holidays

When Jesus Came

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 1 Comment

Luke came around today asking about my memories of Jesus. He’s putting together the whole story so he can write it out for those that weren’t there or even alive when Jesus was with us. I put aside my work and sat down with him to remember.

There was this one time Jesus came to visit and I was so excited to host him, this man that healed so many. I mean, everyone was talking about him and how he was challenging to the Pharisees with their high and mighty ways. I was so ready for someone to confront them.

He had an entourage too, 12 guys, so when I heard they were accepting our invitation, I knew I’d need to provide a meal and wash feet and it was going to be a long, long day. I had staff and Mary but they all needed direction and that’s what I’m good at.

I wanted to do it right, you know, to show him how much we appreciated what he’d done for our community. I knew so many people who’d been healed, it just seemed like the right thing to do, to go all out.

I’d gotten a lot done by the time they all arrived. More showed up with him too! I should’ve known with the following he had at the time but it threw me for a loop. I was going crazy in the kitchen directing the servants and then I saw Mary, my sister, just in there with Jesus sitting in the main room!

She wasn’t helping at all! I started thinking that wasn’t right for her to leave me to do it all. She’d told me not to go overboard earlier that day. I knew how much she wanted to hear Jesus teach. We didn’t get that many opportunities to be taught as women. What we do get usually gets to us by way of other men like our brother Lazarus. He was great about passing things along to us.

But Jesus was always different. I’d noticed that in mixed groups he didn’t just engage the men but spoke personally to women too. One time I heard he actually talked to a woman about her cycle while on the way to heal a child of a priest. What man wants to hear about that?

He was different with women. He got us when no one else seemed to pay attention. It meant so much to me and now he was in my house. I just wanted to show him how much we loved him. But I got into my usual way and went overboard on prep and got “bossy” like Mary says.

In my mind, it just didn’t seem right that Mary wasn’t helping. I started sighing and making a little more noise than needed. It was our job to get the meal on the table and that’s all I could think about.

This is the funny party, I was sure Jesus would get it–how hard I was working for him and his guys.

I didn’t think he noticed, though, so I caught him in a calmer moment and asked him, ok told him, to tell Mary to come help me. I said more than that because I was pretty steamed at that point. If he really was caring toward women, he wouldn’t want me to be all alone in my chores, right?

I forgot how he kind of threw everything about our world and culture upside down.

I’ll never forget what he said. It really changed my life. With so much love in his eyes I can’t even describe it, he said my name…twice. Martha, Martha, he said. At this point I’d convinced myself he didn’t even know I was around. I was so resentful.

In that Jesus way, he showed me that I was so worried and easily frustrated by all my plans that didn’t even need doing! We could’ve gone without food that day. If I had realized that, I would’ve gotten to hear Jesus teach too.

I regret that. I didn’t sit there like Mary because I was making bread. Making bread, Luke! Of all things! Bread!

Of course I’d heard the stories but they didn’t sink in yet. Jesus fed crowds and crowds of people by miraculously providing bread. And there I was, making bread for the man who could provide it in an instant.

Crazy, right? I’ve always struggled with that, being so responsible and so good at keeping things running around our home. I put so much pressure on myself.

But then Jesus came and I could have rested but I wanted to show him my appreciation, worship I guess you could call it, when all he wanted was to give me rest…true rest. He didn’t want me making bread! He was showing me that I didn’t need to scramble to provide.

I didn’t need to make things so elaborate. I just needed to do what Mary did and be with him. The meal would work itself out. So what if we just ate bread bought from the bakery. Or what if we missed a miracle!

I missed out in some ways that day but I began to learn my lesson, the lesson. Jesus is the One, the Messiah and in Him all our needs are met. To sit at his feet that day, every day, is the best worship I could ever offer him. It’s all he really wants.

So when Lazarus died that time and Jesus showed up a few days late, I just knew I needed to put away all the chores and run to him. I still have that common sense, bossy side. I mean, I did tell Jesus the practicalities of opening that tomb. How laughable when I think back on it. Jesus, he’s gonna stink! I said, like he didn’t know!

You know the rest though. Lazarus is still with us and that miracle chipped away another huge chunk of my hard heart. Not only can he provide bread, he raises the dead.

And that was what I was before I trusted Jesus. Dead. But now, I’m alive and will be forever with Jesus thanks to his final gift of himself… his Spirit in me. Then one day, even more, a reunion.

I could go on and on Luke. How much time do you have?

