary was carrying in her womb? And Elisabeth had believed. No explaining, no begging, no pleading required. It was answered, and her full heart responded in the only way it could.

Luke 1:46-55 records the words for us.
“And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden:
for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name;
And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation;
He hath shewed strength with His arm;
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts;
He hath put down the mighty from their seats,
and exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He hath sent empty away;
He hath holpen His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to His seed for ever.”

My eyes and thoughts are drawn over and over to this line: “He that is mighty hath done to me great things.” She could look at her circumstances and be happy that “great things” were being done to her. I am truly awestruck at her, not at her super-spirituality, but at her humanness. Mary was a regular girl who had just been thrust into a difficult situation, a situation unheard of before and since her time. Sure, she had welcomed God’s plan for her life when the angel had announced it to her. But since that magically astounding moment, reality had set in. She knew exactly what it would look like for her to become pregnant at this time: she was betrothed to Joseph. The whole town might think that they had not waited for the proper time to act as husband and wife. Joseph’s reputation would be tarnished. And no one would know that it was God’s baby rather than Joseph’s. Joseph would know that the baby was not his and would be devastated. This marvelous news would not look beautiful; it would look wrong. And if its appearance had been true in any way, her situation would have been wrong. Terribly wrong! She couldn’t blame them for what they would think of her. But, on the other hand, this was a beautiful gift God has given her, creating within her womb–without any action on her part at all–the precious life of His Son. Mary was stuck–stuck in the jaws of circumstances.

And yet, she accepted it. Not only accepted it, but rejoiced in the God that had done this preposterous, incomprehnsible miracle in her. She recognized that being stuck was part and parcel of the “great things” that God was doing to her–not through her, not around her, but TO her. She saw those things as for her.

I can relate to her stuck-ness. Some days feel like a long crawl through tunnels too small for a rat. Yet, looking back at how I came to be where I am, I can only conclude that I am here because God wants me here. I feel small and insignificant and helpless and . . . well, flattened. I am stuck with no way to escape. I feel like molasses cookies must feel.

Molasses cookies are wonderful! I do not remember making them as a kid, but I have grown to love them over the three years of living in St. Louis with my aunt’s family and with my Grandmother (mom’s side). Molasses cookies are dark and thin and a little chewy. They are spiced cookies and taste wonderful in milk. To make them, Grandma could roll out the dough thinly and cut it into shapes with cookie cutters; but more often she plops blobs of dough onto the cookie sheet, butters the bottom of the cup and dips it in sugar, then uses the bottom of the cup to flatten the blobs into respectable cookies. That’s right, she squeezes them flat. For that moment, that crucial moment that they are being shaped, they are stuck. Completely stuck. Nowhere else to go. Stuck like Mary was. Stuck like I am. Stuck like you are.

Perhaps I could escape–perhaps I could just throw my hands up and say “I quit!” But what would become of those “great things” happening around me? I don’t want to miss what He is doing. I want to be where He is watching Him work. I’ll sit still! I’ll be quiet! Just let me be where I can see what you are doing! I do not want to quit. But sometimes it seems that it is impossible to exist in the circumstances He has given to me. And rejoicing at my front-row seat becomes fear and sadness over my impossible situation.

Perhaps the secret to rejoicing in being stuck can be found in two comments: one made by Elisabeth and one made by Mary herself. 1) Elisabeth reminded Mary that God would fulfil His promises. God is a promise-keeping God. He is also a sure God: He does not decide to abandon a project once He has started it. The God who favored her today in giving her His only begotten Son to mother would not decide He had made a mistake the following day and remove her from His favor. 2) She realized that the “great things” God was doing were hers, too, not just for the rest of the world. It is easy for me to see myself as a mere tool of God’s work in the lives of those around me. It does not occur to me that the situations I am in, the places I feel “stuck” are for me, too, not just for those around me. Mary recognized that God’s Son within her was for her personally. God was doing great things TO her, not just in her, not just around her, not just for others, but for her. And this knowledge made her feel safe.

See, eventually, the flattened molasses cookies will go in the oven and bake and be ready to eat. Their “stuck” position is good for them. It is done to them so that they will bake as they are supposed to bake and be as wonderful as they are supposed to be. Molasses cookies are meant to be flat.

Family resemblances can be fun. We watch for them in movies or plays that we go to see (do the “family members” really look like they could be from the same family?). Computer programs have been made to try to predict what the babies of a couple will look like. And when we see newborn babies, we try to tell from which parent the various features come. And in each child, the blend is different. At my parents’ 30th anniversary party, someone asked my mother where I got my blonde hair, correctly deducing that Mom used to have blonde hair when she was younger.

