Five Minute Friday: Vivid

Although it kills me, not being able to go back and edit, I'm joining The Gypsy Mama once again for her Five Minute Friday writing prompt: Vivid.

Start:

The shopping mall felt sad. I picked through the racks of leftover clothing, finding only gray and black. I noticed the absence of busy shoppers, decked in festive clothing and jingle bells. I missed the songs of snowmen and reindeer, angels and hallelujah. January felt cold and gray.

It snowed last night. Today I look out y window at blue sky, clumps of white hanging heavy from evergereen branches. Chunks of venison simmer atop my stove in Madeira, onion, and bay leaf and thyme. The frangrance fills my home. I cranked the Pandora station loud on the TV downstairs. I hear, “Holy, holy, holy. The whole earth is filled with your glory.” On a day like today, when colors and smells and sounds are vivid, I hear the truth in these words.

But we see through a mirror dimly, scripture says. And I know that the brilliance and beauty of this January day will one day seem gray compared to what will be. Colors and scents and sounds will be vivid and alive when angels and stars join the song of hallelujah.

Stop.

A Curiosity Journal

My friend Ann Kroeker posts a weekly curiosity journal to recap her week. She uses the tag words: reading, playing, learning, reacting, and writing to shape her posts. For some time I’ve thought about joining Ann, especially since my primary blogging strategy has been to find people who seem to know what they’re doing and then imitate them. Also, my writing well has felt a little dry lately. So here goes:

Reading

I’ve always been one of those people who is reading multiple books at the same time. Now that I have a Kindle and can download books at the push of a button, my habits seem to have gotten much worse.

After hearing many, many, many of my friends recommend Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life, by Emily P. Freeman; I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. So far, the only thing I don’t like about this book is that Emily didn’t write it thirty years ago. I’m planning to write a review or maybe a series of posts about Emily’s book when I finish it. I’ve highlighted so many passages; however, I’ll probably end up re-reading the entire book when reviewing my notes. One particular passage I’m mulling is Emily’s reflection on the lives of Mary and Martha. She wrote:

Martha’s desire to please clouded her willingness to trust. . . . Given the choice to please God or to trust God, good girls become conflicted. We know we’re supposed to trust God, but trust is so intangible. It almost seems passive in the face of all there is to do.

Emily’s words read like she’s been living inside my head. Or my heart. Oh, and at the beginning of chapter twelve, Emily admits she never liked the phrase quiet time all that much. I think she really is a kindred spirit.

I’m also reading The Dancing Priest, a novel by Glynn Young. I postponed starting this one, again after reading many, many, many recommendations. Some folks said they started reading this book and couldn’t put it down it. I keep putting it down, savoring it. I’m thoroughly enjoying this story and don’t want it to come to an end.

I downloaded and started reading The Jesus Creed, by Scot McKnight. I kept seeing references to this book, and then I learned that McKnight is a professor at North Park University where my son goes to school. After I started reading The Jesus Creed, I saw a reference to it by Ann Voskamp. I figure, any day I’m on the same page as Ann Voskamp has got to be a good day.

Playing

Alumni Chapel. Photo by Tamara Gerhard

Most of the playing I’ve done lately, I’ve done vicariously. My son just returned to college after having been home for four weeks for Christmas break. During that time he played piano with some of his buddies during an alumni chapel at his former school, attended a New Year’s Eve swing dance party, went ice skating, attended a dinner party for which all the guests dressed up, and got together with former youth group members to play and record hymns and praise music. I sat back and watched these young people interact, delighting in each one and growing in gratitude for these friendships in my son's life.

I'm also thinking, maybe my writing well wouldn't feel so dry if I did some playing of my own.

Learning

I’m working my way through another book, an E-book by Sharon Hujik titled, How to Move From Blogger to WordPress. I’m learning, or threatening to learn, about all sorts of interesting things like File Transfer Protocols, DNS Servers, and CHMOD.

At one point the instructions read: “If you make a mistake here, you will lose access to your blog.”

If you notice my blog’s gone missing, assume I didn’t follow the instructions. Or have been raptured. Even if I destroy my blog, I figure I will have learned something. And I can always start over, right? I’m actually kind of jazzed about playing around with this stuff, and maybe engaging my brain in this way will help me fight off dementia somewhere down the road. Or maybe I’m just playing around with this technical stuff because right now it seems easier than writing.