My 4 Holiday Best Practices

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I’d love for my holidays to be magical and nostalgic this year like a Hallmark commercial but, in reality, I’m pretty wiped out and its still a few weeks until Thanksgiving break.

College students I talk with face longer than normal school breaks too. So many of us are home so much more, its come up that we’re a little nervous about more together time.

I’m not sure where you are as you anticipate the holiday break, but I’m already thinking through what might help my break feel restorative…or maybe just not totally suck.

So, here are a few lifelines I’m holding on to over the holidays in this very tumultous year.

#1: Read.

Fiction is always important to me. I read fiction every night. Lining up a few really good books for the holidays is a high priority on vacations and holidays. Good fiction helps me put worries and to-do lists aside at the end of a day and mentally unwind.

And when I say good fiction, I’m saying all fiction is not created equal. Remember that episode on Friends where Joey reads Rachel’s novel? He’s spot on. There’s plenty of good books out there that satisfy our God-given hunger for good stories.

Check out my top ten all time favorites!

#2: Ritual.

Ok, that sounds weird. I’m not into empty or evil rituals. I am into grounding patterns for my day that can reset my world a little bit. This is especially helpful when there is no outside schedule I laid out for me to follow, like during holidays when school and work are on a back burner.

One ritual I plan to keep is waking before my kids to a cup of coffee and reading my Bible. Another is taking a walk before it gets dark each day. These activities are not new and carrying them on helps me process through my days or prepare for them.

#3: Relax.

For the past few years, I’ve set aside one day of personal vacation before my kids are released on holiday break. On that day, my focus is to do indulgent things like watch a movie at 9am, wrap presents in the living room, and eat what I want to eat from a restaraunt even if I already have a sensible meal in the fridge.

Last year I assured my husband I loved and liked him and politely asked him to make himself scarce that day. He is so gracious and made himself scarce that day. It is a wonderful day. I’m looking forward to it this year so much!

Its my version of Treat Yo’self.

#4: Review.

I always spend the early hours of January 1st engaging my soul with some reflection on the past year. This year is one for the books, literally! If there was ever a year to reflect on, this is surely at the top of the list.

I know there are a few ways to do this so pick one that works for you. My favorite is Michael Hyatt’s Seven Questions to Ask About Last Year. Something about sitting in the quiet, remembering, grieving, celebrating, and recording my thoughts on my year helps me face the new one.

If you haven’t tried an exercise like this, consider setting aside some time to reflect and record.

Will more time at home be a gift after so many months of more time at home? I’m trusting that God always has more good in store for all of us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

I’ve enjoyed the Lord in each of these practices in different ways and I’m all about sharing the wealth! So let me know if you adopt one. I’d love to hear how it went for you.

Being Still

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I expected Easter weekend to be full of far flung friends gathered for a special wedding celebration—a dear friend united in marriage in the witness of many other dear friends.

A big celebration surrounded by many other little celebrations of a community separated and once again united for a weekend.

As shut downs and shelter-in-places spread across the world, the celebrations are delayed, the wedding postponed as we all wait for the unknown.

Our plans all yielded…

We may never be so closely linked in experience or feeling with the followers of Christ this Easter season. The joys of Spring Break in early March feel like Palm Sunday when life seemed like it was going well. An expectation of wonderful Spring!

The snowball of our restrictions parallel the turn of events during Holy Week as Jesus went from a heralded king to a hunted and betrayed man. Life turned upside down for Jesus’ followers.

A much anticipated celebration season flipped to unexpected mourning.

As they witnessed Jesus’ procession with His cross, this man they had followed everywhere for three years, did they think what we think now about our plans…this should not to be? I never saw this coming?

And, when Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb and the Sabbath began, and they sat in their homes did they sit stunned like we do now?

I don’t know what is next? Life as I know it is flipped upside down. What happens when this is over? When we emerge from our homes to a new reality? The ones passed over and not taken by this pandemic.

We wonder about our jobs, whether our kids will go back to school, what our community will suffer. The disciples also worried about their jobs and their lives… what they would suffer when those in power came looking for them the first chance they could leave their home.

Our world, with so many people, has never been so still as on this Passover, this Easter weekend. I have never experienced alongside so many others such uncertainty about what is next.

With all the unexpected quiet and stillness in my home right now, all the itching eagerness to escape and do something, anything else…I identify with Jesus’ followers in a new way this weekend.

