Can you believe 2012 is here?! I guess I am getting old because the years are passing so quickly. Looking back, 2011 has been an eventful year. I visited Haiti twice. The last time I was there I told the children I would have to return to see them because they had such a big piece of my heart. I think particularly of a beautiful teenager named Sophlyn. Her soft, shy smile is contagious! She wrote in my journal that she had never known she was pretty or that anyone loved her. Unimaginable? Not really.
My first visit in January to Haiti showed me horrific destruction and the way people had been forced to survive. Then came the April tornado here at home. My own town was destroyed, the economy deeply impacted. People were homeless overnight and lives were lost. The next morning my husband was at work, of course since he works for the power company, and I faced a challenge. I didn't yet know where the tornado had hit, or that there actually had been one, but I knew we had heavy winds the night before. I had to check the fence - were there trees down? Are the cows still inside that fence? Oh, I hoped they were!!
So, I donned my rain boots, jeans, and grabbed my cell phone. I walked around the fence, taking pictures and sending them to my hubby so he could assess the situation. Thankfully there was only the top of a tree across one small piece of fence. A friend came to clean it up and temporarily make some repairs. I was SO grateful. At the time I didn't know that the tornado had wiped out the houses on the other side of the ridge from me. As the day went on and phone calls came, I realized exactly how much I had to be thankful for.
The morning I returned from my second trip to Haiti, my daughter left to spend two weeks in Togo, West Africa. On my way home, a friend called to say she had found us a house for my mother-in-law. We had been looking for a long time. We even thought we had found the perfect house once. Somehow, though, the deal on that perfect house never seemed to work out. God had another plan. Today she is settled into what really is the perfect house. It's close, we can see it from our own home, and she has really good neighbors.
My mom made it through the first year without my dad. When he was alive, I didn't really talk to them much, just checked in now and again. Now I talk to her every day. (Pardon me while I take a break - it's that time of night.)
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Christmas Tree
I LOVE CHRISTMAS! The lights, the trees, the nativity scenes, the music....chocolate, laughter, parties, and even a little shopping! As the weather turns a little gloomy and the night comes earlier and earlier, the bright lights cheer me up. It is tradition that we drive around one night during the season to look at the decorated houses. We always go to downtown Chattanooga with some friends to look at the EPB windows and the Blue Cross windows with a stop a Starbucks in between. Christmas Eve we are at church, and Christmas day brings time with family and my mom's famous coconut cake.
Maybe it's because the year that we got married we almost didn't get a Christmas tree that now I have trees everywhere. Little ones, bigger ones, all special in their own way. The little wire tree on my kitchen table is colorful and bright. The tree in the front room is rigged to stand up since it is so old the stand broke. If there were a tree upstairs this year, it would have all the ornaments that tell the story of our life along with all the ornaments children have given to me over the years. The living room tree is formal, and the tree in our bedroom is actually in the way.
Next year I am going to simplify. Even though I love the trees, I struggle with the fact that I have way too many trees and some people don't have one at all. I went into two homes this Christmas where the young mom's couldn't afford a Christmas tree. It broke my heart. It made me stop to think about what Christmas really is about and what we have let it become.
Red and green, silver and gold, dreams of snow and mistletoe....carols by the fire, steaming cocoa, and sugar plums dancing in our heads.....Santas, snowmen, penquins, and polar bears....time with family and friends, candlelight services at church, the Nutcracker ballet...shopping and shopping and shopping!
My friend, I don't know who coined the phrase, but let's not forget, "Jesus IS the reason for the season." Honestly, in the last few weeks, in all the hurrying to get things done, worrying if I got everyone a gift they would like, trying to keep the house clean, I was blessed to receive a Christmas CD in the mail. The songs brought me back to center. My thoughts were refocused on Jesus, and the reason we celebrate this thing called Christmas. It's About the Cross. That song is on the CD I received, and it has spoken volumes to me. Christmas is the beginning of a beautiful love story. Jesus loved me enough to leave his throne in heaven, be born in a stable, laid in the straw, and grow up as a man to face brutal torture and death. Glory to God in the highest!
I am so thankful that we have this time of year. It forces us to think about giving. I love to give gifts (even though I get stressed out by the shopping). This year I had the honor of giving to a new friend. She is at a hard point in life and needed a little help. The smile on her face and the light in her eyes when she saw my meager offering for her family is still warming my heart today.