I’ve been talking to some folks about helping me with some site design stuff. They’re good folks, and I hope I get to introduce you to them soon. I just need to earn a few more dollars first. In the meantime I may play around on my current site, rearranging the furniture a bit.

Reacting

It got cold and finally snowed for the first time since the freak storm back in October. I’m not reacting well. Also, my Christmas tree is still up. Don’t judge me. I don’t react well to the transition from the joy and beauty of Christmas to the cold and gray of January.

Writing

See above sections on playing and learning. Have I mentioned my well’s a little dry? Anyone interested in guest posting?

I know that writing helps me write, and I took a long break from doing so while my son was at home. I don't regret my decision to take time off, but I'm finding it awfully difficult to get back in the rhythm of writing.

So there you have it: my first ever Curiosity Journal. And a completed blog post.

Let me know your suggestions for when the writing well runs dry. Or your gears get rusty. Or whatever overworked metaphor for getting your butt back in the chair and starting over works for you. Maybe I’ll try some of them.

You know, if I don’t blow up my blog.

A Place I Don't Know

My name is Nancy, and I’m a recovering planner.

With a flip of a page, my calendar tells me it’s time to get back to real life or something like it. On my way to drop off my car for servicing this morning, I saw naked, discarded Christmas trees lining city streets.  I stopped behind yellow buses returning children to school as adults resumed normal work routines. I’m sitting at my computer, trying to get back into my writing pattern, watching my cursor blink, and wondering what to say about the activities of the past few weeks or about my plans for the New Year.

Because I thoroughly enjoyed my break from blogging over Christmas. And I have no idea what to expect in the year ahead.

I like having a plan and knowing what to expect. Life, for me, slips into a sweet spot when I’ve got it organized with calendars, lists, and spreadsheets. When my husband takes me out on one of his death-defying hikes over and through mountain passes, I like seeing the map and knowing how much further the climb is to our destination.

I don’t really have a plan for this year. Most years I’ve had specific tasks to accomplish, goals to work toward, or milestones to commemorate: home schooling my kids, visiting colleges and filling out applications, celebrating graduations, planning a wedding. This year I flipped open my new calendar only to be greeted by a succession of blank pages. I think I’d like to linger a little while longer in the warm glittering joy of Christmas rather than confront the harsh, cold reality of blank calendar pages.

One of the highlights of the past few weeks, in addition to having my children home for Christmas, was seeing them reunited with old friends. My son and his friends compared experiences from their first semesters in college. They discussed the quality of the food in their respective cafeterias. Some reported that they loved their schools and could hardly wait to get back. Others said the first semester had beaten them up pretty badly; the transition was harder than they expected. Several, after choosing a particular school because of a specific major offered, found themselves intrigued by a completely different program of study. A few wondered whether or not they were on the right path and how their classroom experience might possibly ever translate into anything in the real world.

I want to tell my son and his friends that they’ll be okay; they’ll figure things out. Although life may feel uncertain at the moment, I’m confident God has created and gifted each of them for His purposes. I trust that, by His Spirit, He will equip them to discern His calling on their lives. But I don’t really live that way. I want a plan, a step-by-step, connect-the-dots, turn-by-turn GPS leading me to a certain destination by a certain date, world without end, amen.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8, ESV

I understand the value of planning. I know I’ve been the recipient of many good things because my husband is exceptionally gifted at the whole long-range thinking and planning thing. But I also know how tempting it is for me to look for comfort and security in making and having a plan. I’ve witnessed enough of my own fears and frustrations when I’ve seen my plans go astray. Or completely blow up in my face.

So I’m entering the New Year, trying to make peace with uncertainty. I’ve got some ideas, some plans; some goals, but I’m trying to hold them loosely. I’ll keep writing, keep trying to respond to the blinking cursor. But in the year ahead I want to be open to where God is leading, even if it’s to a place I don’t know.

Rejoining Jen and the sisterhood:

Getting What I Wanted

Having received my gifts early, I'll be taking time off from my blog to enjoy them. Merry Christmas to all I've met here in this space, and in real life. You are gifts to me. See you in 2012.

Emmanuel! God is with us.