Unlike them, I have the hope of knowing the next part of the story for us as followers of Jesus. The joy of the resurrection. The assurance of redemption and the security of a new purpose as His follower that the disciples would soon discover.

But, this weekend, I can identify with them…a party weekend upset and turned into a weekend of wondering quiet waiting for a new, uncertain day.

On Christmas Lists

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It’s that time of year when its 80 degrees outside, supposed to be fall, yet holidays are coming. The main way that I know the holidays are coming is that there are holiday things in the grocery store seasonal aisle. And, all that really means is that there will be that holiday sometime in the next 6 months.

But, each year the whole Christmas List thing gets a little stressful. I see that seasonal aisle and I know I cannot escape it much longer. Christmas shopping.

Follow along to see how it plays out in our family. Beware, you might get stressed.

In our house, I usually start asking our kids what they’re thinking for Christmas in about October. Kind of a shot over the bow type situation on a casual walk…just feeling them out.

Our kids lists’ are kind of funny sometimes. One year our middle kid asked for a new mattress after discovering that the absolute cheapest mattress at IKEA wasn’t his jam after a few months. He’s all in to comfort.

This year he asked for a certain gaming controller then we looked it up on Amazon. We decided maybe he should go to college rather than have that controller.

Then, my husband and I think of things they might like or need. Ok now, that is truly a deep experience in figuring out how well we really know our kids. Are they still in to LEGO Star Wars or have they moved on? Is my daughter going for atheleisure or is she going for smart casual these days?

I don’t know! Who am I as a mother to not know these things!? Ack. Insecurity.

My husband is a very frugal man. Not cheap. Frugal. There’s a difference. The wish list then morphs into an ever narrowing target as he hones in on the bulls eye of Christmas gifts. The gifts that will be used, loved, and passed on to grandkids. The criteria is tight and rigorous.

They usually like the gifts he thinks of the best, better than my gifts. Yes, we compete for the affections of our children and we don’t like to face it.

My contribution is usually in the category I’ll call whimsy. What will be fun for them? Refer back to that paragraph on whether I really know my kids and you’ll see that’s like shooting an arrow with absolutely no archery training.

Ha. It could land literally anywhere and sometimes hits the bulls eye but only sometimes.

So, if you have powers of interpretation, are you seeing that my husband and I have some interesting conversations as we put together the list on our pretty modest budget?

You’re smart then. Give yourself a pat on the back. I bet you’re trying to figure out what number on the Enneagram we are. We are too.

I haven’t even gotten to the list strategy wherein we need to give suggestions to other members of the family. In the past, I’d make the mistake of giving out the choice bulls-eye gifts to other members of the family, much to my husband’s consternation.

Then we, the parents, would have another “date” breakfast to deal with more stress trying to figure out still more great gifts so our kids knew we loved and knew them the absolute best on Christmas morning.

Ok, maybe you’ve noticed that we haven’t even gotten past the kids at this point? True, true. We have not! Next up, what do we get parents and grandparents and cousins and siblings and….phew.

Merry Christmas? Not feeling it yet.

The past few years, I’ve come to the end of all this gift listing, strategizing, planning and just could not muster up the energy for my own list. What do I want? I have no idea…go figure it out. It probably has to do with clothes, kitchen gadgets, or travel.

Heck, just give me cash if you’re as worn out as I am and I’ll decide in March after I’ve recovered from the holidays.

So, the holidays are coming and you can pray for us. That’s the point of this blog post. We need prayer!

On Egg Hunts

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Months after the Easter egg hunt in our apartment complex in Asia, the kids and their friends found another Easter egg. A real egg. Left rotting for months outside in a climate of 110% humidity. Yuck.

We hid them pretty good, I guess. It was the find of a century in their minds, a marvel of discovery for a kid who played multiple times a week in that area. Then, one day, bam, an Easter egg!

It was disgusting. They didn’t eat it, fortunately. But, it provided tons of laughter amongst the childhood community in the area. That time we found the Easter egg! It gave them hope to continue looking for a plastic egg that might still have viable candy. They gained new focus in their outdoor play for a while.

Still, yuck.

Watching kids hunt for Easter eggs is pretty hilarious. Early on, we had to teach them to go get the egg. They were uninterested until they realized there was candy inside the plastic ones. Our oldest would then find the plastic eggs, pop them open, eat the candy, drop the egg. She preyed upon her little friend who hadn’t yet discovered the treasures inside her eggs by eating her friends candy too.

