Happily Ever After

Sometimes the happenings of this world feel beyond what the heart can bear. A beloved comedian's tragic death. Reports of horrific conflict and genocide in the Middle East, with many of the victims children, their pictures transported thousands of miles across oceans to verify the reality of carnage. Closer to home, this moment, a family gathers at the deathbed of a dear husband, father and grandfather whose body succumbs to cancer, none ready to part with him.

Tragic pain. Heartrending loss. Inner and outer turmoil that the spirit in its purest place knows don't belong in this world, really. As parents we shudder and push through our days. As love-invaded friends of God we offer silent prayers framed with unspoken questions. And then a child's query breaks the silence.

"Why did he die? What happened?" And we have to find words somehow that are truthful and that teach.

Today I came across a gingerbread house-shaped book my third grader wrote last spring in school. His class was studying fairy tales and had the chance to write one. Derrin titled his "The Rabbit Prince and the Bunny Queen." The story unfolds complete with magic wand, castle, and dungeon, and it ends this way:

The prince got the key and got the princess. They ran out of the palace. They got in love and got married! and they lived happily ever after!!!

I smile at a child's simple resolution to problems and his belief in uncomplicated happiness-ever-after. If only ...  And then I think about Bartimaeus, the blind man who Jesus healed. We read about him together with Good Dirt a few nights ago. Bartimaeus received his sight "and followed Jesus along the road, " according to the Gospel of Mark. He begged Jesus for mercy, received it, and then  followed the Savior. It wasn't complicated.

I'm not sure if Bartimaeus lived happily ever after, but in following Jesus he had what he needed most. The evil in the world certainly raged on--Jesus would soon be killed, and death eventually came to this follower, but a bigger reality encompassed Bartimaeus. His life was hidden not in a dungeon or a castle, but with God in Christ for each moment and into eternity. He couldn't be touched by a mean rat (as in Derrin's tale) or an act against himself, a sword or invading bodily cells. Following Jesus put a greater reality in place.

We still stand against evil and illness, yet as we do we seek more and more to know Jesus' mercy in our lives, as Bartimaeus did, and to speak His mercy and life to a hurting world.

Thank God for His Word. It straightens crooked and broken hearts. And as we weep with those who weep, it holds out the promise of lives hidden in Christ for ever after.

Gentle Whispers

Summer with kids screams the daily, material, ordinariness of life. In the prominence of all the ordinary, the tangible presses in on our moments and envelops our days as they spin into weeks and march toward Fall. Yes, we cherish the shining moments of  spectacular sunsets and interludes on the pavement viewing roly polies as they curl and uncurl. We triumph at a first ride on a two-wheeler and delight at a bouquet of dandelions. But so many other moments during summer involve the weary obligation of cleaning up after a camping trip, chasing flies around the house,  spraying stained clothing. Hanging up wet towels and clothes, pulling weeds, intervening amid squabbles, mopping the floor one more time to find missed popsicle drips, removing splinters, applying sunscreen to squirming bodies, putting away bedding from last night's sleepover, and buying yet another box of bandaids. Summertime is multi-tasking at its finest.

I find that in all the rush of nonstop ordinariness, I wonder if my kids are noticing God. I wonder if they're sensing His presence in these days that for them are magical, glorious, sun-drenched times--but times where they seem quite focused on themselves. I wonder when that awareness of God and life underneath the surface of this one finds a regular  place in their living.

The other day we were reading Good Dirt in the morning, in the family room with sleeping bags and pillows. My neice had spent the night with our two younger boys. They were up (very) early and bursting with energy. We read Mark 2:13-22, about the calling of Levi and about putting new wine into new wineskins. And then we got out paper and made two columns: The Kingdom of Me and The Kingdom of God. I expected resistance, but each child labeled their columns and readily got to work describing what each column was like.

One of them wrote this:

Kingdom of Me--bad things happen. I get disiplend (sic) Kingdom of God--Good things happen. God gets sad.

They didn't miss a beat in understanding the difference between the two kingdoms.

Later I read something by Dallas Willard. He has a new book out titled A Dallas Willard Dictionary, where various spiritual formation terms are defined using excerpts from his various books. I read the definition of "Spiritual Reality."

