Raining, inside and out

Today we're in a downpour. If we lived in a state that actually recognized winter as a season, it would be snowing and beautiful and fun for kids. But instead, its just cold and soggy and miserable. I don't like the rain. I look out my window and feel grouchy and sad.

But I woke up thinking This is the day that the Lord has made...I will rejoice and be glad in it.

And joy has been raining inside my house.

Giggles from kids playing, not fighting, sprinkled down for hours.

My husband, adorable in his knit beanie and PJs, made a fire in the fireplace, then made chocolate chip pancakes with the gigglers.

I sat making more gifts, working fabric and needle, watching a stream of stitches trickle with a therapeutic rhythm.

Mulling spices misted above the stovetop.

Chai tea spilled into white cups.

And Christmas music continued to pour fourth its blessing, one album after another.

This song, Eternal Gifts, by Leigh Nash is quickly becoming one of my favorite Christmas songs. Listen. It will warm your heart today.

And tonight, we were to have a party. An outdoor one. Thirty people, our friends, were coming. I am disappointed that it needs to be postponed.

But maybe, God has something else in store for this rainy night.

He loves surprises. He loves to rain down on us the thing we aren't expecting, until our cups overflow. We can never predict when He'll reach down, sweep our plans aside, and ordain a silent night. A holy night.

All is calm. All is bright.

My Cookie and A Story

Today, my "Cookie and a Story" entry is posted on Kendra's blog, My First Kitchen. Yay! 

There are 20 other finalists besides mine (each has been posted for one day this month), and voting for the favorite will begin on Dec. 22nd. The winner wins a bunch of awesome stuff for their kitchen. So I hope I win! Next week, I'll remind you to vote for me if you have a minute.

For now, you can check out my recipe for Italian Anise cookies along with a little story about my family heritage here.

This recipe has withstood much. Immigration. The Great Depression. And the passing of several generations of capable hands.

And perhaps one day, my little aspiring baker (shown above) will make these cookies for her own family.

* Wishing you a sweet Friday *

Lesson from the antique store globe

I feel kind of ridiculous.

A bunch of holiday-related responsibilities are spinning around in my life; they are mild sources of stress, taking up all my time and energy, and I want to complain. I want to list out every annoyance. All the stuff and people and jobs and food I have to buy and wrap and make and manage. Too many extras on my plate and I start to get annoyed about it all.

So a while ago, I'm staring at the globe on my desk. I bought it at the local antique store strictly for its cool colors. All shades of turquoise. I love turquoise. And it is hard for me to stop my mind which is bathed in annoyance long enough to remember that the globe is a representation of something. I tell myself to remember that it's not just a pretty, turquoise picture wrapped and pasted onto a sphere. All the squiggly lines are outlining countries. Real countries, filled with real people. I keep staring.

Most of them don't celebrate Christmas.

It's the same today as when Jesus was born. The world kept on turning. Hardly anyone noticed the baby. Even given the smaller population of the world at the time, the birth of Jesus didn't turn more than a few heads. Today, fewer and fewer people, it seems, acknowledge Him at Christmas.

And I feel ridiculous. I feel like complaining about so many trivial things, when I am celebrating the birth of my Savior. It's like I know the combination of the lock on the safe that holds everything I've ever needed, but I keep getting distracted by a pebble in my shoe.

First I felt ridiculous, and now I feel convicted. I know the combination. And all those people.... and all these people, meaning not just those in distant lands, but on my own street. These, right before my eyes, they need the combination and they don't even know it. I have it. They need it.

And it's Christmas. Hardly anyone is noticing the baby.

I have to ask again, Lord, open the eyes of my heart. Let my life, my love, and my every way point to the baby like a star in the midnight sky.
   

Wish I had a river

Joni Mitchell's River is another of my all time favorite Christmas songs.

I know, I know. I may have some opposition here. It's not really a Christmas song at all. It's more of a winter song. Not even a nod towards Jesus and the story of Christmas. But just bear with me; it's spiritual, under the surface. And actually quite moving to me.

If you haven't already gathered, or happen to be reading this blog for the first time in your life, I am a melancholy girl through and through. I find beauty in not only the beautiful things in life, but the bittersweet and sad as well. To me, there is something poignantly lovely about the human experience from its splendor to its grief. God created all our emotions, not just the happy ones, and for His good purposes. That's why a good cry can feel so good. And hitting our limits forces us to look outside ourselves for a Savior. It is in the plea, when we're at our end, that we can find that which is truly life-giving. Personally, my moments of deepest grief, deepest pain, have resulted in the most beautiful seasons in my heart. I've met God more intimately in those moments than in all the other pleasant ones combined. What isn't completely lovely about that?

Back to River.

It's comin' on Christmas.
They're cutting down trees.
They're putting up reindeer,
Singing songs of joy and peace.
Oh, I wish I had a river that I could skate away on.

You know this song? Isn't it depressing? Before I listened closely, I thought, but why? Why is she so down on Christmas? The song rambles through a few verses of winter-themed commentary, but we don't get an answer to the question of "why" until about halfway in:

I wish I had a river that I could skate away on,
'Cause I made my baby cry...

I'm so hard to handle.
I'm selfish and I'm sad 
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had.
Oh I wish I had a river that I could skate away on.

There it is. Brokenness. Loss. Remorse. Hurt. The Plea.

And this plea - whether Joni Mitchell's herself, or merely an invented character - is not so different from ours. Hard to handle? Check. Selfish? Check. Sometimes sad? Check. Doing my share of damage to my loved ones? Check and sigh. Sometimes I plain hate the sound of my own voice by the end of the day. 

