Bring On the Semi-Colon!

Surgery is a very interesting thing.  The anxiety dreams I’ve been having are nothing short of hilarious. The brain is miraculous, the way it weaves your fears into a film that plays on repeat while you sleep.  I’ve been late for the surgery, failed to do the prep work for the surgery, and forgotten the surgery altogether, all in the middle of the night over the course of the last week.  And in the grand finale of all surgery anxiety dreams . . . last night there were no operating rooms available, so my doctor threw me over his shoulder, my gown blowing wide open to reveal everything I never want revealed, and carried me on a trip around the OUTSIDE of the hospital to find another location to do his job.  Pretty sure that one’s never happened before, which I suppose just goes to show my brain might be slightly . . . ‘abnormal’ is the first word that comes to mind, but in the name of that whole self-love thing, let’s go with ‘creative.’

Surgery is a lot like pregnancy, I’ve learned.  It ignites an intense desire to nest.  I forced my family to cut short our Christmas trip to the lake so I could come home and get things in order before my three to four day stint in the hospital.  Not sure exactly what I’m afraid of – do I think my home and family will crumble without me?  Is my husband not capable of putting away the Christmas decorations and returning the too-large Christmas clothes and helping the kids write thank-you notes and cleaning the toilets and doing the laundry and vacuuming the basement and painting the powder room because the color is slightly too dark and has been bothering me for months and HOW MANY THINGS CAN I GET DONE BEFORE THIS SURGERY??? 

My husband is very capable.  Well, at least up until the part about painting the powder room.

Of course, my real fear has nothing to do with forgetting to arrive at the hospital on time or failing to clean out the fridge before my 4-6 week recovery period begins.  My real fear is that I might die on that operating table today because bad things happen. 

I know, I know. I could die any day of the week in a car accident or crossing the street or choking on a piece of chicken.  But today, the possibility of death seems just too close. There will be anesthesia and several hours of surgery to remove part of my colon and my appendix and several days in the hospital where people have pneumonia and the staff bacteria thrives and you just never know. 

Bad things happen.

It always sucks the air out of a mother’s lungs when she imagines the thought of leaving her children, but when your children are 8 and 10, like mine, you can’t help but let your mind wonder to the fact that they will likely remember very little of me if I do die in that hospital today.  And that stops my breath altogether.

I keep thinking of the millions of things I still want to do with them.  The millions of memories we still have to make.  The millions of things I still need to tell them.  And just in case I’m out of time, I’m going to tell them one thing, right here, right now.

Be love, my darlings.

BE LOVE.

Be love to your family and friends.  Be love to teachers and classmates.  Be love to people who serve you meals and people who ring up your purchases and people who cut your hair.  Be love to your future college roommates and your future spouses and your future children.  Be love to those you disagree with and those who make choices you don’t understand.  Be love to strangers in your city and the sick all over the country and the hurting from one end of the earth to the other. 

Be love.  The world is seeking it and you can be people who share it.  Sometimes, it will be hard.  Sometimes, you will have to search deep in your heart to find love for someone, because sometimes, people seem unlovable.  But God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son to die for them (John 3:16) and He is love and He showed us how to love and we have His love and we can BE HIS LOVE to everyone we encounter.

I’m sure I’ll be coming home at the end of the week.  I doubt the toilets will be clean, but I know my family and home will be happy and healthy, despite my absence.  I will be sore and tired and incredibly grateful the hard part is over.

But just in case . . .

Be love.

The After

We waited and it came and He came and it’s over and I’m . . .

Okay. 

Strange, how it always used to bring on sadness, the end of the Christmas season.  It used to feel so final, like it was simply a beginning and an end and 335 long days until it all came again.  I once dreaded the day after, when the enthusiasm of it all was over and there was no more anticipation for what would be.  

Strange, how adulthood changes everything, with no exception for Christmas.  Christmas, in fact, shines a blaring light on the transformation that occurs with age and maturity, as we go from waiting on Santa to becoming Santa to explaining Santa.

He knew the truth this year.  Said something about the Easter bunny last spring and when he did, he used his ten year-old fingers to make air quotes in the sky.  We were shocked, but not devastated.  Amused, but not annoyed.  Truthfully, I found some relief in discussing reality with my son.  It felt important, this exchange between parent and child, a way to cement our relationship in honesty.  It encouraged me to embrace the fact that time marches on, while allowing me to explain to Charlie that there is only one person I care about him believing in, and He doesn’t deliver baskets of eggs or fill stockings with presents.

Christmas was different this year, and not just because I'm pushing forty and there has been no denial of adulthood for quite some time.  There was less magic, less mystery for our family now that the oldest knows the truth and the youngest is more than a little suspicious.  Yet I am grateful for the changes, as the receding magic and mystery seemed to give way to something much better . . . more meaning.