As they get older, the hunt evolved. It became about winning. Getting the most eggs. So, we met the challenge and tried to teach consideration. We established quotas and hid the eggs with a little more craftiness. But, whoever met their quota first “won”. What can I say? Human nature gravitates towards selfishness.

We urged them to hunt even when they didn’t want to hunt and the only eggs left were the second class citizens of Easter egg hunts, the hard-boiled eggs sweating off their color dye in the grass. Go get the half-cracked, weird grey egg that got dipped in all the dye cups! we cheered to no avail.

Kind of explains the mystery of the undiscovered egg I guess.

One year I had to intervene to prevent a potty training kid from practicing in the Easter hunt area. Hey, don’t judge. We were in another country where this was not frowned upon for kids. We took advantage of the freedoms! It was a great place to potty train. Not the egg hunt area, the country.img_5535

Then there were adults who wanted to continue their family traditions of ultra competitive egg hunts. You know who you are. Those were the most fun to watch. Grown ups dressed in their Easter finest in an all out physical scramble to find the most eggs. Hilarious!

Last year, we introduced Cascarones to our celebration. Smashing eggs filled with confetti on each other fits our family life stage. It’s fun. Its violent. We play together. We’re adapting.

In all of the evolution of Easter traditions in our family, though, the one thread through it all is new life in Christ. The symbol of the egg in Easter.

Go find it, search aggressively for it, don’t let others get in your way, enjoy the treasures that reside within, help others find it, celebrate it with others.

Just find the new life, the breath of life, offered to all through Jesus’ sacrifice to free us from the deathly effects of sin.

Read more here and here.

Blood, The Color of Love

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I reached up and opened a card. It looked promising. I read the inscription which dashed all my sentimental hopes. My only hope these days for meaningful inscriptions is a blank note and my own pen.

Valentine’s Day gets a lot wrong. Romance for romance sake. Elaborate, one-time displays of affection honored more than the constancy of daily warmth in the grind of life. Crude and scoffing cards meant to illicit laughter at the expense of respect.

But, it gets one thing right. The color of love is red.DSC_0039

Red is the color of blood, the color of oxygen infusing a liquid that brings life to the body. Red is the color of the dirt from which God created man in His image. God delighted in man. God loves humans. God loves you. God loves me.

Then, God loved enough to take on a body that pumped blood. After that, He loved enough to be tempted in every single temptation. He knows our pain, our sorrow, our sin. He took on all the hurt, pain, wrong, and disgusting perversion of every person on the planet and bled for it.

The color of love seeped through the pores of His skin and offered us release from death. We, the living dead, can be born from above.

Last year and again this year, I read the uproar about movies and porn and abuse, my heart aches and it was and is appropriate to grieve. Grey is what we get when we forget that love requires the unselfish giving of ourselves to another.

Grey is the color of death and death brings mourning…or it should.

But, red. Red is the color of life.

 

Embracing Another New Year

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One minute it was 2016, then it was 2017 sometime in the middle of 10 Things I Hate About You, probably when Heath Ledger sings in the bleachers. Or maybe when Julia Stiles reads her poem to Heath in class. Great moments.

Anyway, 2016 passed to 2017 and I’m still surprised, trying to find my footing in a new year.

Last New Year’s surprised me too. It was the first of many markers that came and went without my dad. Christmas came and went rather uneventfully, but the new year brought more sadness than anticipated. Another year different from the one he died. Another year more of him not here with us. Something about that number change drove reality in deeper.

This year seems to be similar. Christmas came and went and I missed my dad in so many ways. But a new year put another year in between then and now and it just feels like a really, really long time. Too long without his presence in my life and the lives of all who loved him.

It’s a dissonant note in a season of  resolutions, moving on, organizing, cleaning, looking forward, gaining control. It’s weird to feel a stuck in the past. If I could just make a resolution, a plan, or buy a container for the mess, I’d be moving forward and that would feel good.

There are some things in our lives, though, that can’t be contained neatly. Like grief. And, there is so, so much I cannot control. Like my dad not being here with us. So much I must respond to when I wish I could just change it.

It reminds me of the woman in the wonderful book The Help who slip covered everything in her house in a desperate effort to be more than she was in reality, to cover the pain of what she felt was less than. Instead of face herself, she controlled everything and everyone around her to conform to her desired image. It cost her so much.

The dangers of slip-covering the reality of life are real. Even the sadness of something like losing a father.