We are not always proud of our inherited features. We may be embarassed at inheriting the big nose from our dad’s side or the strangely long middle toe. And it’s no fun to realize that you gain weight in the same places your other family members gain it! Sometimes a family resemblance can be painful, too, especially when there’s fear and heartache attached with it: a history of heart disease; a battered and abused woman fears she will look at her child and see the man who abused her; other examples could be given. There’s one family resemblance that is rarely talked about. No one is proud of it. Everyone would rather forget it, but everyone has it. I look like you in this way; you look like me. We have a common ancestor, and we look just like him. Not sure who I am talking about? The Bible gives us his name, and genetics reveals that we all have descended from him. His name is Adam. No last name. Just Adam. The father of all human beings.

The resemblance? Well, like noses and ear lobes, it comes in different shapes and sizes, but everyone has it. Its official name is “sin,” and it trips us up, discourages us, and fascinates us all. It is that desire to look out for oneself over others; it is that tendency to do lie to ourselves and others; and it is responsible for ALL the pain and suffering going on around us. Although it’s far easier to spot in others than to spot it in ourselves, it devastates us when we find it within us and realize that no power on earth can tear it from our hearts. We can get plastic surgery or liposuction to change our physical inheritance, but our spiritual one will haunt us to our graves. Within our souls, we resemble all the evil ever to have plagued the planet.

“Adam’s Family Album”

Are those dark spots
Real? or is something
Wrong with my eyes
As I look through the
Family photos?
So many sad eyes behind
Merry faces;
So many sin-discolored
Pictures, the tell-tale
Color of iniquity soaking
Through the pasted smiles.
Do You have an almighty pen
That will remove
The spots?
Sponge away
The tears behind sad eyes?
What white-out can erase
The captions I see
As I view these people?
How can I look
At those around me
With love-colored glasses,
Unafraid to find the sin behind
All the pretty faces?
How can I dare
To look at my own portrait
In the mirror?
Has Black Death disfigured us all?

~JMC

It has. Unmistakably. Go ahead. Look around. Uncover your eyes, and see the disfigurement. We match. We are related. What a family to be a part of!

All but one.

He had only one biological parent. No scientist will ever be able to explain the virgin birth of Christ, but Jesus Christ was born fully human, yet fully divine. And because God is His father, He did not inherit that evil we are all heirs to. Here begins the strangest exchange in all of history: God became a part of the human race so that humans could become part of His family. The Bible calls Jesus Christ the “second Adam” because He came to reverse the damage done by Adam’s sin. No power on earth could remove that tell-tale resemblance, but Jesus brings power from Heaven to do it. John 1:12 says “As many as received Him [Jesus], to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on His name.” Belief in Christ and in His power to save us from our sins re-births us into a new family. A new family with different features. Charles Wesley’s familiar Christmas carol puts it this way:

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild–
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic hosts proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Christ, by highest heav’n adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail th’incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Come, Desire of Naitons, come!
Fix in us Thy humble home:
Rise the woman’s conq’ring seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Adam’s likeness now efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

~ Charles Wesley

Did you catch that last line? “Adam’s likeness now efface,/ Stamp Thine image in its place:/ Second Adam from above,/ Reinstate us in Thy love.” The idea of stamping reminds me of my favorite cookie of all time–Scottish Shortbread Cookies. My mother got the recipe from an old Scottish lady in the church I grew up in. The recipe is relatively simple and oh! so good and buttery and sweet! The last part of the process before baking involves molding the cookies with a special cookie mold. Mom has a wooden mold for “stamping” large cakes of shortbread, and she has several smaller molds for “stamping” shortbread cookies. Shortbread is funny, though: it holds the shape stamped onto it in a quiet, almost subtle way. As the shortbread bakes, the sharp edges smooth out a little as the cookie spreads. But when the cookies are done, the image is still visible, just softer. When we are born again into God’s family, He stamps the image on us of Himself. This stamp is not like a cookie-cutter making everyone exactly the same and boring; no, it’s a softer image that looks a little different on each individual. Still, we all bear that same family resemblance, a better one than the one we come into this world bearing. And, like a baked shortbread cookie, the image cannot be changed. Once we have His image stamped onto us, it is permanently ours. Because Jesus was born into Humanity’s family, because He died to pay for Humanity’s sin, any human being who chooses to may be born into His family. And with that birth comes a new family resemblance: His. The miracle is that God can take us and re-bake us. With His power, the old image of Adam does not have to be permanent. It’s a miracle beyond our total comprehension. But isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

When I was at home in California for Thanksgiving this year, I ate a gingerbread cookie at my friends’ house. Mamie showed me pictures of her husband Stephen making them. I was impressed. The cookie was good, too.