I think that’s why Christmas is over and I’m okay.  Because Christmas as an adult and a mother has come to mean so much more than the weeks leading up to the twenty-fifth day of December . . . so much more than the excitement over celebrating the birth of a baby.  The birth of the baby no longer means the holiday season is over.  The birth of the baby no longer signifies the end of the most wonderful time of the year.  Christmas is over for another year and its okay because the birth of a baby is never an ending . . . it’s always a beginning.  And this baby . . . He didn’t come as the finale to a month of merriment.  He didn’t come as a conclusion.  This baby came to start and finish and live and be the most wonderful love story OF ALL TIME. 

This baby means everything. 

I will miss the world adorned in its holiday splendor, lights twinkling all over town to announce the arrival of the Light of the World.  I will miss cards arriving in the mailbox each day and searching for surprises and songs about a silent night. Still, it is okay, because although the Christmas season is over, I no longer miss what I was missing all that time.  I no longer miss Him. 

We waited and it came and He came. 

For all.  For always.   

Happy Birthday Jesus

Oh come, let us adore Him.

 

May the laughter echo off your walls today, my friends, and may the peace of Jesus, born this day to change lives from one end of the earth to the other, reign in your hearts and minds as we celebrate the day God came to live with us.

 

Merry Christmas!!!

4 Days Until Christmas!!!

There’s a whole lot of waiting in December.

Waiting to buy presents at the mall, waiting in line to visit Santa, waiting to open gifts, waiting for the mail to come each afternoon, waiting for school to get out, waiting and waiting and even more waiting.

Waiting is hard.  Patience is a virtue, after all, and maybe even more so in December.  Our patience already worn thin by the pressures we heap on ourselves during this, the busiest season of the year, we look for joy in so many places.  Sometimes, we find it.  Joy is in all those places we seek to discover it. 

There is joy in searching for just the right gift for the people you love most.  There is joy in rolling out cookie dough and spreading icing on sugar angels.  There is joy in coming up with clever elf tricks after the kids go to bed and hiding that perfect present in a spot no one will think to look and drinking eggnog with family members you wish you saw more than once every twelve months.

But that virtuous patience . . . sometimes it stretches so thin it simply can’t hold, and the waiting suddenly begins to feel void of anything worthy of honor.  Still, the waiting . . . it does mean something.

In December, we wait because we have hope for what is to come.  We wait for the One we know is coming.  We wait for Him, and HE. IS. ALWAYS. WORTHY.  He is void of nothing, except for sin, and he came as a baby to grow into a man who would become our sin, and die for our sin, and forgive our sin.

We worship the day the baby came.  We worship with trees covered in lights and wreaths on every door and songs about a manger.  We wait all month and then we worship the baby who became a man and a Savior.  We gather and we celebrate and the joy . . . it’s so full. 

Christmas is just so full.

And yet, the waiting continues.

Because He came, and He lived, and He died, and even after December is over and the trees and wreaths have been put away, we will not forget.  The One who came as a baby in Bethlehem?  The One who lived as a human without sin?  The One who died on a hill in Calvary?

He is coming again. 

That’s why the waiting means something, my friends.  Waiting for Him shows all the world that WE BELIEVE.

We believe in the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.  We believe in the man who taught us what love means.  We believe in the Savior who hung on a cross to set us free.

We believe in Jesus, and this Christmas, and all the Christmases to come . . .

We will wait for Him.

Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. 

Psalm 27:14

One Mother to Another

I can’t seem to get Mary off my mind.

Can you even imagine?   

Do you think she knew the stories? 

Had she heard of a man named Adam and a woman named Eve, who died spiritually when they chose to disobey their Creator, leaving us all with a legacy of sin and the need for someone to take it all away?

Had Mary heard about Abraham and the trip he made up a mountainside to do the unthinkable?  Did she know how God provided a sacrificial lamb at the last moment to take Isaac’s place, so the boy did not have to die on that mountain at the hands of his father?

Do you think Mary knew the story of David, a shepherd boy whose incredible faith allowed him to slay a giant and become a king, the first in a line that led to THE King?

The angel came and told, and she trusted and carried and delivered a child who would be called the most beautiful names in history . . .

Prince of Peace

Son of Man

Lamb of God

Emmanuel

Messiah

Redeemer

Comforter

Healer

Teacher

Savior

Jesus.

Do you remember what it was like to be a mother for the first time?  The anxiety and worry and sleepless nights watching every breath to make sure he was happy and healthy and safe from harm.

What if you were up all night watching the One promised to save an entire world from itself?

What if you had to watch him take his first steps and climb his first hill and stumble and fall and cry for help?

Can you even imagine the weight of such responsibility? 

Not yet a bride, she was told she would bear the Son of God.  Not yet a woman, she gave birth to a King.  She had to hold him and mold him and no doubt scold him.  She had to watch him stumble and fall and cry while a crown of thorns sat atop his head, and a crowd of people who once called him their own chose to disown and disgrace and discard, and then she had to watch him die on a cross between two men whose only resemblance to Him was their flesh.

The angel called her favored, honored, chosen.

We call her Mary.

A lovely name.  A name always meant to go down in history, and it did, and it should.

But He called her Mom.

Can you even imagine?