But the woman in River makes an unfortunate, though very human choice. Her plea causes her to decide to retreat. Now, I've had these days. Sometimes weeks. I stop offering my true self. A relationship gets messy and hurtful and maybe I don't deserve more. Maybe the damage is irreparable. Maybe I'm alone. I start to believe there's only one choice.

Just. Skate. Away.

How many of us are way down that river in our hearts? How many of us have tried that route of managing our brokenness? Just skate away. All of us. Every one.

And you KNOW now why this is a Christmas song at its core. This messy, unpredictable, hurtful life spinning around us is exactly why Jesus came.

In His immense love for us, He became Immanuel, God with us. Not because we deserved it, but precisely because we didn't. When we were way the heck down the river, He came to save us. He came to be with us when we were sure we were alone.

In my life, I can tell you from experience, He continually works at melting all my rivers and quieting all my pleas. He gently reminds me that my plea, my yearning for healing and that abundant life, needs to turn me towards Him, not toward an icy path of resignation and retreat.

In River, again one of my favorite Christmas songs, Jesus whispers, I'm here. I've got this. So you can untie the skates.   

 

100 words for my 100th post

{These 100 words, for my 100th post, speak for themselves. They are from some more Christmas songs, and are infused with the meaning of Christmas for me.}

Fragile fingers sent to heal us

Tender brow prepared for thorn

Tiny heart whose blood would save us

Unto us is born, unto us is born.

So wrap our injured flesh around you

Breathe our air and walk our sod

Rob our sin and make us holy

Perfect Son of God

Welcome to our world

*

Mild he lays his glory by,

Born that man no more may die,

Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

*

Silent night. Holy night.

All is calm, all is bright.

*

O come let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord.

O Come O Come Emmanuel, Part 2

I spent some time alone this past weekend. I didn't plan to or really want to. Friday afternoon, I drove for three hours, and then waited for three more before I met up with a great friend whom I don't get to see often. I happened to be in an unfamiliar city while a beautiful Christmas parade was about to take place. I bought a hot tea, and determined to watch the parade, enjoying all the holiday revelry, alone.

I was trying to be a big girl, delighting in the cool air, wrapping my scarf a little more tightly, and smiling at sparkling-eyed kids watching the parade. It was enjoyable. To a point. But mostly I was keenly aware of my NOT being with someone and the way that made me feel. I stepped outside myself, observing my feelings of discomfort, and found that it was hard to be familiar with my alone self.

I wasn't a mommy, for the moment, which is my ever-present definition most hours of every day. I wasn't even a wife or friend or daughter to anyone present. I was just me, under the stars. My heart searched for a comfortable, settled understanding of just me, like when I lie in the sand and need to wiggle my own form into it first.

While I sorted through this state of being alone, I realized, again, that we were made to love and be loved. Relationship is stamped into our very being. It is a thread of need that we cannot remove. The thread can only be severed, leaving loose ends, and the sting of a promise broken.

But Jesus, Emmanuel, whose name means "God WITH us," came to us when we were alone. And in need. And stinging and broken. Our mistakes kept us severed from God. The earth shuddered with a plea: O Come O Come, Emmanuel. And His love for us welled up into a great crescendo of the cries of a laboring mother, and a birth. He came. To live and die, in order to heal our thread of relationship with Him.

When I am alone, under the stars, with no one else to define me, Emmanuel does. My relationship with my Father is what defines me. And not just when I'm alone, but that definition supersedes all the others, every day, when I let it.

Phillipians 2:6-7 is not often considered a Christmas passage, but it's message certainly is:

Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.

I don't think I would have made that trade - divine privileges for human flesh. In fact, I can't wait to trade in the opposite direction, when my days here are finished.

But He loves us. And so there is no where Jesus wouldn't go to be with us.
 
Grocery store, or parade, or cross.
 
No where he wouldn't go to be with me.

O Come O Come, Emmanuel, Part 1

This is my favorite Christmas song.

The lyrics speak something new to me each year, and this year is no different. I am reeling in thought over the words already.

Two days ago, its messages started seeping in, as I searched for a version of the song to add to my mixpod (my little blog iPod thing on the right).

O come O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.

O come. It starts with a plea, repeated and desperate. The melody is gilded with mystery and something ancient it seems.

And then a call, by name. Emmanuel means "God with us," a translation I will talk more about in another post. Our God came down to earth to be with us and to be us in nearly every way. That means he gets it. Anything I have to bring, he gets.

That pleading finally reached my center tonight. It became my plea, without my realizing it at first. I had a rough last couple of days as a mom, feeling blanketed with shame hearing the sound of my own harsh voice to my children. I finally brought my mess before Emmanuel, the one who understands because he was and is with us, and there is no human way I am able to hold back tears when I reach the point of the plea. I wonder if I can even plea at all unless I am crumpled up in need first.

A plea is not just asking for him, if he'll take a peek into my life. Check things out. It's not polite or careful. It's at the end of pretense and cover and excuse. And pride.

I am pleading, raw. O come, O come, Emmanuel...into my mothering and into my home and into my words. Please.

I sat on the couch in stillness for a few moments, wiping tears. Then something in my spirit responded, a quiet, gentle reply.

I'm already here. It is you who needs to come to me.

So. I'm doing my part. Moving my heart towards abiding. Again. It's so easy to get thrown off course, especially in busy seasons, sick seasons, weak seasons. And it's so easy to forget that it is more important than ever during those seasons to not just bring ourselves and our issues to our Emmanuel, but to stay put.