Somehow I don’t usually reach for the gingerbread cookies right away when I am hungry for something sweet. Perhaps it has something to do with the stigma of the title “gingerbread man” in my mind: I think of the story of the arrogant little guy who led everyone on a merry chase until he trusted the wrong person and was caught anyway. “Run! Run, as fast as you can! You can’t catch me! I’m the Gingerbread Man!” More likely, I just don’t reach for gingerbread because ginger is not my favorite spice (Grandma, on the other hand, would rank gingery cookies among her favorites).

The Gingerbread Man gets me thinking, though: I usually enjoy irony, but the story of the Gingerbread Man has always bothered me a little. At an age when obedience to parents and other adults was stressed, the defiance of the little cookie shocked me (so did Tom Sawyer when I first read his adventures). But inside me I see a little of his desire to do his own thing–who wants to be eaten anyway, even if that was the purpose for which one was made? I never knew with whom to sympathize: the old lady who made him for eating and was so rudely disobeyed and deprived of her treat? or the disobedient cookie who ran out of a sense of gleeful self-preservation and ended up being eaten for his troubles?

I suspect that deep down inside, my disobedience stems from my lack of trust. In my sophomore year of college, the knowledge of God’s sovereignty began to frighten me, especially as the terrible meaning of the fact that He does all things for His own glory began to sink into my soul. God began to seem like the lady who made the Gingerbread Man: He seemed to care about me merely as a means to further His own ends. And, like the main character in the story, I found myself stuck between a God who would consume me for His own glory and a dreaded enemy who would pretend to help me and then devour me mercilessly. We learn early that anyone who is out to get his own glory really does not care about us. A God like that is frightening. How could a God who made us–like gingerbread men–for His own pleasure still have our best interests in mind? Could God’s best interests and our best interests really be one and the same thing? Life usually feels more like a frantic dash away from everything and everyone that would devour us, that would take from us what they want and then fling out the unusable parts of us. And I have found it easy to “fear” God as my Creator and Master, running from Him rather than to Him when I feel the predators of life at my heels. I don’t want to be eaten!

And that’s why Christmas is so important: God did create us for His pleasure, yet He loves us completely, through and through, intimately. He will not devour us, smack His lips, and pat Himself on the back for having made such a delicious cookie. And so He came at Christmas to show us that He wants us for us. A little song from a children’s Christmas musical says it far better than I will ever be able to:

“Close to Him”
by Kathie Hill and Janet McMahan [punctuation and some other mechanics my own]

He wants to be close to His children,
So He’ll become a child–
A helpless little baby,
A Savior meek and mild.
He’ll leave His home in Heaven
To prove His love is real,
And be born as a baby
Just so man can feel

Close to Him, close to Him,
And now all of His children can feel so close to Him.
Close to Him, close to Him,
And now all of His children can feel so close to Him.

He’ll know what it’s like to be lonely
And how it feels to cry,
To love His friends and family
Then have to say goodbye.
This baby in a manger
Will be God’s pure love revealed:
Love living among them
Just so man can feel

Close to Him, close to Him,
And now all of His children can feel so close to Him.
Close to Him, close to Him,
And now all of His children can feel so close to Him.

He came to earth to be like us. He came to earth to show us that He loves us. He came to earth to be closer to us so that we could understand Him better and dare to draw near to Him. Unafraid to be His.

“We love Him because He first loved us.” I John 4:19

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light–
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

For Christ is born of Mary–
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wond’ring love.
O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth.

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is giv’n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming,
But, in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still
The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in–
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!

~Phillips Brooks
I could almost picture it: the tiny town of Bethlehem asleep that night. All was dark and still, countless snores in the humble buildings that night punctuated the silence. Maybe a dog barked or a wolf howled. There were no cars, no public transportations systems running all night. No street lights kept the town perpetually lit with a dingy glow. No furnaces heated the houses; the sleepers piled the blankets on and settled in for another night like any other. Why should this one be any different? As I listened to the instrumental arrangement by Linda McKechnie of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” with a Debussy piece (it’s on one of my favorite CD’s–Hymnworks Christmas), I ran the words through my head, cherishing the stillness.

“The hopes and fears of all the years/ Are met in thee tonight,” arrested my attention. Somehow I had never noticed the combination of those words in that song before. Hope and fear seem so very distantly removed from each other–one is sunshine, the other dismay; one we want, the other we spend our lives running from; one we dream about, the other we feel stuck with. Right? Still, it’s set me to wondering how closely the two are tied.