I think of the name given to our Lord, Emmanuel - God with us. In our Sunday morning Bible study we talked about that name. God right here with us implies a relationship. Relationship implies conversation, and then someone sent me a You Tube link about an eight month old deaf baby who, through a cochlear implant, was hearing his momma's voice for the first time. I watched it over and over. I wondered if that is how Jesus feels when I call his name. The look of wonder and awe on that baby's face keeps rerunning through my mind. It prompts me to call out "Jesus." I want the focus of my Christmas to be on WHY we celebrate, not what we DO to celebrate.
Next year there will be fewer trees at the Million home. Some of these will be given away to young mom's who won't be able to afford one. Sure, we will celebrate - REALLY CELEBRATE! Jesus IS the reason for the season, and this family has come together to agree to put the focus on Him.
Merry Christmas!
Maybe it's because the year that we got married we almost didn't get a Christmas tree that now I have trees everywhere. Little ones, bigger ones, all special in their own way. The little wire tree on my kitchen table is colorful and bright. The tree in the front room is rigged to stand up since it is so old the stand broke. If there were a tree upstairs this year, it would have all the ornaments that tell the story of our life along with all the ornaments children have given to me over the years. The living room tree is formal, and the tree in our bedroom is actually in the way.
Next year I am going to simplify. Even though I love the trees, I struggle with the fact that I have way too many trees and some people don't have one at all. I went into two homes this Christmas where the young mom's couldn't afford a Christmas tree. It broke my heart. It made me stop to think about what Christmas really is about and what we have let it become.
Red and green, silver and gold, dreams of snow and mistletoe....carols by the fire, steaming cocoa, and sugar plums dancing in our heads.....Santas, snowmen, penquins, and polar bears....time with family and friends, candlelight services at church, the Nutcracker ballet...shopping and shopping and shopping!
My friend, I don't know who coined the phrase, but let's not forget, "Jesus IS the reason for the season." Honestly, in the last few weeks, in all the hurrying to get things done, worrying if I got everyone a gift they would like, trying to keep the house clean, I was blessed to receive a Christmas CD in the mail. The songs brought me back to center. My thoughts were refocused on Jesus, and the reason we celebrate this thing called Christmas. It's About the Cross. That song is on the CD I received, and it has spoken volumes to me. Christmas is the beginning of a beautiful love story. Jesus loved me enough to leave his throne in heaven, be born in a stable, laid in the straw, and grow up as a man to face brutal torture and death. Glory to God in the highest!
I am so thankful that we have this time of year. It forces us to think about giving. I love to give gifts (even though I get stressed out by the shopping). This year I had the honor of giving to a new friend. She is at a hard point in life and needed a little help. The smile on her face and the light in her eyes when she saw my meager offering for her family is still warming my heart today.
I think of the name given to our Lord, Emmanuel - God with us. In our Sunday morning Bible study we talked about that name. God right here with us implies a relationship. Relationship implies conversation, and then someone sent me a You Tube link about an eight month old deaf baby who, through a cochlear implant, was hearing his momma's voice for the first time. I watched it over and over. I wondered if that is how Jesus feels when I call his name. The look of wonder and awe on that baby's face keeps rerunning through my mind. It prompts me to call out "Jesus." I want the focus of my Christmas to be on WHY we celebrate, not what we DO to celebrate.
Next year there will be fewer trees at the Million home. Some of these will be given away to young mom's who won't be able to afford one. Sure, we will celebrate - REALLY CELEBRATE! Jesus IS the reason for the season, and this family has come together to agree to put the focus on Him.
Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
What to do?
Why is it that I can't keep things put away? It seems that no matter how many times I clean house, fold clothes, pick up stuff, dust furniture, or wash the dishes, there is always something to be done. You know that feeling when you finally get the dishwasher turned on only to straighten up and see one more glass on the counter? Argh, the frustration of it all! I try. I try to keep things done. Tonight we are going to work on putting the boxes from the Christmas decorations back in the attic. I will pick up dirty clothes and take them to the hamper, unload the dishes, and give the dog a bath. Then I will start all over tomorrow.
Sometimes I wonder why bother? Do I really need to make the bed when I am going to be sleeping in it again tonight anyway? YES!!! You see, I can't stand the wrinkled sheets. They bunch up and peel off the corners during the night. My husband pulls the blankets one way and I pull the sheet the other way. By morning it's a jumbled mess. When I lie down tonight I want everything to be smooth and comfortable, welcoming me to a restful night of sleep.