The angel said to Mary, "Do not be afraid; you have found favor with God.  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

Luke 1:30-33

 

Fifteen Years And Counting

There are lines around his eyes that weren’t there fifteen years ago today.  We were just a couple of kids then, barely into our twenties, crazy about each other and filled with only hope for what life might bring.  We couldn’t wait to start the journey of marriage - to see what all those tomorrows together might become.  We stood on that altar in front of God and all those people, and made promises that are hard to keep.  Now, when I look into those eyes of his, the lines of all our years remind me how far we’ve come, and I’m glad we’ve kept those promises.

His hands are different, too.  Their look of youth is fading fast and they remind me we don’t have forever.  But those hands . . . they held tight to mine through every pain, and they held babies as they breathed their first.  Those hands have changed diapers and prepared meals and cradled faces and stroked skin.  They’ve been covered in filth with the responsibilities of our lives for days and weeks and months that have stretched into all this time.  Those hands of his are etched with the sacrifices of a man who has given himself to his family, and I am grateful.

Even his smile has changed.  Still sincere . . . contagious really . . . but not as simple as it once was.  He knows more now.  He knows the demands and duties and difficulties that come with being a husband and father.  He knows worry and disappointment and sorrow, and how each can grow deep into a long night.  He knows pure joy, too.  He knows what it means to have your baby boy rest his head on your chest, and what it’s like to witness your daughter’s first steps.  That smile of his . . . it holds so much understanding after fifteen years of marriage.  It reaches me from across a room and all our memories pass unspoken between us, and there is a sustaining security I could never put into words, but which I feel all the way down to my soul.

I thought I knew him well on the day we said, "I do."  Looking back now, I can see that I barely knew myself.  Thankfully, we've grown closer as we've grown up, navigating our union while building a life.  I'm not the same girl who walked down the aisle towards him fifteen years ago.  I wonder, some days, how he can even recognize me as his bride, and yet . . . he always does.

He's not the same man I married either.  He’s so much more.  He's a man weathered and changed and matured by shared happiness, forgiven hurts, kept commitments. 

Today, I’ve spent a decade and a half as his wife.  I’ve spent even longer by his side.  

And I would still choose him.

If two lie down together, they will keep warm. 
But how can one keep warm alone? 
Ecclesiastes 4:11

Tis' The Season

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come.  The month has arrived and the race is set to begin.  The contestants have taken their places on the starting line, and nervous energy bounces and crackles between them.  Anticipation hangs in the crisp December air and the stadium is packed with eager spectators.  The bell rings and they’re off like a shot!  The crowd erupts in cheers as they surge ahead, faces set in serious concentration, eyes focused solely on the rush towards the finish.  They push and shove and grab at the things in their path – lights, trees, wreaths, bows.  They agonize about stocking stuffers, toil over gingerbread houses, and search for the world’s cutest picture to put on the front of a card.  They rack their brains to come up with elf tricks, fretting and fussing to make every second count as they check off the items on their lengthy must-do lists.   Over and over they shop, purchase, wrap and label, as the minutes speed by until the twenty-fifth day.  

Y’all . . . I get it.  December is nuts.  We look forward to the holiday season all year long, and then we find ourselves panicked and frustrated because budgets are tight, parking spaces are allusive, and our children can’t seem to summon even an ounce of gratitude while scouring the dozens of toy catalogs that arrive in the mailbox each afternoon.  It’s the same thing every year - we become so focused on finding the perfect gift for everyone in our lives that we forget the greatest gift ever given is the reason we’re celebrating in the first place.

That stadium of spectators?  That crowd of people?  They ARE paying attention.  Christians, let’s never forget we always have an audience.  And right now, as we experience the advent season and prepare for the coming of our King, the whole world is watching.  

What will these people do to honor that glorious day God came to dwell among them?

Will they spend more time fighting over their place in line than fighting to provide peace?  Will they invest more in presents under the tree than in being present in the lives of their neighbors?  Will they sacrifice their patience instead of their plenty?

This is our chance, my friends.  This is an opportunity we simply can’t afford to miss.  We have a captive audience and we can show them what Christmas is all about.  We can put aside all our good intentions to provide the best gifts for our families, and instead, we can provide the best gift of all time . . . to the world.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Romans 1:16-17

Am I ashamed of the gospel?

A Christmas tree stands tall and proud in our family room, covered in lights, crosses of all shapes and sizes dangling from its branches.

But am I ashamed of the gospel?

There are nativities in our kitchen, foyer, dining room, and basement, their statues a reminder of that night in a Bethlehem manger.

But am I ashamed of the gospel?

We read aloud from our Jesse tree devotional each night, listening in awe to the Old Testament stories that paved the way for a Savior to come.

BUT AM I ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL?

Have I told anyone about that Savior this week?  Have I shared the prophecies that for centuries whispered His name?  Have I mentioned that holy night when Mary held the Son of God in her very arms, tiny and precious and exactly what the Bible promised all along?

The gospel is good news for ALL to hear.  It is the gift of the season – HE is the gift of the season.  And gifts are always meant to be given away.

I pray we will not be ashamed of the gospel this Christmas season.  I pray we will announce the good news every chance we get, to every person who needs to hear it.