Thinking about sugar cookies puts it into perspective for me. My grandmothers love to bake cookies, but for me, baking cookies is a daunting task. And no cookies are more fearsome to me than sugar cookies. They take so much work! Rolling out the dough, cutting the shapes, keeping an eye on them in the oven, and finally decorating them–thoughts of the process exhaust me even now (or is it the lateness of the hour at which i type?)! So when my aunt suggested that we make sugar cookies last Christmas, I cringed inwardly. But I do enjoy working at projects and was ready to literally roll up my sleeves and tackle the project. The dough had already been made: all that remained was the task of producing pleasant-looking shapes. I hadn’t made sugar cookies for a very long time, but I had the basic idea, so I dove in. And that’s when I discovered what I had feared: the dough would not cooperate with me. It knew I was more afraid of it than it was of me. Mom came in to see me wrestling with it and took over–first to demonstrate that flour was the answer, then to become part of the assembly line. Eventually the dough was obeying even my commands, and the production was going. My aunt and my sister took charge of the decorating, and soon we had containers of beautiful sugar cookies.

Hope and fear join hands in the process of making sugar cookies. We make them because we hope that they will be fun to make; we hope they will taste good; we hope they will look beautiful; we hope that people will be pleased with them. But we fear at the same time . . . at least, I do. I fear that they will look ugly, that they will taste awful, that no one will like them, and–worst of all–that they will not be worth the trouble it takes to make them! Yes, I am exaggerating a little with that “fear” stuff. But looking at sugar-cookie-making helps me to understand how hopes and fears can be twins.

Basically, every hope is also a fear: we want something, and we are vulnerable to pain if that hope is disappointed. So we live lives of hope and fear. We fear disappointment. We fear loss. We fear rejection. We fear pain. We fear failure. We fear inadequacy. We fear evil. We fear disaster. We fear insignificance. We fear helplessness. We fear the future. We fear uncertainty. We fear destiny. We fear the unknown. We fear . . . we fear . . . we even begin to fear hope sometimes. It’s hard to figure out sometimes which hurts more: the hoping or the fearing. And so we all cope with it in various ways. Every religion must deal with these two things. The religion of Buddhism is built around banishing this fear stuff by banishing hope altogether. Sometimes I try that, too: don’t hope–it hurts too much!

At first this song seems to make an outlandish claim–that all the hopes and fears of the ages could meet in that one town on that one night. But upon examining that claim further, I think I can see how it is true. In coming to God, I come with a multitude of hopes and fears. I hope to be accepted; I fear the rejection I know I deserve (and so does everyone else because we know how much trouble we carry around in our heart of hearts). I hope for success; I fear the failures I carry around with me. The unknown terrifies me: it could bring good, but so often it brings bad. I fear my own helplessness to handle all that life throws my way or I fear a time when I may be helpless. And in facing the God of the universe I can’t help but wonder “will He notice me? will I be valuable to Him?” Put your own fears there, and you will find that every hope and every fear is met at the manger in Bethlehem. The account in Luke tells us that “all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.” We wonder, too.

The little town that night housed a tiny infant as human as they come–probably as ugly as any other newborn is. As I come to the manger this Christmas, I wonder with Proclus, a character in “The Star” (an Adventures in Odyssey episode by Focus on the Family), “Are you the Hope of the World, little one?” Could this little child be the hope for ALL my fears? Because I certainly need some hope. I need more than just a set of directions to follow: I need someone who knows how to make the cookies of my life turn out better than I can ever hope to make them by myself. I need Him, Emmanuel–God with us.

God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day,
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray;

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.

Am I the only one that finds this song ironic? It tells of rest and comfort and joy in a minor key and is sung either as a funeral dirge or as a race to the sales table (depending, of course, on who is leading the song). In fact, my favorite arrangements of this piece give the sensation of being swept off my feet and into . . . the great swell of traffic on the freeway . . . the harried atmosphere of a busy workday . . . the frenzied rush to finish things before due-dates . . . any moment but a restful moment.  I don’t dislike the song. I enjoy it (especially an older arrangement on a cassette tape with the Mantovani choir we had when I was a child). I simply find it ironic. Ironic like the whole Christmas season: in what other season of the year do we rush around desperately trying to make life simple, beautiful, and peaceful?

“Rest . . . Let nothing you dismay . . . Remember . . . Comfort and joy”

The Christmas season, like no other season in the year, reminds us of the important things in life: generosity, peace, love, and simplicity. We set out to make it a special time for ourselves and those around us, planning the perfect party, seeking just the right present, focusing on giving rather than on receiving. Yet, we find ourselves so tired. Somewhere in the midst of it all there is no rest–not physically, not emotionally, not spiritually. Somehow, in the midst of the focus on giving, there is little peace. And in a season that is supposed to be merry, many of us are left feeling disappinted somehow. By the end of the Christmas season, we are left wondering where in the world the “comfort and joy” could have been hiding. Did we miss them at the store? Were the malls sold out of them? Are these “tidings” no different than the sale ads we see on television and get in the mail? Maybe the comfort and joy are in limited quantities: only those who are first in line for the food at the Christmas party get them; only those willing to camp out on the steps of the stores the night before the sale can afford them.

