I'm Good

Sunday was a hard day. Clearly. But if your Sabbaths aren't a little hard, maybe you're not doing it right. Because if you come face to face with the Holy of holies and don't at least wonder of your life is in sync with His person you might need to ask a few more questions. 

I hope no one was too worried. I really am doing just wonderfully. Although I would be lying if I said I'm not looking forward to seeing my peeps. For your reassurance, though, here are some tidbits. 

4 year old Grace told me she prayed for me yesterday. I wanted to cry but I just hugged her instead. 

Last night I walked home in the fog and I was talking to God and I had to fight the impulse to yell, "I love the gospel!" to the night. Because only insane people do that...

I sent a friend a letter today and basically gushed about Jesus the whole time. 

I read Small Things with Great Love by Margot Starbuck and wow. I dare you to read that book and not be affected by it. 

I have the super chick water buffalo song stuck in my head because I did it FOUR times today with energetic children. 

I found out I know all the words to every verse of What Child is This. I started singing it and was surprised as the words came to me. This may be aided by the last month of Christmas music in the car and almost 2 months of guitar playing...

Basically, to quote Trip Lee- I'm good. 

That Time I Looked Around...

I had a bit of a life crisis this afternoon. It probably began brewing last night but it came to fruition today. 

I love Advent. I love the way Anchor church is doing Advent. I love that when I was talking to Jill, Debbie came over and put her hand on my shoulder and asked how I was. I love a lot of things. I am not in anyway unhappy 

That being said, I looked around me at church as we were wrapping up. And looking around can do a lot of things. I sat next to Chris and Jill, who are my age and married 8 weeks ago. Sydney and Ian sat in front of me - also my age, married 4 weeks ago. I saw Aimee and Bryan and Dan and Alyssa and Kathleen and Mike and a ton of kids under the age of 6 and I just cracked. 

There was not a single other person at my place in life there. Victoria hasn't been here in weeks, nor Craig nor Trent; Jenn moved to LA; Gab is with family in Florida. I say in that room as the only single 20 something recent college grad. 

And I like everyone there. It's not a problem necessarily. I just felt so raw and so lonely...in a room full of people...I don't really feel known. 

And yet I felt so known by God. I came right home and poured out my heart to him. I played out my soul. And he met me. But not in a I-prayed-and-read-my-Bible-and-prayed-and-worshiped-so-everything-is-fine-now kind of way but in his way. 

The I-love-his-plan-and-rejoice-in-his-sovereignty-way. 

The I-can't-see-anything-but-I-can-still-see-Jesus-way (the Genesis 16 way). 

The The-Lord-is-all-good-all-the-time-way. 

The O-For-grace-to-trust-him-more-way. 

I looked around my living room and I felt whole and full and known...in a room by myself.

Ella

Ella has been mentioned here before. She is four years old and my constant headache (heartache)? 

At the beginning of the preschool year, she would just scream and cry because mom and dad weren't home. She would talk to herself, trying to calm down. 

She has now graduated to open defiance. First of all, I can never discern whether she is talking to herself or to me. She calls herself honey, but she frequently calls me that as well. Staying in line is a challenge for her, as well as not skipping to the front and keeping her hands to herself. The look on her face she has while hitting or pushing another child is one of malice and spite. She is doing it on purpose. This leads to her frequently sitting with me. 

Since our preschool has a specific structure for discipline, I am expected to follow it. 

When I see her misbehaving, I point it out and let her know her choices. 

"Ella, I see you are having a hard time keeping your hands to your own body. You may choose to set them in your lap or put them on your head. If you choose to keeping touching our friends, you will be sitting with me" 

As the offense continues, I remove her, saying, "I see you chose not to keep your hands to your own body. Come sit with me now". She usually wants to sit on my lap at this point, and as long as she is looking at me, I'm fine with it ( she is an adorable child, really). Now I can tell she hates discipline because she always gets quiet and sometimes starts shaking. 

"Ella, why are you sitting here?" 

"I don't know" 

"Ella, you are sitting here because you are having a hard time keeping your hands to your own body. Why are you sitting here?" 

"I don't know" 

After repeating this 3-4 times, I decided maybe she wasn't getting it, so I did a test. 

"Ella, my favorite color is yellow. What is my favorite color?" 

"Yellow" 

"Ella, we have rules to keep all of our bodies safe. Why so we have rules?" 

"To keep all the bodies safe" 

"Ella, we go to preschool to learn new things and have fun. Why do we go to preschool?" 

"To learn and have fun" 

"Ella, you are sitting here because you are having a hard time keeping your hands to your own body. Why are you sitting here?" 

"I don't know" 

It is now crystal clear she is doing it on purpose. She cannot rejoin the activity until she can tell me why she had to sit out. I continue to offer opportunities to her but she ends up sitting out at least half of gymnastics. 

I tell you this story because Ella is my every day reminder that sin is real. We sin on purpose. We are bad on purpose. We defy God on purpose. 

But when we turn to him instead of from him, he welcomes us. We repent and he receives. We are free to join in and rejoice in him. 

Sin is real

And so is grace. 

The Magnifcat

Today I learned that my church is going to be breaking down Mary's song until Christmas. Today, we looked at the first four verses: 

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.

An unmarried teenager finds out she's pregnant and she rejoices? 

Why is this crazy girl named Mary singing? 

