Christmas

Before we are even able to sit at our thanksgiving tables and give thanks the world shouts “Christmas”!  Hurry or you’ll be left behind!  Shop!  Buy!  Spend!  Decorate!  Organize!  And suddenly there are 50 emails that weren’t there before about savings you just can’t pass up!  Fed Ex is working overtime.  Packages are piled high at your door.  Mothers are flocking to department stores to find the perfect Christmas attire for the perfect photos and green and red outfits for each day of the week.  Families are stressed.  Husbands are hunched over their computers looking at finances.  Wives are striving for perfection and drinking hoards of coffee to keep them running like hamsters on wheels.  Kids are circling every single toy in the catalogue for Santa.  It’s madness.  It’s overwhelming.  It’s Christmas?

Yesterday, my doorbell rang.  It was a package from one of my dearest friends.  I opened it and had to sit down for a minute.  It was a book.  I turned the crisp pages carefully and studied the words, letting them pour over me and into my spirit.  As I did, the world got quiet.  My to-do lists vanished and in that moment, even the most beautiful decoration I had could not compete with the words on the page.       

I read: “If we could condense all the truths of Christmas into only three words, these would be the words: “God with us.”

“God saw what the world most desperately needed, and what He chose to give us was Himself....This is the message of Christmas."  

The stuff that our humans eyes crave on earth, are merely dust in the wind compared to the treasures our spirits will inherit in heaven when we meet our maker.  And the story of  our maker...the Christmas story is the only gift whose wrappings can bring peace until we get there.  

This Christmas, let the true meaning adorn you.  It will be the most beautiful decoration you’ve ever had in your home and your heart.

When Church Feels Like a Chore

Do you ever have this kind of self talk on a Sunday morning: 

The kids look so darn cute in their pajamas and they are playing so nicely together!  Why ruin a good thing by snapping fingers and demanding that everyone get dressed in frilly dresses and uncomfortable fancy shoes?  Why not just EASE into Sunday with coffee, a pancake and omelet breakfast and some cuddle time with the family?  There are plenty of church programs on tv you can tune into to quiet that guilty conscience of yours.  Some of them even have real “feel good” preachers so you can go about your day feeling motivated and inspired.  You have so much to do around the house too, so staying home and getting things done is such a wise decision.  The garage floor needs sweeping, the drawers need cleaning out and you really should go through all the stuffed animals and give some to goodwill before Christmas.  You are just too busy for church!    

OK, so what’s the deal?  There will always be 101 reasons to stay in your pajamas on a Sunday, but the number ONE reason to get out of bed and out of your house and into a house of worship IS....because God has invited you.  It’s as simple as that.  It’s not because it will make you a better person, or because the church needs you to work in childcare, or because you should be seen as the woman who goes to church.  

It’s because God invites us to worship Him.   

If you are having issues with going to church, take it to God.  Tell Him you are having a hard time with whatever it is.  The music, the teaching, the lack of donuts in the foyer.  Whatever it is, big or small, God is the only one that can fill your heart and soul with what you feel is missing.  But here’s the deal.  He wants you there.  So He can fill you in community.  So you can be a light to someone who needs it.  So you can hear yourself say: "Why yes, King of Kings, I would lOVE to accept your invitation!  

See you on Sunday friends.  It’s been a while.  

Love

Karen

A Bowl Full of Grace

My little one helps me set the table.   She looks at me with her big brown eyes, eyelashes as long as feathers and asks if she can put out the plates.  She likes to help.  

“What’s in the green bowl mommy?”  

“Words, I say with a smile.  Special words just for us.”

 I stop what I’m doing to look at her and the moment between us, before the dance of dinner plates begins is the moment I tuck into my heart and keep forever.  

For 3 years I prayed for her.  I cried into my husbands shirt in the toilet paper isle of Sam’s club because my womb was empty.   God heard my cries.  He saw me in the woods alone at the women’s retreat, my nose in a book.  He told me to look upward.  I saw three of them.  Wings gliding without effort on the wind’s breath.  He whispered to me.  You don’t have to work so hard.  I have you.  Glide.  Like they do.  I’ve got you.  In that moment I surrendered.  All of it.  The counting of days.  The google searches.  The waiting. The testing.  The crying.  The trying to have the baby that would never come.  Offered it all up in a single word.  Surrender.  That’s when the Lord gave her to me.    

