What's It All For?

Get the tree.  Make the cookies.  Buy the presents.  Take the (torturous) family pictures.  Send them out.  Go to the Christmas parties.  Wrap the presents.  Try to remember if there are other presents stashed in the house that you forgot about.  Buy the ham.  Shop for Christmas outfits.  Buy film for the camera for Christmas morning.  Charge the camera battery for Christmas morning.  Make sure your phone is charged to take pictures on Christmas morning.  Stop eating the Christmas cookies.  Try to lose a few pounds before December 24^th when you will see all of your family.  Eat an entire batch of Spritz cookies.  Get to the post office to send out-of-town gifts.  Go to school concerts.  Endure said band or orchestra concert with elementary or middle school students, while your mind is mentally going over all the things you need to do (and secretly hoping your ears are not bleeding from the sound).  Try desperately to finish the things on that list.  Fall into bed each night, exhausted. 

Is this what the Christmas season is for?  Each year, we look back and vow to make next year different.  Have we ever made the next year different?  Have we ever had a Christmas season that we look back on and say, “Yep, I kept Christ as the center of Christmas and we didn’t get caught up in needless and stressful things.”? 

What if Christmas looked like this- Get the tree… or not.  Decorate it or not.  Make Christmas cookies or not.  Play soft instrumental Christmas music (Pandora has a great station).  Go to school concerts and really, really pay attention to your child.  Buy presents or not.  Buy new Christmas outfits or not.  Read an Advent scripture passage each day, or every few days, or just one time before Christmas comes.  Make hot cocoa and popcorn and snuggle in to watch a Christmas movie.  Stop what you are doing (no matter what it is, everything else can wait), take your child’s face in your hands, look into their eyes and tell them that the God of this universe loves them so much that He sent His Son to earth, for the purpose of dying to save us, because He did not want to be separated from us.  Now really, go and do this.  GO!  Even if your kids will think you are super weird, embrace your inner weirdo and do it.  And lest you think I’m just barking out orders I did this with my daughter.  She, of course, looked at me with an, “Okaaaaaaay….?” Look on her face and said, “I know, Mom.”  And guess what, she will remember it.   

This is why we have Christmas.  Christmas isn’t about cookies.  It isn’t about decorating a Christmas tree.  It isn’t about driving around looking at Christmas lights.  It isn’t about opening presents on Christmas morning.  Christmas actually isn’t even about being with family.  Christmas actually isn’t even about giving to others.  That may sound really blunt, but Christmas is about God.  It’s about the Father loving us, how we turned our backs on Him and walked away, how He had a plan to stay connected with us, how He put that plan into motion, how He sent His Perfect Son to earth (a pretty rotten place if you really look at the scope of it!), for the sole purpose of dying so that we would have the chance to be united with Him forever.  Boom.  THAT is what Christmas is all about.  That’s it.  Even Christians, CHRIST FOLLOWERS and LOVERS OF THE LORD make it about more than this, myself included. 

But Christmas is about God.  Let’s remember that this season in whatever we are doing.  Christmas is about God.  It’s not about us.  It’s not about who we see or the presents we give or the food we eat or the Christmas cards we send or the money we donate or the decorations we put up.  It’s about God. 

But I am a practical girl.  I am going to do a lot of those things.  So let’s keep GOD in the direct center of all that we do.  Let’s go look at Christmas lights and tell our kids that we can shine the light of Jesus just as those Christmas lights shine.  2 Corinthians 4:6 tells us,

For God, who said,

“Let light shine out of darkness,”

made his light shine in our hearts

to give us the light of the

knowledge of God’s glory

displayed in the face of Christ. 

Let’s make sweet Christmas cookies and tell our kids what Psalm 19:9-10 says,

The fear of the Lord is pure,

    enduring forever.

The decrees of the Lord are firm,

    and all of them are righteous.

They are more precious than gold,

    than much pure gold;

they are sweeter than honey,

    than honey from the honeycomb.

This Christmas let’s give gifts to others and tell our children that we give gifts because God gave the ULTIMATE gift.  Romans 6:23 tells us,

For the wages of sin is death,

but the gift of God is eternal life

in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christmas is about the Father, giving us the best gift of all, wrapped up in a simple cloth for anyone who would reach out their hand and simply receive this gift of eternal life. 

And there you have it folks, that’s what it’s all for.  Easy peasy. 

35 Things in My 35th Year

As I approach my 35th year in life, the word "intentional" has been a prevalent one for Jeremiah and I.  There are lots of things in life that I'm glad that I have done, but definitely some things that I still want to do.  Inspired by my SIL Stephanie, I have decided that I want to complete 35 things in my 35th year.
1. Do a mud run (this will be completed two days before my birthday, but I'm counting it!)
2. Go on a silent retreat.
3. Learn to play a great song on the piano
4. Feed a homeless person a meal
5. Go somewhere I've never been before
6. Go ice skating on Buffalo Lake
7. Go to and eat at a Pizza Farm
8. Go geo-caching
9. Do the drive-thru difference and leave a note about Christ's love
10. Complete one month with no pop
11. Paint a canvas
12. Deliver flowers anonymously
13. Share the Gospel with someone who has not heard it
14. Indulge more heavily in my old hobby of bow shooting
15. Read a classic novel... Most likely War and Peace
16. Learn to make pie crust
17. Read Proverbs everyday for a consecutive 31 days
18. Take an impromptu trip with someone who will be equally as excited as me to do so
19.
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35.

Light in the Dark

God first placed a desire for missions in my heart in 9^th grade.  Our church youth group was headed up to Belcourt, ND to a Native American Indian reservation about a ½ hour from the U.S. and Canada border.  Now when I say that God placed a “desire for missions on my heart,” I say that rather loosely.  What I really mean is that God was working through my desire to go on a 10 day trip with a lot of my best friends and a lot of cute boys.

