Merry Christmas!

Ever since I was a little girl, one of my least favorite days of the year is the day the Christmas tree comes down. The lush, green, fragrant tree so carefully chosen and joyfully decorated just a few weeks earlier stands dry and droopy in the living room, slowly being stripped of the lights and ornaments that made it so gloriously beautiful before. Sadly, we carefully wrap the same ornaments which a month ago had been so excitedly unwrapped amid exclamations of “Oh, remember this one?” and “Here’s the one we got when…” and “Oh, honey, hang that one near the top—it’s my favorite!”

The anticipation of the beginning of the Christmas season is what makes the end of it so sad. Each year, when we pick out our Christmas tree and open the dusty boxes of toilet-paper wrapped ornaments, I am filled with expectations of good things to come. The cheerful noisiness of family gatherings, tastes and smells of annual baking, quiet evenings sitting in the living room lit only by a thousand twinkling Christmas tree lights, the crinkling of wrapping paper as gifts are wrapped and arranged under the tree, the satisfaction of traditions revisited, the giddiness of the kids as they drink it all in, the familiar words of my favorite Christmas carols…

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices!

Hope.

That’s what distinguishes the first day of December from the last. Christmas begins with hope in all that is to come. But inevitably, the dreaded day arrives when the boxes must be re-packed and the tree carried out, and the hope that welcomed the season somehow gets carried out with it.

But it doesn't have to.

For the last nineteen months, our family has lived in constant expectation and anticipation of the arrival of Israel. We have worked and prepared and planned and prayed, and for all these months, we've lived in a state of suspense because we are waiting for him. Our daily lives go on, certainly. We sleep, eat, work, play, shop, clean, mow, wash, learn, teach, snuggle, travel, argue, plan, cook, fix, read—but in the midst of it all, our minds constantly return to him.

When will he come? What will he be like? How will it change us?

A little more than two thousand years ago, people were asking the same questions. Like us, they were waiting for a Son. And, like us, they were sustained by hope.

Hope that He would come, just as had been promised. Hope that He would be all that had been written about Him. Hope that He would change everything.

And He did.

And He was.

And He has!

The real hope of Christmas isn’t found in any tradition, no matter how joyous.

Instead, we celebrate a hope already fulfilled—the Son of God, laid in a manger and later nailed to a cross. And that hope will never come to an end!

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God!

Romans 5:1-2

May your celebration of the hope given to us by the birth of our Savior carry you through every day of the coming year!

Merry Christmas!

Flashback Friday

There's been a chill in the air the last few mornings.

Yes, California has finally decided to have fall! I'm choosing to ignore the fact that it got up to 81 degrees yesterday because I am in full denial about the fact that California does not get to have seasons like other places. The heater came on. That's all we need to know. It's fall.

And that's final.

But, I digress.

As I pulled socks onto my freezing feet this morning, I looked longingly at the fluffy, cozy warmness of my bed that, in the morning, looks twelve times more comfortable than it does at any other time. Oh how warm and toasty I would be if I could just climb back into my wonderful bed,

just


for


five


more


minutes.


But I resisted. And then I got to thinking about a time gone by, two years ago, when our feet were really freezing. And our warm, toasty, wonderful bed didn't offer much warmness or toasty-ness.

It was a time just after we did this to our house:




We had been working on an add on for several months, and on this day, they demolished what had been the back of our house and opened it up to the new part.

It was January.

And, even in southern California, it gets cold at night in January.

Without the normal things a house has, like flooring and stucco drywall and oh, I don't know, insulation...the added on part of the house was FREEZING. And it was now opened up to the whole rest of the house to share it's freezing-ness with each and every room.

I should also probably mention that, because we were moving our electrical panel, we had only temporary power for our house. That's not enough to run the heater.

It was a chilly time for us.

I could also tell you the story of how our little room heater over-burdened our electricity one night and fried some wires, which were smoldering and smoking when they tripped the breaker. Which miraculously awakened my sleeping husband who took necessary steps to make sure the whole project (and by project, I mean house) didn't go up in flames.

Or about the night when I was startled awake by the clickety-clackety-kaplunk of a little piece of stucco tumbling down the exposed framework of our bedroom wall, having just been dislodged by the rat who had poked his ugly little head in through one of the many tiny openings that prevented us from keeping the outside OUT. And how my knight-in-shining-boxer-shorts hammered a two by four over that hole in the middle of the night to protect me from any more furry intruders.

But those are stories for another time.

Without the extra stories, the remodel went something like this:

In the beginning there was a small house. It needed more. So a patio was torn off, and a foundation was laid.

Then some walls were added.

And some were taken away.
Then it was finished. Finally.

Suffice it to say, this flashback has reminded me that, even when we are in way over our heads doing the work God has called us to, and we are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and frustrated, He walks with us all the way. And protects us from harm. And teaches us a lot. And gives us moments of comic relief.

And eventually, the job gets done. And life goes on.


Maybe that add-on was preparation for something.

A Birthday Story

A little more than twelve years ago today, a young girl went out to dinner to celebrate her eighteenth birthday with her family. Unbeknownst to the birthday girl and despite her protests in advance, someone in the family reported to the waitress that there was a birthday in the group.

A rather annoying little trick, I say, but families often do such things on these kinds of occasions.

As dinner was ending, the wait staff came around clapping and singing and making a fuss and presented the girl with a milkshake. Chocolate.

The birthday girl was embarrassed. And annoyed. Horrified? Possibly.

As this was a celebration of the young woman's passage into adulthood, she responded in the absolutely most adult way she could to this unexpected and unwelcome event...

She cried like a baby.

And then she ate her milkshake.

Did I mention it had sprinkles?

But the story doesn't end there.

Why not? Well, because God, in His divine wisdom has far-reaching plans for our lives. Plans that, as the Bible says, are "beyond all we could ask or imagine."

As an immature young girl was crying into her chocolate milkshake that night, she had no idea that just a few days later in another country, her son would be born. He would be born to a woman who had cares and concerns far bigger than whether her family had embarrassed her in a restaurant. He would be born into real problems and real pain.

And as the young woman from the restaurant spent the next few years in college, worried about important things like clothes and friends and finals, her son and his first family would struggle. And there would be unimaginable hurts and eventually, separation.

But in the middle of the young woman's ignorance and the little boy's pain, God would be there.

With a plan. And a purpose.

To rescue them both.

To work all things together for their good and for His glory. Because He loves them, and because He is so good.

Today is Israel's birthday. He is 12.

And even though we are not celebrating together, we are celebrating. We are celebrating God's far-reaching plans, and His sense of humor, and His faithful presence with us, and His unimaginable love, and His unfailing goodness. And we are celebrating the gift of our son, given to us long before we ever knew him, but intended for us all along.


Happy Birthday, son. We love you!

Flashback, ummm, Thursday?

Well, this really shouldn't be a flashback, but since it's December and I'm just now posting Halloween pictures...

Yes, definitely a flashback.

I could've waited until tomorrow, making it appropriate for a Friday Flashback, but

I'm at the computer now.

The pictures are loaded.

The washing machine is running. The children are occupied. The phone is not ringing.

Seize the moment, I say.

Oh shoot. Child, unoccupied, incoming. Quick! Copy code! Post! Go, go, go!