The Hard Work of Christmas

Each year I make traditional Swedish Pepparkakor for Christmas, and each year doing so is one of my least favorite tasks. Working from a family recipe handwritten by my sister-in-law, I roll and cut out nearly a hundred thin ginger cookies; a job which keeps me on my feet for several hours. I wish I could cut the recipe in half and make fewer cookies, but it calls for only a single egg and I have yet to figure out how to cut a raw egg in half. Although I enjoy them, Pepparkakor are hardly my favorite cookie. The dough is dry, crumbly, and hard to work with. The older I get, and the more excess weight I carry on my hips, the more my joints object to the hours I spend standing at the counter rolling out crumbly dough.

So why do I do it?

I'm honored to be hanging out with my friend Michelle DeRusha @ Graceful today. Won't you click here to read the rest of the story?

Going Postal At Christmas

Revisiting a post I wrote last Christmas in honor of the good people who work at my local post office. They're the best!

Last Saturday, I had to go to the post office to mail Christmas presents.

I know. What was I thinking?

I used to be the kind of person who had Christmas cards out by the first of December and gifts wrapped, packed, and shipped no later than December's first weekend.  I considered it my personal gift to postal employees everywhere to plan ahead and help them out during this busy season.

I was terribly proud of myself for being so organized. And smug. But life got in the way this year, and pride goeth before destruction and all that, so I was ready to show up at my local post office and do penance for all my years of smugness.

And was delightfully surprised.

The employees at my local post office had gone all out for their customers, determined to send each one away smiling.They had set up a television and were showing How The Grinch Stole Christmas for all the customers who waited in line. Earlier in the season I had stopped in and found It's a Wonderful Life playing on continuous loop.The woman at the counter said showing it helped keep everyone smiling, because each customer seemed to have a favorite line.

There was popcorn and candy at the counter, and the employees joked and laughed with each of us pathetic, bedraggled, delinquent package mailers. Customers began conversations with one another. One woman told us she was shipping copies of her family history out to her relatives.We all shared in the beauty of the gift she was giving.

We shared in community in my little local post office on the last Saturday before Christmas and, in the last place I expected, I received a beautiful gift.

Originally posted December 20, 2010; edited and revised.

Blue Christmas? You Can Dance If You Want To.

We sat around the table, my husband, my mother and me; Christmas lights draped from the restaurant’s ceiling beams, seasonal music playing softly in the background. I glanced at my mother, catching her just as she wiped a tear from her eye. I stopped to listen to the song which played.

It was Elvis singing; I’ll have a blue Christmas, without you.

I have to be honest. I think that song has got to be among my least favorites in the entire Christmas music catalog, and I’m not sure it represents Elvis at his musical best. I usually change the station when I hear Elvis singing the intro in his halting, bluesy style. The song just never packed much of an emotional punch for me.

But my mother had just buried her husband of thirty-three years. She was facing her first Christmas without him.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of great joy, of celebration with family and friends gathered all around. But each of us, I imagine, has experienced a season when maybe we just weren’t feeling it. Some may have lost a family member during the preceding year; others may be estranged from a loved one. Headlines confirm ongoing economic uncertainty.

In her book, God in the Yard, L.L. Barkat wrote about the value of experiencing grief in order to enter more fully into seasons of celebration. Recalling a childhood history which included both divorce and alcoholism, Barkat wrote:

David Whyte says we spend too little time experiencing griefs, so they stay hidden, and our joy stays hidden with them. “It is as if the two are simply two ends of the same whole. Remove the experience at one end of the scale by curtailing our capacity for grief and the whole emotional body shrinks to a bland middle, curtailing equally our capacity for joy.”

In his series on the life of David, my pastor preached about the song of lament Israel’s future king wrote following the deaths of Jonathan and Saul. Scripture says David tore his clothes, wept, and fasted; he and all the men who were with him. David then said his song should be taught to the people of Judah, so that future generations could join in grieving the fall of Israel’s anointed.

Several chapters later scripture paints a picture of David at the other end of the emotional spectrum, dancing before the Lord as the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem. David’s joy was so unrestrained that his wife voiced contempt for him. Unfazed, his response to her in 2 Samuel 6: 21 was, “. . . I will make merry before the LORD.” David danced even after seeing one of his men struck down for demonstrating carelessness in approaching God in his holiness. Giving voice to the depth of his true grief, and knowing his utter unworthiness to receive mercy from a holy God, freed David to dance and make merry with unapologetic joy.

