The Christmas Blog Swap Part IV

Today is the last day of the Christmas Blog Swap!  I hope you've enjoyed reading these posts as much as we have!  It's been so much fun writing and swapping posts with other bloggers this Christmas season.  Today I'm back on my blog concluding with the last, forgotten character of Christmas.  Please head over to the other three blogs and check their final posts as well!  Merry Christmas :)

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:16-17

The last, overlooked member of the Christmas story is you.  Without you, the story would be incomplete.  Without a lost, wretched soul drowning in his unending sin and despair, there is no need for the Christmas story.  We don't need God if we can fix ourselves.  We don't need a Savior if our lives are perfect.  We need a baby in a manger because we are destitute and helpless.  Because for century upon century, we -- humanity -- have made no solution to our own desperate problem.  We discovered electricity, cured diseases, eliminated so many "inconveniences" on this earth, but we cannot create beautiful freedom from sin.  

If we look at Christmas as a sweet sentiment or fanciful story, then its purpose is destroyed.  If Herod's madness, Simeon's belief, the innkeeper's provision -- if that is only a nice story, then we've missed it.  But, it's impossible to see ourselves as a piece of the story and still misunderstand its point.  When we look to our Savior, sleeping in a stinking manger as a tiny baby, healing the sick that lie groveling in the dirt, then see Him gasping for breath on the cross -- and we still can't see that He did it for us, then we've missed the most important point of our existence.  

Jesus came for you and for me.  He lived and died for us.  And if we fail to see it, then we'll have missed the most breath-taking, beautiful Love that has ever pursued us.  This Christmas, I pray that you will remember all that makes Christmas important -- the provision and blessing that God has in store for you.

Christmas Blog Swap III

Here's the Christmas Blog Swap number 3!  Today I'm swapping with Hannah!  I've just recently met Hannah through this blog swap and really enjoyed her posts about Christmas traditions.  This post that I'm sharing today is especially fun for me, because she's talking about one of my favorite traditions, too!  After reading Hannah's post, you can head over to her blog to read my Christmas post, and the one's on Lizzie and Shelley's blog, as well!

Christmas Traditions: Candlelight Services & Christmas Carols

When I think back over holiday memories, I remember being so excited about our church's Christmas Eve service! It was so exciting to go to church and sing Christmas carols with friends. It was exciting to praise God and take time to remember the true meaning of Christmas--Christ's birth. And as a kid, it was always exciting to hold a candle and sing in the candlelight. 

When my family moved from Massachusetts to Florida when I was in high school, our new church didn't have a Christmas Eve service. But my family made sure to set aside time to sing carols together! And we even lit candles or would light a fire in our fireplace. 

I want my kids to grow up singing Christmas carols! I love how many carols are so worshipful and can direct our attention from the busyness of the season to thinking about Christ's birth. I started playing Christmas carols for my 1.5 year old and he loves "Angels We Have Heard On High" because of the part where we sing "Gloria"…now when he sees a Christmas angel he sings "Gloria!" 

Other favorite carols are "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel", "We Three Kings", "O Holy Night" and I could keep going! I love how these songs focus not only on Christ's actual birth, but also on why He came--to lay down His life for our sins so that we could know the Father! 

I would love to hear about your favorite carols and why! Last year I shared some carols with my Compassion kids and asked them to share songs that they sing during Christmas. It was fun to read some of the songs! 

Christmas Blog Swap II

It's time to swap blog posts again!  This time I'm swapping with +Lizzie L, my wonderful sister and fellow-blogger.  Enjoy her post about traditions in Haiti, and then go check out her blog!

Because I have been thinking a lot about my Samantha this week, I decided to see what Christmas traditions take place in Haiti!

Christmas is celebrated and enjoyed by all the people in Haiti!  It is a time of celebration and cheer.  Christians in Haiti often view Christmas as an opportunity for a new start, recognizing their need to repent and have new life in Christ.  The people will decorate a tree or pine branch with ornaments and lights.  Then they place a large nativity in front, which will likely take up most of their living room.

Christmas for a Compassion Child

The children in Compassion projects can forget that their lives are different from the wealthy on Christmas.  The projects will give them gifts and a good meal.  They have celebrations and activities to participate in too.  Some of the kids place their shoes with straw in them in from of the Christmas tree or on the porch.  Santa Claus comes in the night, removes the straw, and places gifts in and around the shoes.

Most Haitians observe Christmas on Christmas Eve.  People may go caroling or attend a mass4.  However, most churches do not hold a traditional US Christmas Eve service.  Instead, they will have a midnight mass.  After the people come back from the mass, they will have a "reveillion" (meaning "wake up") supper.  It is more like a breakfast, though, as they start the meal in the early morning.  The usual Christmas or reveillion meal is fried chicken, rice, and beans.