Spiritual reality is the hidden--because nonphysical--ultimate and powerful foundation of the visible, material and finite universe. It is the "where" of spiritual beings. It is the kingdom of God.

And this is the quote included with Willard's definition:

The visible world daily bludgeons us with its things and events. They pinch and pull and hammer away at our bodies. Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes and eggs. But instead of shouting and shoving, the spiritual world whispers at us ever so gently. And it appears both at the edges and in the middle of events and things in the so-called real world of the visible … . the tendency of life in Christ is progressively toward the inward word to the receptive heart. The aim is to move entirely into the hidden realm of spiritual reality …” (excerpted from Hearing God)

Once again, I knew that these kids have eyes to see underneath the surface of their days. They can hear the inward word, and by and large they have receptive hearts. These kids are living in the kingdom of God. Even in summertime.

"I want my chore to be nothing"

My conversation with my Kadin (4 years old) went like this... Kadin..."Why do I always have to empty the silverware from the dishwasher?"

Me..."Because it's your chore."

Kadin..."But I think I want my chore to be nothing. I want to just get to watch movies all day."

Me..."But that doesn't make you a better person or help you learn to be a good man."

Then I hear God's gentle whisper..."Do you hear yourself? Do you hear that sometimes you have to join in and do not just watch and let others do for you?"

WOW! I love when God speaks and I KNOW it. I have been pondering all day and actually for several days if what I have been hearing is God or me. There is a need at our church for youth leaders. I am not volunteering for that as I lead 3 youth already and am satisfied with my role. However, I have been questioning a quickening in my spirit that says I have something to say to the teen group. I thought maybe I was just feeling the need to be needed, or involved, or to feel important. But hearing this bit from the mouth of my boy and feeling a nudge from Jesus, I remember that I am not insignificant in his kingdom either. Just as my asking Kadin to help with chores, with his much older and experienced siblings, can be a pain and time consuming for me, it is worthwhile as it teaches him and makes him know that I love him and care about his future self.  God asks me sometimes to step out of my "I want my chore to be nothing" comfort zone and do... for my own sake.

1 Corinthians 10 says, " Forget about self-confidence...cultivate God-confidence...He wants us, all or nothing...The point is not to just get by. We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well." (the Message) I also am reading 'Generous Orthodoxy' by Brian McClaren and have had an epiphany of sorts as he discusses "personal" salvation and how sometimes it becomes all too personal and not enough relational. Jesus saves me and asks that I share that salvation with others. Not for my glory but for his. My chore of "nothing" just leapt to everything. In everything I do I want to share, show, relate Jesus and his love and salvation so that others can know him too.

I am still unsettled on how worthy I am to speak to the youth group. I feel like I am not educated enough, or exciting enough, or spiritual enough to have anything of value to say. But I also know that sometimes God asks me to do something for my own growth just as I ask Kadin to put the silverware away.

Life on the Road

I'm guessing that most parents who are following Jesus and helping their kids to live with him struggle in the same way I do. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about who and what is most influentially forming my three kids. When I say "forming," I mean forming them spiritually in a way that affects their identity, their passions, their understanding of living and being in this world, their view of God and what He means in their life.

With our youngest child being close to 9 years old and our oldest at 15, immersed in high school life, they are at ages where home, parents, and church are a big influence, but peers, media, and pretty much all of life outside our front door also play a big role in who they are becoming. Many times I have, in my mind, whisked my kids to a remote jungle or a country home far from civilization where all the competing influences would take a much more distant and manageable role in who they are becoming. You can probably relate.

God, though, through the Holy Spirit's whispers in response to my thoughts, has affirmed again and again that the Quinns are where He's placed us as a family and we are to choose carefully within this context how we will influence our kids' formation day by day and year by year.

Good Dirt. It has been a good and powerful family guide into God's Word and life with Him on this daily journey. Last week we focused with the kids on Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the boys drew pictures that they used for a few nights.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and you have seen him."  ~ John 14:6-7

The boys were instructed to draw a road, because Jesus described himself as the road to God. "With his whole life he showed us how to live a life with God." And then they were told to write on the road some of the ways Jesus showed us how to live a life with God on the road. For three nights we read from Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane, talked about it, and wrote on the pictures.

