Very Merry Christmas

This past weekend we had one of my favorite Christmas traditions: family caroling at Grandma's house. Every year we go over, get pizza or El Pollo Loco or something, open our stocking stuffers, and go serenade the neighbors with our Grandma & Co. ensemble (and all together, we actually sound pretty good!). Oh yeah, and let's not forget the after-caroling party of Christmas cookies and hot chocolate...mmm. Like I said, it's one of my favorite traditions, one I look forward to every single year.

Except this year, it didn't happen.

I mean, we went over to Grandma's house. We got pizza. We opened stocking stuffers. But there was no caroling to be done--it was pouring outside, and no one felt the least bit inclined to brave the elements. So we stayed inside, chatted among cousins, watched an hour+ of Grandma's Israel DVDs.

And you want to know something? Everyone was ok with it. In fact, it wasn't until it was time to go that I really thought about how the caroling, either inside or out, hadn't happened. Just being with the family was enough. Sharing stories, adventures, joys, hopes and dreams for the future. Laughing and planning and smiling and loving. And it was enough--more than enough.

Yep, family caroling at Grandma's is one of my very favorite Christmas traditions each and every year. But you know what, it's not the caroling part that makes it so great. It's the family.

The old neighborhood always looks so good each December
We say hello to the friends we can and can't remember
Then the handbells ring and then the children sing
And we talk so long that the fireplace is on the embers
You and me and all this family...

If Santa forgets us
The world will be fine
Let's put out those pictures
And conversate by firelight...
[Dave Barnes, Very Merry Christmas]

Famous by association...right?

Tonight I shook Rainn Wilson's hand.


I am so cool right now.

Take action.

"Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do." [James 2:18]



Thinking about this lots today...

The $10 Challenge!!

10 different people giving $10 each over the next 10 days: that is the goal of Open Arms Ukraine's $10 Challenge. If you've got $10 lying around, or would be willing to sacrifice your Starbucks or eating out once or twice this week, then go here to find out how you can be a part of it too!

My sister Anika and her friends started Open Arms several years ago, after they felt led to move to and love on the lost and forgotten orphans in Sumy, Ukraine. Read more stories of what they're doing at http://openarmsukraine.blogspot.com/ or look them up on Facebook! Be a part of what God's doing through them in Ukraine...it's so exciting to see!

"Let us not love in words or tongue, but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:18

Different kind of love.

Lately I've been getting my fill of people. At least certain people. One-way relationship people. The ones who it seems like you're always investing in, calling up, saying hi to, but who never do it back. Sometimes they give you excuses, sometimes they don't ever seem to notice. But you notice. And you're tired of it. At least I have been lately. Tired of it and ready to throw in the towel, more or less, on certain ones.

But then today I went to the park and had some good Jesus time at a picnic table in the sun. I opened up to John 15, needing to be reminded of God's love for me and who I am in his eyes. [If you haven't read it recently, go do it now!] Verses 14-17 in particular jumped out at me: "You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit -- fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: love each other."

Two lines in particular jumped out at me: you are my friends if you do what I command. This one caused me to pause a second...I don't know about you, but I know I do not always do what God commands, personally. So often I downright stink at all that "abide in me" stuff it talks about in the earlier verses of chapter 15. I get so self-centered and caught up doing my own thing my own way, I don't even take the time to think about letting God have his say in the matter. Yikes. So God, does that mean we're not always friends?? Then came along verse 16: you did not choose me, but I chose you... And I was like...well, maybe I'll just retype my journal entry...

We did not choose to be friends of God, he chose us. Us, with all our baggage and halfhearted ways, who so often put nothing back into the friendship ourselves. Talk about a one-way relationship! I get so fed up with them myself, yet God still loves me when I do that to him. It doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it good; it makes him the best friend ever, it makes him God. And I am called to be like him...oh crap... [really, I wrote that] That means I can't just give up on those people who drive me nuts sometimes, doesn't it?

Maybe what you need is a different kind of live, one that you have never seen
Maybe all you are is a part of a star on a long journey
Maybe what you need is a better kind of love, one that you could only dream
Maybe it'll take all the sorrow away and let you feel free
[Brendan James, "Different Kind of Love"]

Tongue-tied.

Today at work, while describing some of my travels and the reasons for them to a couple of co-workers, they laughingly responded with things like, "I need to be a Christian! [so I can travel too, was the implication]" and "You're such a do-gooder!" Maybe it was the way they said it, maybe it was a little unexpected out on the playground, surrounded by kids. But I found myself a bit tongue-tied as to how to respond. I kind of shrugged and said something like, "Well, I like to serve and help people out, it brings me joy to do it." Not a bad response, necessarily. But after the fact I felt a little bit like I'd missed an opportunity to share more about why I do what I do--because I've been blessed by God and all that he's done for me, both in taking care of me for this life and for the life to come, and I want to show my love for him by loving on others. Or something along those lines. Easy for the words to come after the fact; harder to spit them out at the time. Ugh.

Tomorrow's a new day....with new opportunities.....new chances to share about the hope that is in me...........

"Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth words may be given me so that I may fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel...pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should." [Eph. 6:19-20]

Fine print

Do you ever feel like you're just missing something? Like you've been shown the way to go, the things to do next, you just don't realize it? It happens all the time on one of my favorite shows, The Amazing Race. Teams get their next clue and race off to finish the task--only to discover on their umpteenth try that if they'd read the clue a little more carefully, they could have been done a long time ago! They kick themselves for not doing what they've been reminding themselves to do all along: read the fine print.

That's kind of how I've been feeling lately, like I'm missing out on the fine print. I've been working so hard to make things happen, to not be lacking in action while I'm in this time of waiting to see if/when/how God will come through. Yet time and time again, it seems that the doors I've been sure are going to stay open, the doors that have to stay open keep getting slammed in my face. It's discouraging. It's frustrating. And it makes me wonder: am I missing the fine print?