She's singing because she has such faith and confidence in God's redemptive plan and she is overjoyed that she gets to be a part of it. 

And she's on the other side of the cross. The side before the coming. The side before the resurrection. The side before redemption. 

How much more do we have to sing about this Christmas? Because we know the whole story. We know what that baby will grow up to do. We've tasted and seen Christ's work in our lives. 

We sang a song today that I'd never heard before, about Mary's joys, and I LOVED IT. From what I can tell it was originally Catholic or Episcopalian perhaps, but our worship leaders edited it into an evangelical hymn (the differences are minor, but more in line with our theology...I could get into why it's important to bring good theology into worship but that's a whole other story). 

The Seven Joys of Mary

1. The very first joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of one
To see her blessed Jesus
When He was first her Son
When He was first her Son.

ChorusWhen He was Her first Son, Good Lord;
And happy may we be,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
To all eternity

2. The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of two
To see her own son Jesus,
To make the lame to go.
To make the lame to go. Chorus

3. The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of three
To see her own son Jesus,
To make the blind to see.
To make the blind to see. Chorus

4. The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of four
To see her own son Jesus,
To read the Bible o'er.
To read the Bible o'er. Chorus

5. The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of five
To see her own son Jesus,
To bring the dead alive.
To bring the dead alive. Chorus

6. The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of six
To see her own son Jesus,
Take up the Crucifix.
Take up the Crucifix. Chorus

7. The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of seven
To see her own son Jesus,
Ascended up to heaven Heaven
Ascended up to heaven Heaven Chorus

Good News of Great Joy

The Christmas-gospel story drives me wild. In the best possible way. 

Like when it's the fifth day of Advent and I'm up at 4:30 in the morning to read the Bible and talk to my Jesus before I meet at 6 with my church to study the Bible and talk about Jesus. 

Or when I'm driving home after we ended 45 minutes late because God's goodness for his church can't fit inside and hour and a half box and I have errands to run but I see the sun rising over the mountains and I have tears streaming down my face so I pull over and snap a picture that can't even capture the ten thousand reasons I have to praise The Lord. 

And then I'm at the grocery store buying groceries for one and I pick up hair brushes and shampoo and socks and gloves and glittery hair things and toy cars and chocolates and toothpastes and Chapsticks for people who have nothing because Jesus has given me absolutely everything. I'm sure the checkout lady thought I was nuts. But as Tim Keller says, if you know what Jesus said about the needy and you say you believe he has given you everything but you don't actually give or serve, then you don't actually believe the gospel is true. 

And then there's the moment when my acquaintances update their adoption journey blog and I feel the grace of having been adopted by the Heavenly Father and my bank account says I have more than I need and I give what I can to bring a little girl into a good home. 

And then my dear friend finds out that the baby she carries is a little boy, and she's due 11 months after she married the love of her life. 

This is the scandal of grace. Because over 2,000 years ago a teenager was nine months pregnant with a baby boy - the baby boy - who would turn the world upside down. 

It was Christ. The Christ. 

The one of whom the angels said, "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people" (Luke 2:10). 

The good news is that Jesus has come and the great joy is that his life and death and life has given us the fullest life we could never dream of. 

The Beginning

I have a Christmas secret. 

Lean in: 

Start at the beginning. 

And not Gabriel and Mary or even Elizabeth, but the real beginning

In the beginning God created. 

Because the story, our story, the salvation redemption story, the Christmas story, it all starts there. 

Think about John's gospel: In the beginning was the word. 

Jesus was in the beginning and he became in another beginning. 

It's not too late to go back to the beginning this advent. 

Ann Voskamp is turning my Christmas upside down with her book, The Greatest Gift. John Piper starts Good News of Great Joy in Luke. 

But Ann starts where we all start: Genesis. 

Is that crazy? 

Today is day three of Advent, soI read, 

The woman... Saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some of the fruit to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the LORD God walking about in the garden. So they his from The Lord God among the trees. Then The Lord God called to the man, Where are you? Genesis 3:6-9 (NLT I think) 

Did you see it? 

Right from the start, we have the reason for the one who is coming. 

Writes Ann, "And that moment when your heart turns to His heart - already turned to you? The fall turns into a falling into His  everlasting arms" 

Arms wrapped in swaddling cloths and later, stretched out on the cross. 

We were created for His joy and then Jesus came as man for ours. 

But it all starts in the beginning. Don't miss it this Christmas. 

Advent: He Came, and He is Coming

Today, during communion time, I felt so overwhelmed with all my sin. Coming to the table before the cross, I see Jesus for who He is and His radiance shows me my filth (see 1 Corinthians 11:17-34). I sat there, head bowed, and then I heard a whisper to my soul, "Give thanks, my daughter, I am coming. I came and I am coming. Come to the table, my loved one". I stood before the cross and dipped the body broken for me into the blood poured out to cover my sin and I tasted it and that the Lord is GOOD (Psalm 34:8). I stood with my church family as we proclaimed,

Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man may no more die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn king

Because today is the first (Sun)day of Advent

And Advent means coming

And the angel Gabriel came to tell Mary that the God-Man would be coming to her body and to the earth (Luke 1:26-38)

And Jesus came that we might see His glory and be rescued from our sin, that one glorious day we would come to the feast of the Lamb

Because He came

And He is coming