Friday I sat on my knees on the floor holding her hand because all the chairs were taken in the room where they worked on her teeth.  I cried.  My baby.  Perfect.  Prayed for.  The devil was at me that day.  This precious one.  You’ve ruined her.  My mind raced over every birthday party bag filled with treats.  Chocolate in her milk.  Syrup on her pancakes.  Ice-cream in her bowl.  Standing on tip toes watching snow cones getting made.  I want rainbow mommy!  

Am I a terrible mother?  We don’t buy juice or soda.  We love apples at bed time.  We brush.  I sing while the brush spins.  It’s not enough.  They put the needle inside her cheek.  The devil puts one in my heart. 

Her big sister named her before she was even conceived.  The neighbor told us that my 3 year old daughter Paige announced at the play date “mommy is having a baby.  It’s a girl.  Her name is Annalise!”  I looked at the neighbor and apologized.  I have no news.  But oh how I wish!  Nine months later I did give birth to a girl!  We named her Annalise because when I looked up the meaning: “devoted to God” and “Grace”...I knew it was meant for her.  

She puts the forks and knives sideways beside the plates.  It makes me smile.  

"Can we read the words now mommy?"  

"Yes!"

  Everyone takes a card from the green bowl.  “God has a plan for my life” “ I am wonderfully made.”  “It’s okay to make mistakes”  We read the words out loud to each other.  His words feed us.  Fill us in our imperfection.  Nourish our bodies and our souls.  The green bowl full of words. 

     

The devil wants to grab hold and devour us doesn’t he?  Wants to tell us how we fail.  Tell us we can’t ever be good enough.  Tell us we are unworthy.  Unable to lose weight.  The miscarriage was our fault.  The cancer could have been prevented.  We are not good at anything.  We’ve ruined a good thing.  We will never be enough.  Lies.  He spews and spits at us.  But when we are together and partaking of the truth, we know that God’s goodness prevails.  Always. 

We put the cards back in the bowl but the words stay in our hearts.  We are grateful for how His love has brought each of us to the table.  Together we are ALL devoted to God and together with the ones we love we choose to feast on His grace. 

Picture Perfect

I bought this print early in my marriage.  I loved the romance of the couple dancing on the beach and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed being in my husbands arms.  

Ten years later...  

I am sitting in my living room saying a prayer.  It went something like: "God, what do we have to do to communicate better?"  At that moment the Lord revealed the answer in a picture I had looked at thousands of times.  

“If you want your marriage to look like the couple dancing, you have to be the servants.” 

I’ve never seen that picture or my marriage the same way again.  In seasons when my marriage needs a little extra prayer, I try to remember that my role as my husbands partner in this thing called life is to make sure he is taken care of.  And yes, my husband is called to do the same for me...and when we are both serving one another with all of our hearts, the dance, the picture perfect dance begins.  

I hope you never stop serving and dancing with the love of YOUR life!

Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord

Ephesians 5:28-29

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

Grace, Olympic style.

Proverbs 24:16

For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again.

Aren’t the Olympics SO much fun? My family cheers for the Americans, the Canadians and the underdog.  We cheer for those athletes whose back stories are rich with details of the challenges they have overcome to be standing there. We cheer for the favorites. We cheer and cheer and cheer and make jokes about our own Olympic abilities. My husband is an Olympic water daddy. That’s the fine sport of balancing your daughters in the pool like surfers until they plunge into the water screaming DADDY! I sit on the sidelines, an Olympic potato chip eater, devouring bags of the crunchy snacks in world record time while cheering for the water Daddy. Sometimes between bites I’ll offer scores. “9.5”!  When the Olympics are on, everything becomes a silly competition in our family.       

My favorite sport to watch is women’s gymnastics. My own little girls are amazed at the flexibility and strength of these young athletes. We can hardly take our eyes off of team USA in their red shiny body suits and slicked back sparkly hair.  And as we are watching girl after girl mount and then execute their routines on the balance beam, we are nervously aware that any misstep could cause them to fall off.  So much is at stake and the tension of this truth weighs heavily in the air. 

