Love Affair...

I've been praying dangerous prayers.

"God, I'm not satisfied to be so easily distracted from your heart...Help me to love You passionately...Remove all walls and barriers between us...Set me ablaze O God with passion for Your Son...I repent for looking for satisfaction in other things, in other people...God, I give You permission to deal with all "weeds" in the garden of my life...Fuel me with holy passion, zeal and obedience...Cure my life of compromise and instability...Take me deeper into intimacy with You...Capture my heart completely...Help me.  My heart is sleepy, my understanding dull, my sight foggy, my strength gone...Lord, let the blazing light and divine loveliness of Who You are shine in me and cast out all darkness...Ignite my heart with the passion that You deserve...subject everything in me to You, until all is under Your control...Help God, awaken my heart...Father, do what You need to do in me to make me a fit Bride for Your Son...Help me to be joyfully abandoned to You."

And then I wonder why I feel so undone, so desperately lonely for Him and His presence, so dissatisfied with all else.  This God Who tears down in order to build, Who roots out in order to plant, (Jeremiah 1:10), is answering my prayers.

Blessing and Brokenness...

It was an accident.  The nativity was in it's box on top of a pile of other boxes stored away.  I asked my husband to get it down for me before I got home that afternoon.  Somehow it fell, and some of the pieces were broken.  In a panic, (am I really that frightening, that this sent him into a panic?), he called our daughters for advice and help.  He brought the broken pieces to one daughter who started glueing what she could.  Another daughter started searching ebay to see if she could find replacement parts.  Between the glueing, and a few pieces found on ebay,  the nativity scene, broken years ago now, looks pretty intact...except for Mary.  She's broken, but if you keep her facing forward, you can't really tell.  You see, she's broken where you can't see..she's got a gaping hole...but you can't tell unless you turn her around.

I find it strangely appropriate that out of all the broken pieces, she's the only one still visibly broken.  She who was "blessed above all other women" ,(Luke 1:42 Amplified Bible), had to be willing to be broken to be blessed.  This is a God principle, you never get the one without the other...if you want to be blessed, you must be willing to be broken, and if you are willing to be broken, you will be blessed. Mary had to be willing to be broken by the false accusations of others...a virgin conceiving.  Surely we are not too prideful to realize that none of us would have believed her story either.  She had to be willing to see her flesh and blood falsely accused, beaten, blasphemed, hanging on a tree.  He wasn't just Son of God, He was Son of Man...her son, hanging there pierced, bloody.

I want to be blessed above all other women too...and yet I constantly fight against the brokenness part of the deal.  I hate, yes I said hate, the fact that being used by Him is accompanied by misunderstanding and often, the gaping wound kind of pain.  The hardest part is keeping my best face forward so that no one sees the jaggedy edged hole in my soul.  But He sees.  And He cares. And He heals. And when I surrender, and offer up to Him my brokenness, He blesses me and He uses me to bless others. ( Matthew 14:19)

I'm so glad the story didn't end there for Mary.  I'm so thankful that her last images of Jesus weren't of Him on that tree.  Three days later, she saw Him again.  Oh, the healing joy that must have been to her.  The final seal of God that yes, He really is Who He says He is.  Not just Son of Man, her little boy, but Son of God.

Drawn to His heart this season...

Everywhere I look, everything I hear, people are writing about, talking about, the desire for Christmas to be simpler, more peaceful.  For believers in Christ, I believe this is because the same Holy Spirit is speaking to us all, drawing us, calling us, to forsake the fluff, and focus on the substance.  Jesus is coming again, not as a babe this time, but as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  The kingdoms of this world really will become the kingdoms of our God, and of His Christ, and He really will reign forever and ever.  And we, His bride, must be ready.  We are being drawn back to the simplicity of this fact...we were created to love God and to be in relationship with Him.  We are being drawn back to His heart.  This Christmas season,  my desire is to get to know better and better, more and more, the man Christ Jesus.  Through true heart worship,  through reading and studying the Word with real desire to understand as well as to hear and obey, through gut level, transparent communication with Him in prayer, through writing and journaling. The decorating, the baking, the shopping...it's got to take a back seat to this glorious pursuit.  I want my heart to be burning bright with passion for Him when He comes again. I want to already know Him so well, that at His appearing, I can honestly say, "Oh Jesus, You are exactly who I already knew You to be!" If, at the end of this Christmas season, I am closer to that goal, now that will be a Christmas to remember.