But the God of the universe couldn’t possibly be that way, could He? Wouldn’t He have enough to go around to everyone–with more to spare? Enough rest for everyone? When He grew up, this baby proclaimed “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” That’s a wide-open welcome. A sale that never ends. Maybe it’s like a batch of brownies: it doesn’t exactly fit the description of what we usully think of when we hear the word “cookie”; it doesn’t take a lot of work on our part; we simply bring the few ingredients we need to add and combine them with the mix (yes, I make brownies from mixes) then bake at the right temperature. Most of it’s been done for us. And around the Christmas season, I feel a little short on ingredients–time, for one! And so, maybe, having comfort and rest and joy is about bringing my few ingredients to the Chef and adding them to His mix: as simple as that! Could it really be that easy?

But are brownies allowed at this cookie party?  I can only really rest when I am comfortable and when I know that things are ok between me and those around me. And that is something we are short on–the knowledge that we are “ok,” not in the sense of mediocrity, but in the sense of acceptance. Are we allowed to come as we are? Somehow nothing in life seems to be good enough or done enough. And so we burn the midnight oil to accomplish the things that we feel ought to be done. And we have trouble being comfortable enough in God’s presence to rest.

Victor Hugo is quoted as saying this: “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.” Maybe I’m so busy trying to find my peace and joy and wrap it up and put it under the Christmas tree for others (and maybe a little for myself) that I won’t take the time to unwrap God’s gifts to me–the very things I am looking for. Maybe it’s time to realize that I don’t have to be perfect to be accpeted by God. I can get into my comfy clothes around him and rest. Maybe it’s time to do that this Christmas.

And have a brownie. It’s ok.

Every year at Christmas when I was a kid, Mom and Dad or Grandpa and Grandma would get my family an advent calendar. Starting on the first of December, we would open one box or door each day, revealing either a piece of the Christmas story or a piece of candy. Since moving out of the house, I no longer take part with them in this Christmas tradition, but the wonder of it still fascinates me.

This year, I wanted to send everyone an advent calendar of sorts. Of course, December 1st is long gone. And I don’t have any candy to send–at least, not very easily and not to everyone. So I came up with this half-baked idea: twelve sets of thoughts about Christmas that have occur to me this year. I will post them on Facebook and also on this blog. I would love to read your comments on them in either spot (or via e-mail!).

These notes truly will be “half-baked,” merely the beginnings of thoughts about Christmas, but things that have blessed me and will hopefully bless you. Mix them with your own thoughts about Christmas, and giving them a decent baking. And may they be as refreshing and fun as Christmas candy or Christmas cookies . . . minus the fat content.

Merry Christmas everyone. May you be more aware of God’s love for you this Christmas than you were last Christmas. I love you all!

Live long and prosper!
~Joy =)

From Max Lucado’s book Traveling Light (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2001):

“Do you feel a need for affirmation? Does your self-esteem need attention? You don’t need to drop names or show off. You need only pause at the base of the cross and be reminded of this: The maker of the stars would rather die for you than live without you. And that is a fact. So if you need to brag, brag about that.”

Lucado echoes the apostle Paul in Galatians 6:14 where he says “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

To be honest, such boasting is totally and completely unthinkable! How dare I boast that the God who made the stars should love me so very much? That’s akin to saying that Bill Gates is my best friend or that the king of Spain chats with me online every day. Yes, the Bible makes it very very clear that God’s love really is that big, but it’s really not something I can believe easily, especially since human love can’t and won’t and doesn’t fill every need.

It seems audacious to boast of God loving me so much He didn’t want to live without me. So much He would give up His very life for me. It really seems much more humble to boast about my own petty accomplishments. Deep in my heart, I realize they’re petty. In fact, that’s part of why we boast, isn’t it: to raise ourselves off of the dirt floor where the superiority of others has cast us? And so we boast, feeling that others view us as inferior, trying to give ourselves an “ego boost” (sounds like an add-in at a smoothie shop: “I’ll take an immunity boost, an energy boost, and an ego boost in mine, please.”).