A day later images of the gymnasts are still with me but this time I imagine that I am the woman in glistening red and I’m balancing more than an Olympic dream...I am balancing my family on that narrow beam. The sport of parenting is under a harsh spotlight and the judges wait to deliver my fate.  If I misstep, I risk dropping the most important people in my life.  If I try and do too many steps at once I will lose focus. If I focus on the child I’m balancing on my left side, the child on the right side will fall and likewise if I focus too much on the right side, the child on the left will suffer. Each step I take must be perfectly thought out and balanced.  If I stop moving, if I stop thinking, if I go too fast, too slow....each move will be followed by a consequence. I must be perfect. I am being watched.  Judged.  I love my children so much!  That’s when the weight of the girls in my arms becomes too heavy and I let go of my family.  Completely let go. We all fall. Hard. And on the dusty floor, before the pain of the fall even pierces me, I hear the Lord whisper, “It’s time for a coach.”  

What? But I know what I’m doing.  I’ve been parenting for 8 years.  I’ve got this. And then I look around at my children on the floor and that’s when the pain pierces and that’s when the Lord takes my hand and I weep into his hands as he raises us back on to the beam.  

"Lord, I cry, I had SO much focus on my family...why did we fall?"  And the moment I ask the question is the moment the answer comes. God wanted the focus to be on HIM. 

The judges have left. It’s just me and my husband, the kids, the beam and the Lord.  

And so we begin again.  

Grace.  Amazing Grace how sweet it is.

Words to live by

I recently came across a photo and “inspirational” quote on facebook and stopped to take a peek.  After reading the words and seeing a few people’s comments; “I love this” and “words to live by!” I closed my computer and continued with my daily household duties.  I did the laundry, dishes, vacuumed and all the while those words “respect yourself long enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you” burned a hole in my spirit.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I HAD lived by those words, I might be a very lonely person by now. When my husband was less than perfect in my eyes, I would have walked.  When my kids were whining, demanding and driving me crazy I would have ran.  When my job had seasons of monotony I would have left.  When my uncle who was on drugs and struggling ended up in prison, I would have stopped communication.  And how many people would have walked away from ME?  Is THIS what God had in mind when he sent his son to die for us?  What about grace?  Forgiveness? What about the cross?  I don’t want to live a life so shallow that if someone fails me I walk.  I want to dig deep and ride the storms out so that I can feel even for a moment the love that Jesus intended us to have.   So I sat down and poured a cup of tea and wrote a different “inspirational” quote.  Something that filled my spirit. And I urge you too, to not let the world bombard you with messages without questioning them, listening to your spirit and consulting with the greatest source of life-giving inspiration....the bible.  Words to live by.  

The path to happiness is going to God with your burdens and giving with a servants heart when all you want to do is walk away.   And when you begin to plant humble seeds of gratitude... that’s when the real growth begins. 

If someone hasn’t served you, grown you or made you happy, remind yourself that you are not God.  

If someone hasn’t served you, grown you or made you happy, chances are it’s because you haven’t served them, grown them or made them happy. 

Matthew 18: 21-22 NIV

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when sins against me?  Up to seven times? "Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."  

New Beginning

With every ending comes a new beginning.

It’s the start of summer, and so many things have come to an end.  Such a bitter sweet day for many parents who will watch their sons and daughters fly away from the nest.  My daughter is only in second grade but as I watch her leaf through the work she has produced all year, each colored piece of paper exhibiting her ability to be independent of ME, each word she has written, her own, I can’t help but feel a little lighter, and a little sad.  When she was a baby in my arms I felt the weight of her so close to my body.  I could inhale her sweet breath and keep her tiny fingers tucked in the palm of my hand.  Now those same fingers are creating, writing and grabbing life with an exuberant energy.  Those tiny hands once stroked my cheek as I nourished the girl they belonged to and now I worry about how the world will try to nourish her.  I pray she learns to seek The Lord...the only one who can nourish her fully.   I think of these things as I watch her reading a poem she wrote about the color blue.  

I cry a little. 

“Oh mom, you always cry,” she says matter of factly.  Yes, we mothers cry.  Our swollen hearts can take a lot but sometimes we need to let a little emotion out so we don’t burst.  

For all the moms out there whose hearts are full, swollen, devastated, joyful, relieved, grieving...remind yourself that with every ending comes a new beginning and that the God that created us will hold us in his loving arms comforting us until we have eyes to see just how beautiful His new beginnings can be.  

Happy summer.  Happy new beginnings.