So, today, with children back in school and the house quiet, I am endeavoring to respond to the life God has graciously given me before moving on. It means counting the joy and also counting the grief, resisting the urge to slipcover things that need stripping, and loving what needs to be embraced in its current state.

The really ugly chair that inspires parts of this post, a craigslist find that must be loved a while longer in its current state.
 

There are things I want from this year for sure, but to rush into those feels like building on sand. For today, I survey the terrain…and write because that’s how I do this reflection business.

 

 

Blood, The Color of Love

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 1 Comment

I reached up and opened a card. It looked promising. I read the inscription which dashed all my sentimental hopes. My only hope these days for meaningful inscriptions is a blank note and my own pen.

Valentine’s Day gets a lot wrong. Romance for romance sake. Elaborate, one-time displays of affection honored more than the constancy of daily warmth in the grind of life. Crude and scoffing cards meant to illicit laughter at the expense of respect.

But, it gets one thing right. The color of love is red.DSC_0039

Red is the color of blood, the color of oxygen infusing a liquid that brings life to the body. Red is the color of the dirt from which God created man in His image. God delighted in man. God loves humans. God loves you. God loves me.

Then, God loved enough to take on a body that pumped blood. After that, He loved enough to be tempted in every single temptation. He knows our pain, our sorrow, our sin. He took on all the hurt, pain, wrong, and disgusting perversion of every person on the planet and bled for it.

The color of love seeped through the pores of His skin and offered us release from death. We, the living dead, can be born from above.

Last year and again this year, I read the uproar about movies and porn and abuse, my heart aches and it was and is appropriate to grieve. Grey is what we get when we forget that love requires the unselfish giving of ourselves to another.

Grey is the color of death and death brings mourning…or it should.

But, red. Red is the color of life.

 

Thanksgiving

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Our first year overseas Thanksgiving surprised me by ranking my most difficult holiday.  My cultural adjustment curve dipped lowest right around Thanksgiving making it the perfect storm for a flurry of emotions that first year overseas. I figured I’d be sad at Christmas so Thanksgiving sadness caught me off guard.  Add to that the fact that it was my first time to celebrate a holiday away from family and…well…Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving each year since delivered a host of treasured memories.  One year I picked up our roasted turkeys at the local hotel.  The staff and I tried to figure out how I was going to take them home.  None of us considered this problem beforehand for some mysterious reason.  I ended up riding home in a taxi with two hot turkeys stuffed into plastic shopping bags!  DSC_0031

Then came the year when a terrible stomach virus passed through our midst at Thanksgiving.  26 of us gathered that year and, well, sickness spread pretty fast in that environment and through the following weekend.  Leftovers did not get eaten that year and it took me a year or so to overcome my aversion to some traditional foods.  Some even gave a very descriptive name to the weekend following Thanksgiving which I will not share here.  Let’s just say that year lives on in infamy.

A few year later we started celebrating Thanksgiving with more than just Americans.  I regret it took me that long to take Thanksgiving across cultures.  A turkey is huge but to someone who never laid eyes on anything other than a skinny chicken, a turkey is…well…it’s hard to give you a good picture of the excitement that bird caused.  My friends sampled all the traditional items and we thoroughly enjoyed our feast.

But what really moves my heart at Thanksgiving now is that I learn to celebrate Thanksgiving more and more each year.  We all love a feast and we all love food and we all love the decorations.  But, what I love more than all of that is the time of thanksgiving.  It is the point of our celebration and my non-American friends do not forget it like I am prone to do.  They do not get as distracted by pecan pie, turkey, and stuffing or American football.  I enjoy all those things but I fall prey to making them too central.

Last year I remember the tears we shed as we gave thanks to the Lord for the years events.  Every year has its pain and its joy.  We cried, we laughed and we sacrificed the sacrifice of thanksgiving.  Because giving thanks is a sacrifice.  The painful things yielded fruit and we knew it but we still cried.

These celebrations go to the heart of the first thanksgiving.  I think the Pilgrims knew the sacrifice of giving thanks in a foreign land, with foreign food, with native people in the midst of a year marked by death and suffering.  They gave thanks and I’m sure they cried in the midst of such a sacrifice.  The foods they ate were not traditional to them…I remember this as I dip into some delicious fried rice and watch my children sample lumpia from the Philippines.

This week we celebrate Thanksgiving and I anticipate spending a lot of time cooking and preparing.  But I also anticipate even more the time when we express our thankfulness with laughter and tears.