Reading Lucado’s words, I realize that I’ve never really understood Paul’s ability to boast in the cross before. What kind of boasting is that? Doesn’t it sound a bit heartless to the rest of the world to tell about something that they don’t have and might never be able to obtain–a love like that? And if they could obtain it, wouldn’t it make my possession of such love less significant? I’ve wondered about how in the world the apostle John could have the presumption to call himself “the disciple Jesus loved”–didn’t that cheapen the relationship the others had with Jesus? Wasn’t that a slap in the face to them and their relationships with Him? And if I were to boast in such love, I would be sure to find out very quickly that someone else has more of His love to boast about.

And so I boast about everything else but the one true possession I have that gives value to my little life, the thing that God has reiterated over and over that no one will ever be able to take from me, the thing that He has promised is mine forever, the one thing that He has given me permission to boast about. Why don’t I boast about it?

I have to believe it first.

Some old thoughts that it’s time to post now:

You met me, and we talked. You started to see that here was a shoulder for you, an ear for you. And maybe some of the things I said made good sense. But it wasn’t enough. It never is. At some point, marginal utility began to decrease. Somewhere in our friendship journey, you began to realize I can’t solve all of your problems–not that you really expected me to, but we all do to some extent. I don’t have that magic wand I need to grant the deepest wishes of your heart. My status went from “fairy godmother” to “normal human” and might be proceeding on to “annoying nag” (if it hasn’t gotten there yet) or “basketcase” or “mindless drudge” or . . . *shudder* “nemesis.” You got tired of me. And you met someone else. Someone else with a shoulder and an ear.

Maybe that’s all part of moving on. Yes, I’m sure it is. I know it is because I’ve done it, too. But no one is ever enough. No one has the magic wand. Magic went out of the world with the elves, Tolkien says. Magic never existed, logic says. Only God works miracles, the Bible says. And somehow I want to move past trying to find my “fairy godmother” and figure out what this thing called friendship really is. Because I have had friends–a special few–who have shed their Superman costumes and become mere humans, but they didn’t leave. They didn’t take their shoulders and go home since I stopped seeming to need them. In fact, they remained themselves. They stayed. When I went back, tired of looking for fairy godmothers, they were still there. I’m wondering now how they did it. How they managed to stay the same and treat me the same all that time. That’s how I want to be. I want to learn that skill because somehow we moved from being merely ears and shoulders to being friends.

I have no wand. I’m sorry. I fervently wish I did. I have no solutions manual. I’m sorry. I almost wish I did (but solutions manuals are not half as much fun as magic wands would be, and solutions manuals are very real and must be dealt with periodically, and no one really seems to like to deal with them very much, esp. since you’re usually only allowed to look at the solutions AFTER the problems have been figured out!). I just have the same things I’ve always had: a shoulder and an ear and an offer of friendship.
And right now you’re getting tired of me always being there, never leaving. You might be feeling like there’s more of me in your life than there is of you anymore. I’m so sorry. I don’t want that! I don’t want another me–there’s more than enough of me as it is. I spend time with you because I enjoy your company. I ask how you’re doing because I care. I ask what you’re doing and thinking about things because what you do and think matters to me, makes a difference in my life, helps me understand who YOU are, not who I want you to be. I don’t want you to be anything else but you. I don’t want you to stop being you–EVER!!!!! I don’t want you to like music just because I like it. I don’t want you to laugh at things just because I laugh at them. I don’t want you to say things just because you think that’s what I want to hear. I want to hear you. And yeah, I ask questions trying to help you refine what it is you really think and maybe to find out what else could be thought. And yeah, I sound like a broken record as I continually point you to the only answer I know and to the One Who knows the answers to the things we are really asking. And yeah, I’m tired and sad that I’ve cramped your style so very badly. I’m sorry.

But I know Someone (yeah, you knew it would get around to Him) Who dares to assert that He IS enough. He has said it so many times and in so many ways that a lifetime is not sufficient to catalogue them all. And, I confess, I would rather you had a magic wand to solve all my troubles because He seems to insist that I go through them much more often than I want to and usually when I am not feeling at all brave nor energetic. Still He insists. And I find that I want to be near Him–but sometimes I am afraid that He will think I’m around too much or too nosey or too demanding or too childish . . . . Then I get up close enough to touch Him and find that He hasn’t changed and seems to like me for exactly who I am (whoever that may be!). And more than I want to be your friend, more than I want you to be my friend, I want you to be near Him and know His friendship–that safe, gentle, fun friendship that is always glad to see you and accepts you for who you are–that friendship that makes it easy for you to be yourself in that place. I want to know His friendship that way, and I want you to know it, too.