I think of that bed and it reminds me that there is sin in my life that needs to be confessed. The Lord is waiting to smooth out the wrinkles and jumbled mess I make of my life each day. Sin. It creeps into my thoughts and actions. I twist and turn and wrinkle things up. The problem I have is that I don't always take the time to get this mess straighted out before tucking myself in at night. Unconfessed sin continues to jumble up my life.
Why not confess? Why not fall on my face before God and cry out for mercy? Why continue to carry on this way? Oh, wow. Those words that kept coming up over and over this summer are here again now. Pride. Apathy. Either I think too highly of myself and don't see my need to be forgiven, or I just don't care. Honestly, it's a little of both.
I hate to admit I am wrong. I hate to admit that I said hateful words, reacted in anger, delayed or avoided reaching out to that one person who needed me most today. I hate to admit that I sinned. That doesn't make it not true, though. Actually, I must say those words Paul said long ago - surely I am the chief of all sinners.
I also must admit that far too often I just don't care. Not only do I not care, I don't even know I don't care. I move through the minutes of my day unaware of broken hearts or lonely people. There is so much on my calendar that I don't make time to look around and see who it is that needs a word of encouragement or a shoulder to cry on. Who am I avoiding that needs to know someone cares?
Isaiah says: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Hallelujah! Phillip Yancey says about this passage: God is actually describing his eagerness to forgive. The same God who created the heavens and the earth has the power to bridge the great chasm that separates him from his creatures. He will reconcile, he will forgive, no matter what obstacles his prodigal children put in the way.
I stumble over many obstacles all day long. Praise the Lord that He is eager to forgive! When I seek His forgiveness, my twisted, wrinkled, and jumbled mess is neat, smooth, and clean because I surrender to His will. First John says that God is faithful to forgive my sin when I confess it to Him. Just like making the bed each morning, I daily make time to come before Him to seek His face and forgiveness. In doing so, I am able to step into the day and serve the One who graciously allows me to live transformed.
Sometimes I wonder why bother? Do I really need to make the bed when I am going to be sleeping in it again tonight anyway? YES!!! You see, I can't stand the wrinkled sheets. They bunch up and peel off the corners during the night. My husband pulls the blankets one way and I pull the sheet the other way. By morning it's a jumbled mess. When I lie down tonight I want everything to be smooth and comfortable, welcoming me to a restful night of sleep.
I think of that bed and it reminds me that there is sin in my life that needs to be confessed. The Lord is waiting to smooth out the wrinkles and jumbled mess I make of my life each day. Sin. It creeps into my thoughts and actions. I twist and turn and wrinkle things up. The problem I have is that I don't always take the time to get this mess straighted out before tucking myself in at night. Unconfessed sin continues to jumble up my life.
Why not confess? Why not fall on my face before God and cry out for mercy? Why continue to carry on this way? Oh, wow. Those words that kept coming up over and over this summer are here again now. Pride. Apathy. Either I think too highly of myself and don't see my need to be forgiven, or I just don't care. Honestly, it's a little of both.
I hate to admit I am wrong. I hate to admit that I said hateful words, reacted in anger, delayed or avoided reaching out to that one person who needed me most today. I hate to admit that I sinned. That doesn't make it not true, though. Actually, I must say those words Paul said long ago - surely I am the chief of all sinners.
I also must admit that far too often I just don't care. Not only do I not care, I don't even know I don't care. I move through the minutes of my day unaware of broken hearts or lonely people. There is so much on my calendar that I don't make time to look around and see who it is that needs a word of encouragement or a shoulder to cry on. Who am I avoiding that needs to know someone cares?
Isaiah says: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Hallelujah! Phillip Yancey says about this passage: God is actually describing his eagerness to forgive. The same God who created the heavens and the earth has the power to bridge the great chasm that separates him from his creatures. He will reconcile, he will forgive, no matter what obstacles his prodigal children put in the way.
I stumble over many obstacles all day long. Praise the Lord that He is eager to forgive! When I seek His forgiveness, my twisted, wrinkled, and jumbled mess is neat, smooth, and clean because I surrender to His will. First John says that God is faithful to forgive my sin when I confess it to Him. Just like making the bed each morning, I daily make time to come before Him to seek His face and forgiveness. In doing so, I am able to step into the day and serve the One who graciously allows me to live transformed.
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