The year I lost my father, just two weeks before Christmas, was the season I learned to love the holiday most dearly. Every year I read articles and listen to conversations about how best to keep Christmas celebrations centered on Christ. Maybe the best way to do so is by fully entering into the blue-ness of the season, daring ourselves to tell the truth about what’s messed up, broken, and sad in our lives. Because when life is all hunky-dory, I don’t know how desperately I need tidings of comfort and joy. Without entering into grief and sadness, I don’t really know how much I need Jesus.

“Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things,” Shakespeare told his audience at the end of his tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps doing likewise will pave the way for a merrier, more Christ-centered Christmas this year. He came to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found.

You can dance if you want to.

David Whyte, cited in: Barkat, L.L. God In the Yard: Spiritual Practice For the Rest of Us. Ossining, NY: T.S. Poetry Press, 2010, pp. 105-106.

Linking with Michelle @ Graceful:

 And with Jen and the sisterhood:

Christmas is Coming, The Goose is Getting . . . Flat?

Thoughts of Christmas dinner probably call to mind traditional foods: a stuffed, roasted turkey with all the trimmings; a pineapple glazed ham, studded with cloves; a festive crown roast of pork wreathed in a string of fresh cranberries. Few people, I imagine, picture themselves either serving or eating Christmas road kill.

Several years ago the beloved Swede and I lived near a friend whose husband traveled frequently for work. It seemed she often found herself in the most unlikely predicaments when he was out of town, leaving her alone with the kids. Once she called, asking my husband to come over and rescue her dog which had gotten trapped under the porch, behind a snow bank. Another time her kids were pretending to be horses, jumping over hurdles they had built in the living room, when her son fell and broke his arm causing it to dangle at unnatural angles. She asked if I would come over and stay with her other kids while she took him to the emergency room.

So it came as little surprise when our friend called one day, near Christmas, to say her husband was out of town and she needed some help. She had accidentally run over one of her pet geese in the driveway with her minivan.

My friend lived on a lovely, country horse property with a small, idyllic pond in front of the house. She’d purchased several geese from friends who raised them for food, thinking their presence would add a touch of charm to the little pond. Each time she pulled in the driveway toward her house, however, the geese would charge toward her van, attempting to bite the tires. One day, one of the geese made a fatal miscalculation when charging toward the van and my friend found herself with a freshly killed goose in her driveway.

Not knowing the proper way to dispose of a dead goose, my friend thought about putting it in the freezer so her husband could take care of it when he got home. Instead she called my husband, the mighty hunter, and asked what he would do. Realizing the goose had been freshly killed, and bred for food in the first place, the Swede said, “We’ll take it.”

He brought it home, plucked that bird, and put it in the freezer. And on Christmas day we enjoyed roast goose with apricot and cornbread stuffing. It was delicious.

Years later, our friends introduced us to several of their acquaintances. It didn’t take long for them to make the connection, “Oh! You’re the ones who ate the pet goose for Christmas!”

“Yes,” we responded. “Yes. We are those hillbillies.”

Our story of the road-kill Christmas goose has been told and re-told, and we continue to meet folks who have heard it second-hand. And I’m convinced that, one day, the husband found himself on a business trip, seated on a plane next to a writer who worked our story into an episode of The Office. Watch the clip, decide for yourself, and then tell me, “Do you think our little story was the inspiration for Dwight Schrute?”

So, what will you be serving for Christmas dinner this year?

Empty Nest Christmas Tree

We picked out our tree together, just the two of us, the way we had back in the beginning. Back then, the beloved Swede and I had few ornaments to hang on our tree. During a quick trip to K-Mart one Friday evening after work, we picked up two strings of lights, some ornament hangers, and a package of red satin balls. We decorated our tree to the sound of a couple of Christmas records we had purchased, one by Anne Murray and the other by Barbara Streisand. We owned only a handful of other ornaments back then: an angel tree topper the Swede’s parents had given us the year we’d gotten engaged, handmade gifts from our new friends, another newlywed couple; a straw angel we’d found in a Scandinavian gift shop during our honeymoon. We were young and in love and, in our eyes, our sparsely decorated tree was a thing of beauty.

 Over the years we began to collect ornaments, picking up souvenirs from our travels together. On a summer vacation in Vermont, we picked up a glass ball painted to look like a cow. Friends had offered us free use of their ski cabin, which was about as much as we could afford to spend on a vacation back then. A ceramic mountain goat which has been dropped, broken, and re-glued several times reminds us of our backpacking trip in Glacier National Park. Our tree holds memories of the years when it was just the two of us, years when we were waiting for children.