From: elijah@brookside.net
To: undisclosed recipients
Subject: news update (or not so news)

Dear praying friends,

Thank you for keeping my whereabouts a secret all these months. You have put up with the inconvenience of having no return address at which to contact me; and for those of you who had been getting my e-mail updates, I have a special thank you for your patience and puttin gup with my bad spallings and infrequent contact. The internet connection at the particular brook where God has chosen for me to reside has been patchy at best. Some days I have spent all day typing a letter only to have the computer freeze up before I could hit “send.” The fact that any lights in the wilderness would be suspect also limits the times I have to work on my correspondence: a computer screen emits more light than a low campfire does!

I greatly appreciate your prayers. I realize that by now many of you must have my letters memorized: nothing much changes for me in this desert place where God has placed me. I try to make my life a bit more exciting by relating the incidents I have had with the ravens (whom I have finally named–thank you to all those who sent in suggestions). But basically my prayer letters have all boiled down to the same things: I’m here at a brook being fed by ravens; Jezebel and Ahab are still looking for me to kill me; and there’s still going to be no rain. I wish with all my heart that my message could be different, but it’s not going to change.

However, even though the major things have not changed, the smaller details of my life have been adjusting. First, as the famine is getting worse, I have been noticing that my brook is shrinking–almost by the day, it seems. Also, the ravens–Hustle and Bustle and Sneeze, I’ve named them (if you want to know how I finally settled on those names, you’ll have to ask me sometime when this is all over. You can try to e-mail me, and I will send you the story if I can . . . you know the drill: running for one’s life makes leisure time a tad sporadic–kinda like my internet connection). Anyway, the ravens have been becoming a bit edgy lately, too. One of them even began trying to share my meal with me the other day. He flew off when I threw the meat on the fire–guess he wasn’t too keen on sampling my culinary skills. Now that I think of it, that was the night I set off the fire alarm. Guess he has a bit more than just a bird-brain after all.

I am writing to let you know that nothing has changed. And perhaps I am writing to tell you that life really isn’t any easier when you’re a prophet than it is when you’re not one. I know that each morning you get up and wonder when the rain will come and where the food will come from until then. I just want you to know that I understand the pressure you are facing and that I don’t have the answers right now any more than you do. So, as you are continuing to wait and wonder with me, take courage that God is looking out for you as He is for me–and be glad you’re not wrestling Sneeze for your breakfast.

We may not know what to do next when the brooks dry up, but I am hanging onto the fact that God does. But waiting till He shows the next step is still a challenge–even for me.

Hang in there!
Elijah

It’s late. I should be in bed. But before I go to bed, I need to touch base with HIM, and I don’t feel ready to talk to HIM just yet.

[On a side note, talking with Jesus is just like talking with others who know and love me in that sometimes I don't want to do it because I'm trying to be ok and don't want to deal with not really being ok at the moment because then I won't be ok. On the other hand, talking with Jesus is not like talking with anyone else because He already knows that and already knows what is bothering me and knows exactly what to do or say to make me comfortable in His presence.]

So here I sit at my computer, hoping for something . . . hopeful? Not that everything is depressing, just a drab shade of dreary.

And then I run across her blog and her account of nannying her “small fry” as she calls them. She writes so simply that it’s like being there and like being part of a children’s story–you know the kind? the ones that tell about a day at the park or a day of shopping. And suddenly, I remember just a little of the wonder of being a little kid. I smile. The sun comes out (yes, even at midnight). That was part of my something.

And I can thank Him for things again: thanking Him is like re-enjoying the things that have happened today; it’s like going back to exclaim over the gifts He gave me that I already unwrapped and got excited over. It’s a little like having Christmas or a birthday party in a quiet way.

“Thanks,” my heart says, “for a foot massage today–I didn’t know how much I needed it.
“for Langston Hughes’ poem about rainbows.
“for a piano and the desire to play it.
“for getting things done.
“for the chance to discuss literature–to actually TALK about it and about what it says and means and about the people in it and what we learn from them . . . I love literature!
“for giving me a love for literature. =)
“for extra hours at work and the chance to learn more job skills.
“for the chance to discuss my grading policy–sorta. and for someone taking the time to give and take reasons rather than getting frustrated and not wanting to listen. and for the clarity that came because of the discussion.
“for my car.
“for a tank of gas.
“for another time of sorta getting lost to smile about.
“for someone carrying my HEAVY backpack.
“for someone else remembering that we’d talked about exercising together.
“for blessing someone I have prayed for.
“for replies to e-mails sent long ago and forgotten about.
“for Charles Dickens and A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
“for Grandma’s wonderful cooking.
“for family Bible-sharing time.
“for working unseen by me to do wonderful things that You will show me later.
“for stories about small fry and how much fun they are.
Thanks.”

Now I think I can finish getting ready for bed.