It was on Night 3 that I realized something. On this night we read these word from Jesus' prayer. He is "not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours" (John 17:9). Here is what he said:

I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them, I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

On Night 3 as we began to talk about that very-religious-sounding word sanctify, I realized that God is so "with me" on this hard road of parenting and of yearning for my kids to be formed by God and not by the world. Of all things, just a day or two earlier I had heard a radio preacher talking about sanctification. Being sanctified, he had said, is being "set apart." His words had stuck with me, and that night with the boys this definition was ready and helped to frame our conversation. It gave us a picture of who we are as people who want Jesus as our Life. We are different. We are chosen. We, indeed, are ones who are set apart, belonging to God.

When I was a teenager and going through family crisis, a friend gave me Oswald Chambers' devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest. I dove into this classic book that focuses so deeply on sanctification. I underlined like crazy and I prayed a lot that God would work out this process of sanctifying my life for Him. Chambers is more wordy when he talks about sanctification, but just like the shorter definition, he gets to the heart of what God does in us, if we allow it.

"In sanctification the regenerated soul deliberately gives up his right to himself to Jesus Christ, and identifies himself entirely with God's interest in other men [and women!]."

And, "Are we prepared for what sanctification will cost? It will cost an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth, and an immense broadening of all our interests in God. Sanctification means intense concentration on God's point of view. It means every power of body, soul and spirit chained and kept for God's purpose only. Are we prepared for God to do in us all that He separated us for? ... Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the disposition that ruled Him will rule us. Are we prepared for what it will cost? It will cost everything that is not of God in us."  

Sobering words. They give me pause, once again, as I consider my own life.

This idea of being set apart, though, isn't too big or too incomprehensible for my kids. Even on a night when they are a little distracted, are trying to fidget with each other, and one is dissatisfied with his drawing, I know they get it. I know they can understand that it's really special to be set apart. And that God deserves all of us.

So today, and again tomorrow, we enter another day seeking to live it all, and give it all, for Jesus, for we are "not of this world." And we're also not doing any of it without God's help.

***Parent friends and readers--It is a comfort and much-appreciated joy to walk this road of parenting with you, in community with you through the writing at this site. We are all in different places with God and with our kids as we parent. If you sense Jesus drawing you to come to know Him as you read here, know that you and your children, too, are chosen by God to belong to Him. You and your kids can come to know God by praying simple prayers to God together and by reading the Bible together, listening to God speak to you. Any of us who are writing here would love to correspond with you, just as a follower of Jesus who lives near you would also love to do. Reach out--we  need each other as we journey with God!

Rhythm

Rhythm, if there is something that I know it’s that some of us have rhythm naturally and some of us don’t. One of my favorite things of living in West Africa is the dancing, and maybe that’s cliché but it’s true. There is something so beautiful watching Africans dancing and every tribe or region has its very own dance. The music doesn’t matter, most often there isn’t any music, only the drums and that’s all that matters, the rhythm. Last week our campus celebrated the graduation of the discipleship training school and part of the celebration was dancing. In one particular dance, the African men would do the dance out front and then the women, both sets completely on time and amazingly agile. There were three non-Africans with them, whites to be specific, and they too joined in the dance. But it was quite a different dance. Not because they intended on doing a different dance but something in them couldn’t quite find the rhythm. They had fun and everyone cheered for them but the rhythm just wasn’t there.