I really enjoyed learning about some ways that my Samantha and Lucie will celebrate Christmas.  It is so excited to know how they will celebrate the birth of the Savior!

A Christmas Blog Swap, Part One

Today is the start of the Christmas Blog Swap, which +Lizzie L masterminded to help spread fun and excitement this December.  Today, I bring you a thoughtful, Christmas post from Shelley, over at Unforced Rhythms of Grace.  Although I don't know Shelley very well (I actually just met her because of this blog swap!) she seems like such a wonderful person -- completely sold out for Jesus Christ and His mission for us here on this earth.  After reading this post from her, you should definitely head over to her blog and check it out.  Also, you can read my Christmas swap post on Shelley's blog today, too.  The other bloggers in the swap are on the other blogs listed around this picture, and I definitely recommend checking out their posts as well!

Anyway, without further adieu... here's Shelley!

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I can’t believe its December already.

College finished for Christmas last Friday, and we followed tradition by sharing in a Big Breakfast (Full English meets American, anyone?!) followed by one last chapel service. 

The message brought this year was one that I’d never thought of before, so I could think of no better way to start this wonderful Christmas Blog Swap than sharing with you the beautiful, profound message that greeted my heart last Friday.

So often, when we read the Christmas story, we focus on Mary, the angels, Jesus, even the shepherds and magi. But there’s one character that often gets overlooked. He’s shoved somewhere near the back of the traditional nativity scene, and his part in the Christmas story isn’t often read for all it’s worth. Joseph.

We read in Matthew 1:18-21:

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

This story hinges just as much on the obedience of Joseph as it does on Mary. Joseph was presented with a choice (and praise God, he made the right one!). He had a choice to accept Mary and Jesus, or he could have divorced Mary quietly as he had planned to and moved on with his life.

But what would have happened if he had followed his own plan? Society in Bible times didn’t look favourably upon those who were pregnant outside of marriage, so Mary, if she wasn’t killed for being pregnant outside of marriage, would have had an incredibly hard time raising a child on her own, so there is so much more to Joseph than simply not divorcing her. He was protecting her from being killed or shunned by society, and that’s a big deal, especially considering that people today are of the opinion of getting rid of something that you’re not happy with. Joseph was prepared to take responsibility for a child that was not his. He was prepared to be obedient to God and trust that He knew how this was going to work out. 

The challenge I want to present to you this Christmas is to take hold of God and trust in His instruction and direction. I often wonder if Joseph was fully aware of just what he was signing up for when he was obedient to God, and if he understood the impact that his obedience would have on the world. We don’t know the difference one simple act of obedience might make in someone’s life, so let’s try and be brave enough and give it a go.

Shelley x

Rip These Tendons. They Hinder My Reach Toward You.

A friend of mine introduced me to this beautiful song, that I really want to share right now.  It's so perfect.  Mostly, it's perfect because it's raw, and broken, and so deep.  The only video of this song that I could find doesn't have the greatest sound quality, but I still get chills when I listen to it.  Don't be scared away by how long it is.  I think it's worth it.


Here are the spoken lyrics from the middle of the song:

If the Titanic was made to sink

Then so was my heart

For I made sure it was impenetrable

Oh, what a wretched man I am

Who will save me from this flesh

Paul whispers in my ear,

“Oh, don’t worry my friend …

You’re in good company”

Poets before me have tried

to measure this love

And if 40,000 brothers cannot

with all of their quantity of love

make up this sum

Then how can my heart contain this mass

It would only burst at the seams into

a million tender pieces

So what then

What good is a broken heart to You

Could you even hear my heart from there

And like a father assuring his son

to come home

“Oh my son, it’s enough, it’s enough”

So who am I to accept this grace

that just falls like rain

‘Cause we all know I chose to lay

my head in this desert

But like a fish out of water

We only know then what it means

to be parched

So if Christ is alive, the love,

and the groom

Then take heed my friends

For chivalry is not dead

For I know no other lover who would

have met me here in this place

So I awake and I rise from my bed

of complacency

Oh, my God I’ve been sleeping

with a corpse

Oh, and these bed sores they still

rest in my bones

Oh, how I’ve made a beautiful dance

with this cadaver but my audience

is appalled

Oh, how strong these tendons

How they desperately need to rip

from this ancient Adam

So light up the sky and

Set me a flame

Burn this bone and tissue

For I no longer want to be

entangled in this sinew

That hinders my reach towards You.

"Oh, my God, I've been sleeping with a corpse, and these bed sores -- they still rest in my bones.  How I've made a beautiful dance with this cadaver, but my audience is appalled."  It's not the normal lyrics to a normal song.  It's the raw, open heart crying out to it's Creator saying "Look at who I am!  I am so blind, so weak, so inadequate.  See my sin and hypocrisy!  How can you possibly still love me?"  And God looks down and whispers "Yes."  Even in our brokenness and despair, in our ugly sin, our blind complacency, God chooses to wrap His strong arms around us and drown us in His impossible love.  