Up until then I had been a fairly sheltered kid, as most of us are.  Sure my dad had driven me through his old stomping grounds in North Minneapolis where we would see people of all sorts, engaged in all sorts of activities, where my dad would never actually come to a complete stop at stop signs simply because he’s a smart guy.  But our trip to Belcourt would open my eyes to the vastness of the word “poverty.”  Poverty, by Webster, is defined as 1. Lack of money or possessions, or 2. Poor quality.  All of the above and more were true in Belcourt, North Dakota.

Belcourt… even though here, within the U.S. borders, still its own nation with many troubles.

Belcourt… where most kids get to eat only once per day; meals that are provided at the school, year round.

Belcourt… most are deprived of the Gospel message because their religious history with the spirit world runs very, very deep.

Belcourt… a very solemn place, pretty void of any happiness, peace, joy or contentment. 

Belcourt… a place where the children either craved the attention that we would pour out onto them or be afraid of us.  They craved attention because none was ever given, but some were very afraid of us because the only interaction that they got with anyone who was older was abusive. 

Our main goal for the week was to exhibit and show love to these kids and tell them about the saving power of a relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of the only God. 

We would run a 5 day Vacation Bible School for any child who wanted to come to VBS.  We had kids as little as 2 and as old as 18.  On the Sunday before we started, we would go to the housing projects to recruit and advertise.  What I saw was this: (and remember we were in North Dakota… Minnesota’s NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR!)

-Houses provided by their government, but very run down

-Alcohol bottles ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE. Yet alcohol is illegal on the reservation

-Naked or barely clothed children running unattended

-Oral hygiene that would shock you

-Stench and stink that I didn’t know existed

-Numerous children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome because their mothers drank to great excess while they were pregnant

Why do I give you these pictures and descriptions?  Because it was real and it was right next to us here in Minnesota.  We drove, in a coach bus, to this town in one day.  We walked the streets littered with beer cans, liquor bottles and other drug garbage.  We scooped up kids in our arms, and  would wonder when the last time they bathed was… and question if it was ever…  We would tell them about Jesus and have many respond that they weren’t allowed to listen to us when we talked about that stuff.  We would pray that our words would fall on at least a tiny piece of fertile soil in their hearts.

I would return to Belcourt two more times in my teens and early twenties and what I would see would remain mostly the same.  But the words I would hear would bring joy and hope to my heart!  “Hey!  You guys were here 3 years ago!”  “I remember when your group came before!”  “Hey, you’re the kids from Minnesota who do the Bible School, right?”  “Hey Blondie, I remember you.”  “Can I come to your camp even though I am in high school?”  “Can I bring my friend too?” 

And we would have a chance to sit with the Christian leaders of their community and hear them talk of the enormous struggle to break the chains of bondage in their heritage.  But to see that the Holy Spirit is there, even if only seemingly as a tiny spark, He is there. 

Which brings me, fast-forwarded 12 years, to a pitch, black tunnel in the underground of Lalibela, Ethiopia in 2013.  When I say pitch black, I mean PITCH BLACK.  Pitch black, people!!!!  You could not see your hand if it was a millimeter from your eyes, even if you waved it around.  It wasn’t even close to closing your eyes, because there was NO light, absolutely NONE.  Now I had read John 1:5 that says, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”  And I know the meaning and all that, but to truly and actually experience this kind of blackness was surreal.  In the tunnel it took a little while for it to get completely dark, but once it was, it was a several minute walk, through this very small, hand carved tunnel, in the PITCH BLACK, before light appeared again. 

After this experience, I thought about two things:

1. In the pitch black I never felt alone.  I was soaking in the experience of this and using it as a time to actually practice my faith.  Others might be blessed to practice theirs where and when I don’t, but God used this time with me to draw me to his heart.  I thought about Psalm 23 when it says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you will be with me.”  This was so much darker than a shadow (however, I realize there was no death around me either) and I focused on “…I shall fear no evil, for you will be with me.”  And He was.  And He is.  And He will be. 

2. The second thing I thought a lot about afterwards and after a conversation with Guy, who had been walking in front of Wendy, who was walking right in front of me, was about darkness not overcoming light.  I had actually experienced this.  Light always infiltrates the dark.  At each end of the tunnel there was light.  When we were in the middle, in the PITCH BLACK (have I mentioned that it was completely dark in there?!) and coming close to the end, we knew we were close because even with the teeniest amount of light you could see more and more.  We didn’t get to the end and have darkness spill out on to the open ground.  The pitch black had no power of any bit of light. 

Where there is darkness in this world of any sort, whether it be poverty, slavery, addiction, idolatry, greed, deceit, or any type of evil, it cannot remain pitch black when light is introduced to it’s midst.  Light will always shine when it encounters darkness.

When I was on my way to and from Ethiopia I frequently had the question, “Why do you have me here Lord?” and one of the reasons, I realized, was to be part of that light throughout my life.  There is darkness here in Buffalo, in Minnesota, in the Midwest, in the U.S.A., and all over the world.  But when we, Christ followers, venture to step into that dark, we will shine.  Because the Holy Spirit dwells in us and will never leave us, we will shine. 

We can tend to become overwhelmed when we see the big-picture-need in the world.  But God doesn’t call us to be able to see all and know all, He’s got that covered.  We are called to be disciples of Christ who shine in dark places.

No matter what dark (or darkish) place you are in…

No matter what you are doing there (building, teaching, being, doing, etc.)…

No matter how long or short you are there…

If the Holy Spirit lives in you, then the light of Christ WILL shine where you are!

So go, go somewhere and let Christ shine His light of love through you.