In Good Dirt, we talk about setting up a rhythm to doing the devotional with our children. Trying to set a rhythm to it and work it into our daily lives. Although we are four months into it, I have struggled over and over again to do a set rhythm and I have finally thrown my hands up in defeat. I can’t seem to get the attention of my children to do it more than once a day, actually that once a day is a challenge by itself. As I wonder if I am the only white girl who can’t find the rhythm in this figurative dance (because I am always that white girl in the real dancing around here) I realize that I am trying to dance my own families dance to someone else’s drum beat. Our family isn’t the formal type, we are not very good at specific set traditions; we are more the spontaneous, flexible family type. So I have had to come up with our own rhythm, starting with getting my two year old on my lap and getting her to ask Jesus to focus her heart, her mind, her eyes, her ears, and all of her on him, while pointing to each body part as she does it. Wow, it has worked wonders in getting her to engage in reading time. I have started to try to simply incorporate our talking to God throughout the day as I remember. It’s starting to look a bit more like a beautiful dance with God. I finally see it, it’s not a sloppy movement of good intentions, but rather a rhythm of dancing with God in the everyday sloppiness of our lives. Maybe I will only have to be the rhythm-less white girl in the actually dancing. Here is to each family finding their rhythm of dancing with God.

Taking God on Vacation

A friend once asked, "Do you pray with your kids at breakfast? Why not?" We talked about it and I didn't have a good reason for why not, other than that breakfast was a less formal meal around our house and often we didn't all eat at the same time. I'd never thought about it before.

In similar fashion, I asked myself another question a few  years ago as we prepared for a big family getaway. "Do we take God on vacation? Why not? Does it make any sense to break from family devotions, time in God's Word, prayer, when we're seeing spectacular places in creation and having times of quiet and refreshing that are ideal for turning us toward God?"

So I decided on that trip to be intentional. "What will make the time most meaningful, and how can I plan for what's really important so that it doesn't get lost in all that's urgent in prepping for the trip?"

I decided that since we'd be spending many hours in the car on the way to the Grand Canyon, there would be ample time for looking to God, reading his Word together, and talking about what we were reading. Why wouldn't we do this when we were planning all sorts of other ways to pass the time in the car to avoid whining and fighting and wiggles?

We brought along Meet the Bible and every day on the road we made devotions our first pastime as we traveled the highway toward our next stop. Grammy (my mom) was with us on that trip, and the time having devotions together turned out to be not just meaningful and not just God-focused, but a time we won't forget. Grammy shared stories from her life as we all talked about the Scriptures. The kids listened and responded to her and asked questions about the stories. They didn't complain, didn't think any of it strange, and the presence of God permeated the trip in a way that felt natural, that felt good.

Well, spring break has just ended, and another family vacation. This one quite different from that Grand Canyon road trip. This time we flew to Florida to watch our high-schooler perform at Disney with his school band and choir. Devotions didn't work on the airplane, but Good Dirt and a small Bible were tucked into my carry-on and we pulled them out at the hotel. Yep, spread across hotel beds we read and talked together. I have to say-- it beat Direct TV hands down.

And once again, sitting with God and turning to the Spirit in a land of magic, dreams, and wishes helped anchor us in the Kingdom that is true, dreams that are God-given and wishes that are prayers offered not just on our own behalf but for a world in need of the God of hope.

Taking God on vacation needn't look the same for every family. We didn't get our devotion time in every day, and maybe your family time with God will take on a new and different rhythm from your time at home. Maybe you won't use a book. You might speak Scripture from memory. You might focus your family time on prayer. Or on journaling individually.

God will guide as you plan for vacation. His yoke is easy and his burden is light (i.e. not legalistic!). Ask for the Spirit to light the way to a plan that's just right for your family's next getaway. Then, when I bump into you and ask, "Do you take God on vacation?" you can tell me about all the ways you got away from home while getting closer to God in the face of new vistas and inspiring surroundings. I can't wait to hear all about it!

The Poison in Every Day

I've thought a lot about sin and how we define sin these days, especially with kids. I went through many hours of training with the organization Child Evangelism Fellowship, and we memorized a definition, with motions, for sin.

"Sin is anything I think, say, or do that makes God sad or breaks his rules."

In my years of church and Bible club teaching, I've used the definition countless times in explaining and reminding kids as we talk about sin and salvation. But over time I've tweaked the definition to make it one I think will speak to kids even better ... and will travel with them as they grow.

"Sin is anything I think, say, or do that makes God sad because I'm doing it my way instead of God's way."

We live in a Postmodern world where truth is thought to be relative and so right and wrong are simply matters of personal decision. Really, the words right and wrong don't have much of a place in our culture anymore. And while most young children don't have issues with understanding sin and their own wrong-doing, the world they live in will soon test their inborn convictions.