And I am spellbound.   

Faith in the Unbelievable

I was thinking about hope and faith the other day, and wondering what the difference was.  Aren't they both about living without seeing?  I've always thought of hope being the expectation of something that can't be seen yet.   And I've thought that faith means believing in something that can't be known.  Which, pretty much is the same thing.  But then I read through Hebrews 11-12:3.  It's quite long, so I won't copy the whole thing down.  Here is a snippet, though:

1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, ofDavid and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two,[a] they were killed with the sword.They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

This is the great "Hall of Fame of Faith," the verses commemorating the men and women who gave everything for Jesus.  And that's when it hit me.  Hope is longing for things unseen, but faith is acting on that hope.  God never called us to believe that He exists.  He called us to act radically changed because He exists!  These great Biblical figures spoken about in Hebrews 11 would never have been mentioned if they simply hoped, intellectually, that God was real and that He had a purpose for their lives.  They are cited as examples of people believing in the Unbelievable and DOING something about it.  Because faith is an action.  And love is a verb.  If we truly have our hope in the right place -- in our everlasting, beautiful Father -- then we can have the faith to live radically different lives.  Not just being blind and accepting it, but being blind and walking forward into the darkness.

That's my inspiration for this week.  I keep going over and over this whole chapter, marveling over the faith, the strength and courage, of these men and women.  And I'm challenged to go join them, in an ever-growing cloud of witnesses.

Beautiful

Beauty.  It is a relatively short word -- only six letters.  Only two syllables.  Yet it is anything but a simple word.  At first glance, it appears simple.  Beauty is in the autumn trees, the painting by Monet, the melody of a song.  But beauty is also what drives us to stand in front of mirrors for an hour or more, staring at our bodies, painting colors on our faces, plucking, primping, fixing.  It compels us to buy so many shoes -- ones that, when we wear them, make us totter on the balls of our feet, pain shooting through us.  It makes girls feel the need to no longer eat, no longer feel loved or needed.  Is it beauty's fault?  Not really.  But our perception of beauty is what kills us.

I'm just a seventeen year old girl, with a loving family, friends, a place to live.  I know Jesus.  I feel content with the way my life is going.  Yet, there is that lurking doubt.  I see the people on tv.  Or the girls who look so put together at the mall or even at youth group.  And they are, to me, perfect.  They have glossy hair and smooth, glowing faces.  They are comfortable with themselves.  They are popular, and have boyfriends, and look so happy.  And sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it wrong.

Like, if I straightened my hair and bought more product to put in it -- or maybe if I went out and bought the new clothing fad.  Or if I could talk with that kind of ease, or smile sweeter.  Maybe then I would look better.  Maybe I would be beautiful.

But even as those doubts slip into my mind, I know that they are lies.  Ugly lies.  Lies that say that I am not good enough, even though I am just the way God intended me to be.  I have no reason to be unhappy -- yet just on those days that I feel the most content, something will step in and make me feel less than enough.  And I know that it isn't right.  Beauty isn't in the false perfection of photoshop-ed models or people masked in layers of makeup and clothing that aren't themselves.  And I know it, but I still feel inadequate sometimes.

I was thinking about this the other day -- thinking of this problem of feeling imperfect and ugly when we are made by the Creator of the morning sunrise and the midnight stars.  And, suddenly it hit me.  I will never feel beautiful if I'm looking at myself.  I cannot wear enough makeup or enough of the right clothes or act enough like the people around me to be "beautiful."

Because when I focus on ME I am not beautiful.  I am selfish.  And selfishness is ugly.  When I am feeling bad for myself, I am ugly.  When I'm comparing myself to someone else, I am ugly.  And that is because, I am not being the way God intended me to be.  But when I forget about this clay vessel that I am, and start to focus on the problems outside of me -- the places I can serve in, the people that I can reach out to -- that is when I'm beautiful.

I realized this when I was reading an amazing post over at God's Gal's blog.  It was a letter to all the girls in the world who didn't have the opportunity to have an education, or choose who'd they marry, or simply have the freedom to step outside by themselves.  She was writing to the girls who have no hope and no freedom.

And suddenly I realized that my hardest decision of the day was which pair of shoes I was going to wear out the door.

Why do I care if I am beautiful?  There are women in Africa who cannot read.  Why do I worry about what people think about my sweater?  There are girls in Asia being pressured to commit suicide because their families didn't give their husbands enough of a dowry, and the husband wants to marry again.  Why does it matter if I am perfectly happy?  There are babies crying out for love and life when they have been abandoned because of deformities.

How can I think about beautiful when I see the suffering and despair around me?  And how can I be anything but beautiful, the way God intended, when I reach out my heart to a lost and hurting world?