When our kids came along, we started building their collections. Each year, the first ornament our daughter pulled out was a baby bottle dated the year of her first Christmas. Her foster parents had given it to her, those who had cared for her while we were awaiting approval to adopt. Next she always hung the cardboard tracing of her hand, the one our pastor’s wife helped her make one Sunday evening in the church nursery. Each year she’d measure her hand against it, surprised to see how much she’d grown. Her collection reflected her changing interests through the years: cross-stitched ornaments she’d made from scraps and pieces of my embroidery supplies; a replica of Samantha, the American Girl doll she’d saved her money to buy, a girl playing a flute, mementos from her trip to Switzerland.

The year our daughter left for college we put up our tree early, during Thanksgiving break, so she could join us in decorating it. Last year I packed up all her ornaments and sent them home with her to the newlywed apartment she now shares with her husband.

I carried my son’s ornaments upstairs this year, wondering if he wanted us to save them so he could hang them when he returns from college. “Go ahead. You hang them,” he said, his interest in family tree-decorating having waned over the past few years. The Swede and I took turns pulling memories from boxes. Some brought smiles; others, tears. We found the ugly Grinch ornament, the one which probably came as a Happy Meal toy and which we used to discourage him from hanging on the tree. It now resides in a prime location, front-and-center on the tree.

I stared at the picture of him, fused to a piece of Christmas fabric; the one of him holding the gingerbread house he’d made in kindergarten. I found a spot for Schroeder and Snoopy, the ornament which plays “Linus and Lucy,” and could almost hear my boy playing it the way he used to on our piano. I pulled Chip and Dale from the box we purchased at Disney World, recalling how my son couldn’t remember which character he’d met at the park was Chip and which was Dale. I laughed at the Elvis cow ornament, the one we’d picked up in an ice cream shop during one of my husband’s many business trips to Park City, Utah. I wondered how much longer my son’s ornaments would reside in our home and tried to imagine where they, where he, will be when they leave.

We decorated our tree together this year, just the two of us, just the way we’d begun all those years ago. We didn’t say much. Christmas music played softly in the background, instrumental CDs we’d picked up in Vermont and in Santa Fe. We remembered, our tree bearing witness to so many good years, years of God's goodness and faithfulness; years which have passed by all too quickly.

Linking with Jen and the sisterhood:

 

 And shared as a Community Post at The High Calling.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year To Be Lucy and Ethel

Mama always says, "Don't wear your bedroom slippers to the shopping mall."

But Mama's wisdom doesn't necessarily apply during Christmas. Especially when you've got some brand new jingling elf slippers:

And you're on your way with Ethel to get your annual Santa picture taken:

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First we had to have lunch and exchange gifts. And nothing quite sets the tone for a Christmas gift exchange like a retro diner which serves 26-inch hotdogs:

Over the years, Ethel and I have adorned ourselves for our photos with some fairly ridiculous accessories: reindeer antlers, elf hats, feather boas. This year, after reading an ebook about practicing Advent, we decided to deck ourselves in purple. Yep, all day I was a long, cool, walking Advent pillar, and so was Ethel (although she's not nearly as long). All day we engaged in our own little secret Advent conspiracy.

Because writer Anne Lamott said, "You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. Sometimes you can point with it, too."

So we walked around all day bearing witness to the Source of ridiculous joy. And the amazing thing we discovered was: Once you know what you're looking for, you start seeing evidence of it everywhere:

Ethel gave me the most fantastically amazing handmade gift of love:

She saw a picture in a catalog of a sweater beaded in peacock feather patterns and thought to herself, "I can do that." And so she did. God has gifted my friend with amazing creativity and mad art skills.

I gave Ethel ice cube molds in the shape of false teeth. Because I'm classy like that. And because I know that someday, when we live next door to one another in a nursing home, she's the kind who's always going to be stealing my teeth. And I look forward to growing old and ever more ridiculous with my friend.

Then she opened the elf slippers. And we were on our way:

We like to believe we add a little joy to Santa's life, making the season more merry and bright for everyone:

For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas from Lucy and Ethel!

Linking our Advent playdate with Laura @ The Wellspring:

And, even though this may not have been what she had in mind, with Charity @ Wide Open Spaces who is hosting an Advent community writing project for The High Calling:

Chesterton, Lucy, Ethel, and Santa: The story of how our tradition began

Discovering Advent: E-book by Mark D. Roberts

Why I Want More For Christmas

This Christmas, I want more.