All of these realities came to mind as two of my boys and I read John 7, a passage where Jesus stays away from Judea because the Jews are looking for an opportunity to kill him. "The world ... hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil" (v. 7). As we used our Good Dirt devotional we talked about why people don't like admitting they are wrong. And we talked about the discipline of Confession, telling God the truth about ourselves.

We took some quiet moments to pray silently, each of us, confessing our sin to God and asking for forgiveness. It was good time. Often in the past I have prayed with the boys before bed and asked God to forgive "us" for our sin from the day, knowing that we can only ask forgiveness for our own selves, but hoping my boys will take to this prayer of confession and make it their own. How much better, though, to let the quiet give them a place to do it personally, right here and now.

How often we forget even to acknowledge sin and ask forgiveness. It's so easy, on our own and with kids in prayer, to ask for things and thank God for blessings. We're forgiven once and for all through Jesus' death on the cross. But we still struggle with sin in this life. Paul talks about it often in his letters in the Bible. Without regular confession of sin, and the receiving of God's forgiveness, our hearts can't stay tender and humble, letting God be God.

I recently heard the author of a children's Bible speak on the radio. Sally Lloyd Jones (The Jesus Storybook Bible) talked about how we can explain sin to children.

"It's like running away and hiding and thinking you can be happy without God, but God knows there is no such thing."

"It's a poison that makes your heart sick, so it won't work properly anymore."

When Jesus came to walk the earth and live with people, he was all about the heart. Everything we do and are is an overflow of the heart, Jesus stressed again and again. The heart can't be happy without God. And the heart can't be healthy without God.

May we, and our kids, guard our hearts every day by telling on ourselves. We need the discipline of Confession. It will travel with us as we grow.

Going for Gold

Olympic season and the Quinns are taking in some winter sports in Russia these days! We're rooting not only for the USA but also for Norway, Switzerland, and the Ukraine. Our high-schooler is part of a competition in his Global Community class and his threesome bid for these countries in their class Olympics. They chose well; we've celebrated more than a few golds.

It's fun to watch these exotic winter games and witness the amazing victories, along with the crushing upsets, injuries, and nerve-wracked sub-par performances. As we do, though, the mom in me can't help but ask questions that span far beyond Russia. It's these questions that run deep and wide, but that really circle back to the heart of each one of us and what it is that we're really striving after.

Is it gold medals and physical accomplishments my kids look to as the height of success? Does the personal training and dedication of these athletes mirror, for my kids--and, yes, for us parents--the training we do on the inside of us in our life with Jesus? Does the single-focused living these athletes must embrace point us toward single-focused lives where Christ is Coach and Trainer and we choose a run with Him that is for a lifetime, no turning back and in pursuit of a prize that doesn't wear out?

Or does the glory dwell just here, in Sochi and in the athletic accomplishments on snow and ice?

God's timing is good. On a Friday night we open Good Dirt and read from Mark 10. Two disciples are asking Jesus about receiving places of honor next to him someday in glory. Jesus proceeds to turn glory upside-down as he answers. "Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. "

So, we talk about serving, about using our bodies for others and getting nothing in return. We talk about seeing the needs of other people and thinking about how we can meet those needs. We talk about praying. And we ponder the question, "How can you choose not to get your way?"

The next morning, this mom continues her own pondering. I'm banking on the fact that God's Word is alive and active. The words of Jesus take on a life inside my kids that no skier slaloming down a hill can ever do.

And then, before climbing out of bed I flip on a light, prop my pillows and read these words from Dallas Willard:

But Christ-likeness of the inner being is not a merely human attainment. It is, finally, a gift of grace. The resources for it are not human, but come from the interactive presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those who place their confidence in Christ, as well as from the spiritual treasures stored in the body of Christ's people upon the earth. Therefore it is not formation of the spirit or inner being of the individual that we have in mind, but also formation by the Spirit of God and by the spiritual riches of Christ's continuing incarnation in his people, past and present--including, most prominently, the treasures of his written and spoken word. ~ The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship, pp. 105-106

Thank you, God, for speaking into the Olympics. Thank you, Jesus, for speaking with your life and truth into this family and into this global community of people who need, more than anything, your gift of grace.