Jesus is the reason...

For each day of the month of December, I, and some others from our church, will have a Jesse's Branch in our home.  We will hang one name/title for Jesus every day until Christmas.  We will post that name and the scripture reference where the name is found as our Facebook status.  Our goal...to keep the main thing the main thing this Christmas season.

Happy tears...

 

We gathered around the Thanksgivng table, my husband, me, our girls, our sons-in law, our grandbabies, my 84 year old mama, a young married couple from the church.  There was enough food to feed twice as many people...an abundance.  We are abundantly, overwhelmingly, undeservedly, lavishly, blessed by God.  A few hours later, youngest baby grandaughter can be heard squealing and making happy sounds as she watches her cousins play.  I look up, and my daughter is weeping happy tears of gratitude and happiness, as she hears her baby girl so long waited for, prayed for, now here.  Today, as I think about miraculous answers to prayer, like my precious grandaughter, along with unexpected blessings given from God's hand, just because...I am grateful and I could shed a few happy tears as well.

Thank you God for...

141)Hugs from a daughter in the Lord

142) Grandson saying "The Bible says" and then "quoting" his own five year old mixed up version of verses, usually several Bible truths all clumped together

143) Oldest grandaughter making dinner rolls with me, and us both having a "sample", and then her saying, "Nana, I just wish I could eat the whole batch by myself!"

144) Making pies with my daughters and grandbabies

Two little pies made by 6 year old grandaughter and 5 year old grandson

145) Youngest daughter home in time for Thanksgiving dinner in spite of a flight delay

Youngest daughter and her best friend

146) Nine month old baby grandaughter trying to say "I love you" and giving slobbery kisses

Happy mama with her precious gift from God

147) Sunday afternoon naps

148) Decorating the house for Christmas with Handel's Messiah playing in the background

149) Dancing with the grandkids to Christmas music

150) Macy's holiday parade downtown with family and friends

Welcoming the season...

We won't go cut down our tree from the farm for another week or so,

but it's still beginning to look a lot like Christmas. 

We welcome the season of His birth...and look forward to His coming again.

"O Come O Come Emmanuel",

no longer a babe,

but King of Kings

and

Lord of Lords...

and He shall reign forever and ever.

Presence more than presents...

Yesterday we attended the annual holiday parade downtown.  This is our after Thanksgivng tradition.  All the daughters, sons in law, and grandbabies were home this year, which makes it extra special.  Friends also come along, the more the merrier!  Then we venture into a few stores,  and give up quickly, heading home for leftovers, naps and Christmas movies.

Today, hubby and youngest daughter, (his favorite football game companion) are heading three hours north for the Apple Cup game...Washington Huskies vs. Washington State Cougars.  Go DAWGS!  Often, I go along and putter around my favorite shops, as well as sit by the lake with coffee and my Bible for some precious Jesus time.  But today, I decided to do my puttering here at home...putting away all of the fall decor, and getting out all of the Christmas decorations. 

This year, I feel a desire to keep things clean and simple.  In every way I want this holiday to be stress free and Jesus focused.  I want my decorations to be more simple and  less cluttery. I don't want to feel compelled to use all 4 plus totes full of "stuff".  I want my gift giving to be the same-simple, thoughtful, not just buying without prayerful planning.  I want Holy Spirit presence to be our focus this season, not presents. And that has to start in me.  Come Holy Spirit, in me, through me, have Your way.