I know. I’m a follower of Jesus. I should be focusing my attention on celebrating the season in a Christ-centered way. I see the ads on TV and in my mailbox, the blatant appeals to consumerism and greed. I read about Christmas shoppers trampling one another in an effort to snag this year’s hottest item for a few dollars less. In this country, we celebrate the birth of our Lord by exchanging animal print Snuggies ™ even as children across the globe cry out in hunger and in need of clean water.

So we talk in our churches and across the blogosphere about doing Christmas differently. We want to focus on those things that really matter—the shepherds, the angels; the story. We try to come up with fresh ways of communicating biblical truths to our children, attempting to dispel fairy tales and myths. We try to teach them, and ourselves, to squelch desire and want less.

But what if Christmas really is about wanting more?

I remember childhood longing, the desire for something better and new. When the glossy, new Christmas catalogs arrived from Penney’s and Sears, my siblings and I took turns poring over their pages. I circled and starred my favorite items, things I didn’t even know I wanted until I saw them on the pages of the Wish Books. I made a list, alternating my hopes and dreams on paper in red and green ink. I noted colors and sizes. I wanted a rock tumbler. A candle-making kit. An outfit that would make me look less dorky when I walked the halls of my junior high school. I remember Christmas as a magical time when I dared to dream big and believe I could have the things my heart desired. I imagined life could be better.

I didn’t know, back then, that my parents could afford few of the items on my list. Usually, by the time I posted it, my parents had already completed their shopping. I received few of the items from my lists. When I did unwrap a gift and find in my hands something from the shiny catalog pages I knew my parents had heard the cry of my heart, perhaps recognizing my desire to appear less dork-like among my classmates.

It didn’t take long, however, to realize that the gifts I had longed for failed to meet my expectations. The new outfit didn’t look nearly as good on my gangly teenage frame as it had on the model in the catalog. I learned that the rock tumbler would take weeks to polish my chunks of granite into smooth chunks of granite. The candle molds leaked when I poured melted paraffin into them, spilling hot bayberry-scented wax onto my mother’s kitchen counters, dripping it into the crack next to the stove. I’ll bet there’s still a pool of hardened wax between the stove and counter top in my old house.

Although the gifts I imagined would bring me joy failed to satisfy my deepest longings, I’m glad my parents didn’t tell me to stop hoping and dreaming. In his recently published e-book titled Discovering Advent, theologian Mark D. Roberts wrote of children and their hopes and expectations for Christmas. He said,

Rather than discouraging these hopes (which is a hopeless task!), I would urge parents to help their children get the “feel” of Advent by relating their hopes to biblical Advent themes.

I don’t want to stop hoping and dreaming, and I’m not sure it’s wise to teach children to do so. Perhaps instead we should recognize desire as a good thing, a holy restlessness for things to be better than they are. I’m not content believing that this life is as good as it gets. Maybe the problem with Christmas isn’t that we hope for too much; it’s that our hopes are too small.

Because what I really want is to live in a world where everyone I love is happy and healthy and whole. I want the entire family gathered around a table, where food and wine are abundant and good, and there is no tension or conflict. I want beauty and lights and music everywhere, and all the time. I want to live in a world where cancer, mental illness, addiction, and abuse don’t exist; where children don’t die of hunger or preventable disease and aren’t trafficked as slaves. I want to see organizations like Compassion International run out of children who need sponsors.

And I fully expect to get everything on my list.

Because all those stories about shepherds and angels remind me that God knows the deepest longings in the hearts of his people, and He keeps His promises. The birth of that baby fulfilled all the promises of the scriptures and the prophets. So when scripture tells me that the Joy of Every Longing Heart is going to return, and He is making all things new, I dare to hope for unimaginably big things.

Because I think wanting more is the most Christ-centered way of keeping Christmas of all.

So I will give and receive gifts this Christmas; some of which will satisfy hopes and dreams, however imperfectly. And I'll support the work of those who offer hope in the name of that Bethlehem baby. But rather than trim my wish list or pare down my expectations this Christmas, I’ll give full voice to my deepest longings and desires. Join me?

If someone asked what your deepest longings were for this Christmas, what would you say?

Joining emily:

 And Bonnie @ Faith Barista:

 

And wishing a happy birthday and hoping for big things for David, my Compassion child who turns five years old today! Click the link for more information about offering hope to a child through Compassion International.