Just Like a Snowflake

This week we reach the mid-point of Epiphany, and this morning two of my boys and I had a fitting conversation on the way to school. First, I will backtrack.

We started off Ephiphany in early January talking about Jesus, the Light of the World. This season of Epiphany (between Christmastide and Lent) is focused on just that--Jesus revealed to us as Savior, Messiah, Light of the World. And as we have basked in the glow of Jesus during this season, we have also considered how he calls us to let our light shine before others. Our family has prayed many prayers thanking Jesus for being the Light and asking him to shine his light in our lives. I wrote a blog about how we even entered into discussions of Jesus, the Light, with our neighbors one night.

The family and neighbor time has been meaningful, though devotional. We don't often know how the talk will translate into the rest of life. And then last week my 8-year-old came home from school with a paper from Bible class asking what he could do to help another who was hurting. His answer, in a 3rd grader's block print, was to

"share the light with them."

And then this morning on the way to school, after a weekend of Colorado snow and cold, this same 8-year-old asks, "Mom, why does the snow sparkle?"

"Well, snowflakes are little ice crystals, and when light shines on water or ice it reflects back to us and sparkles."

And then Derrin's response, "Why  doesn't dirty snow sparkle?"

Hmmm... Teaching moment appears, despite early morning and a Monday. "Dirt fills up the snowflake so that light can't shine through it. It's kind of like sin, huh? When we're filled with sin we can't shine Jesus' light. But when Jesus' life is living in us it clears away the dirt so that we can shine just like a clean snowflake. "

The car gets quiet and we ride alongside banks of clean, sparkling snow and also dull, dirty roadside slush.  I think about how God brings truth to life again and again in our lives. His Word is living and active--with a house full of people of many ages and backgrounds, at a 3rd grader's desk, in a car on an almost-tardy morning. And God lives through his Word, through Jesus' life in us, differently every time and for each person. Kind of like a snowflake. No two are the same. Every time, every one, new and unique.

An Epiphany of shining moments.  An Epiphany of Light.

Seeing for the first time...again

I find it interesting that the word smothering is only one additional letter from mothering, which is exactly how mothering feels like some days; smothering. Now please hear my heart, I love my children and I am so thankful for the privilege of motherhood but a woman does need to be able to use the restroom without interruptions or visitors! Reading through the book of Mark with my children has been eye opening to me; I have always read the gospels through so quickly that I didn't take time to ponder the flow of Jesus’ life. Reading it in small batches each day, expounding on the small points so that my five year old understands it, makes me really understand it too. And much to my delight, I see Jesus constantly surrounded by crowds of people, so much so that He and his disciples cannot even eat! That brings comfort to this mommy who is often crying out, “Can’t I just eat please?”  The beauty of it for me, is that I see Jesus never got frustrated with the crowds, he didn’t yell at them to just leave him alone, He patiently taught them and healed them. Now I acknowledge that Jesus is fully God (and human) and perfect, both of which I am not (thank goodness!) but he is my example and I think I have realized his secret.

He knew that his earthly ministry was limited to three short years. He knew that the hearts in those crowds were desperate for his life, his teachings, his hope and those were the only years He had to show it to them. His years on this earth were limited and most of all, he was teaching his disciples the most important things so that when His time was finished they would know how to go and spread his life to the world.

Thankfully God has given me the same opportunity. Every day I am smothered by mothering, yet I realize that these are short years indeed and every time that my daughter calls “Mommy look!” I need to stop and look, because that only lasts a few short years. Some days feel like they will never end but the years do fly by. I know too, that each day I have the privilege to walk in such a way that when my children leave my house and live on their own, they will know the way to walk.