I stand still staring
At you. They call you
My reflection. They say you
Show me myself. Is it true?
I wait here wondering:
Do you move as I do
Or do I move to match you?
Do you mirror me or are you my cue?
I linger now longing
To be free from this view.
It was fun when novelty was new,
But now I’ve lost who is who
Am I me or am I you?

I’m currently reading Isaac Asimov’s I, ROBOT (the book upon which Will Smith’s sci-fi thriller was loosely based). It’s a frame-tale of robot stories held together by the reminisces of aging robot psychologist Susan Calvin. I do find it funny to read of things that have dates on them such as 2008 and to think of all that Asimov predicted that hasn’t happened–nor is likely to happen. Still, I have to applaud him for his ability to weave a story and for the fact that many of the ideas he came up with still exist in modern science fiction: “positronic brains,” for example, are still part of many sci-fi stories, movies, and television shows.

The stories he tells are easy to connect with. I am moved as I read about Robbie, an early nurserymaid robot that could not talk but served his young charge Gloria with a dedication that looked more like love and friendship than enforced servitude. Speedy amuses me as he responds to situations he can’t handle by quoting snatches of Gilbert and Sullivan operas–now there’s a robot I could like! (maybe I should try his technique!) Then there’s QT-1, or “Cutie” for short, the robot whose dedication to reason begins where Descartes began (”I think, therefore I am”) and develops an entire religious cult based on false presuppositions. Wow! What a comment on pre-suppositions and the way we interpret facts through their lenses (reminds me of my college class with Mr. Janke in which we examined presuppositions and the way that they make us see the facts!). I love the two scientists that end up field-testing the newest robot models and finding themselves the victims of the major quirks each robot has–they make me laugh! But Herbie is the one that I pity the most: Herbie the mind-reading robot.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS A RESPONSE TO THE STORY AND WILL UNDOUBTEDLY GIVE AWAY ITS MORE SURPRISING ASPECTS. SHOULD YOU WISH TO READ THE STORY UN-SPOILED, STOP READING NOW, GET A COPY OF I, ROBOT AND READ “LIAR” BEFORE CONTINUING TO READ THIS POST!!!

The First Law of Robotics ingrained into each robot states “a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow him to come to harm.” But what is the definition of “harm”? Such a small word! Since Herbie can read minds, he can see the things that will hurt the humans around him at an emotional level, so he does his best to protect them from being hurt. The clues are all there, and as I read, I begin to piece together what he is doing: telling them what they want to hear. The trouble is that they do not want to hear the truth in its entirety, and when two people with conflicting desires about the truth of one item are asking him for an answer, he can say nothing without hurting one or the other. Caught, stuck, pinned between conflicting desires of humanity, he lies to them. He is betrayed by his very purpose–serving humanity–and by his very attempts to protect the humans around him. And I can empathize. There come times when I know that I can’t win. No, I do not lie; I try so very hard to recognize the truth and to speak it in the right time and the right way. But which is better: to speak what I know will hurt when I could swallow it even though it’s true? or to swallow it even if it hurts? Perhaps I am setting up a false dilemma. All I know is that I saw myself in Herbie’s pretending that he could not do math well so as to allow the brilliant human mathematician to continue to believe in his own superiority; I saw myself in Herbie’s willingness to be the confidante of the humans around him; and I see myself caught in the same net he was caught in.

My empathy raises a very good question, a question I have had without knowing exactly how to name it: how are we to be “harmless as doves” to those around us? Each day, with each action, I have the potential to hurt someone around me. Sometimes an action that helps one person seems to mortally wound another. As a Christian, how am I to navigate these waters? How can I lead my life as the person I am to be when who I am might stifle who another person is?

I guess the obvious answer is that I was not put here on this earth to please everyone, just One–Jesus Christ my Maker, Master, and Savior. But how am I to judge success at this task without seeing it through the eyes of others? I guess I am seeing that, as Donovan and Powell (the field-test scientists) learned, field tests don’t usually go the way that the laboratory tests did–things look different in real life than they do in theory. I guess I can see myself in other robots, too: like Speedy, I don’t know how to function when duty and self-preservation balance each other out, neither being more important than the other (maybe I ought to start quoting English comic opera more often!); like Dave I short out under pressure and revert to something a little less stressful (like typing on the computer at odd hours of the night–*sheepish grin*); and like Herbie I can’t handle the thought of hurting those around me–and someone is always getting hurt.

Robbie had it easy: he lived to please just one person, and it worked out just fine for him. Cutie reasoned through the facts and came to some very wrong conclusions, then just lived by the rules and procedures, quite willing to not have to understand their purpose; he lived quite happily, blissfully ignorant. But God has not called me to live ignorantly; He has called me