I want them to know that each day, we can’t do it by ourselves, we need God each day. I love how my son loves to hear the scripture reading each day, he gets excited when he knows what Jesus is doing, like a miracle. The scriptures are alive and breathing to him, and I remember in that moment that yes, they are truly amazing. These stories can grow stale after years of hearing or being taught about them, but when I see my son hear the story for the first time, I feel the awe once again and breathe a small thank you to God for his everlasting power. Jesus was God, yet fully man, and thankfully one that in those moments of my day, that I feel like I can never get a little time to myself, he whispers in my heart, “I know darling, I have been there too. Just hold on, it will be over before you know it.”

This is the God that I have given my life over to, the one that is always with me, who understands because he was a man, tempted just like me, and knows how it feels to be smothered and yet chose to die to yourself and delight in those smothering you. He is Immanuel who has come for each of us.

“The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

Advent's Gift of Anticipation

From Tamara:

This first Sunday of Advent, we set out our nativity pieces around the house and put the green paper up on the wall to fill in as our Christmas tree this year.  Small living spaces require alternative solutions for holding to tradition.  The 'tree' went up on Saturday actually, but the lights were too heavy on the paper and it began to fall down right about bedtime.  Seeing as our son sleeps at the foot of that particular wall, I couldn't risk the rest of it peeling off on top of him during the night - so down it came for the night.  After the tree was up properly the next day and lights were twinkling, we let Kaiser open his first gift of the season - a LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar.  And, yes, we saved for three weeks to get that thing.  The first window held lego pieces that made a little R2D2.  How cute.  How cool.  How crazy.  How luxurious.  I swing back and forth between embarrassment of its opulence and sheer excitement of watching Kaiser open the next window.  We showed it off to Grandma and Papa and Auntie Em on Skype this morning - it's that exciting.

When I watch my son's face light up with the excitement of anticipation rewarded each morning, I recognize the powerful pull from my own experiences.  Waking up the morning that we're going up the hill to get our Christmas Tree with Dad and the brothers.  Waking up the morning we're heading up to Cooper Lake for huckleberries and perfect fishing.  Waking up the morning we're heading down to Colorado for the summer.  Waking up the first day of school (yes, weird children can look normal on the outside).  Just writing about these memories makes my heart skip a beat remembering the flood of anticipation.  I know that for my 4 yr old, the time that passes between opening each window in his advent calendar is about the same as the passing of a year for me.  Anticipation builds.  Consumes.  Causes some strange comments throughout the day.....attempts at masking hope, I presume.  But hope cannot be masked on a 4 yr old.  It shines brighter than the lights on the Christmas tree.  Hope that Mom will declare today the 5th, 6th and 7th of December - and it'll be the 8th of December by dinnertime!!  Wouldn't that be fantastic!?

I really do love how anticipation grows and consumes every thought.  It really was meant to do just that.  My difficulty is in managing where my anticipation lands.  It's easy to set my heart on things that are pretty and fun and, I'll be honest, tasty.  But most things that fit into those categories are either quick to disappoint or quick to satisfy with disappointment growing on your hips.  When I see my son's anticipation and recognize its pull, my heart cries out to the Lord that He would hold our hearts fast.  I want to long for Him.  I don't always long for Him.  But I want to.  One of the most precious aspects of Advent for me is how it gently holds my face, like a Mother with two hands under a child's chin.  Its time and focus demand that my attention remain on Christ and Christ alone.

Each morning now, we pull out our Good Dirt Devotional and Bible, sit together on our bed and set the pace for opening our hearts to the Lord.  I've found some of the questions difficult to navigate with my wee boy.  "What is one way you can welcome Jesus into your day today?"  We settled on thinking about Jesus being with us during Taekwondo class.  At the end of the day we reflected, "Were you able to welcome Jesus today like you planned?"  Um.....  "Was it easy or hard?"  Yeah, it was hard.  Did we forget?  Yes.  Not only that, it was difficult to imagine how Jesus could be there with us when he wasn't running the drills and practicing His 품새, too.  Is Jesus a purple belt like me, too, Mom?  But the biggest blessing we've received so far is the daily consideration of His Word.  We read the suggested readings twice each day and it soaks in deep.  I pray that as we listen to the way Jesus calls us to follow Him - what He requires of His disciples - our anticipation will become steadfastly set on doing just that.  Following Him.

And we'll see what He says about R2D2 coming along, too.