Christmas...and clinging to the vine

Sometimes I find it hard to put into words what has been going on in my life. I have been home in Indiana (yes, amidst hay bales and cornfields...beautiful if you look at them the right way!) for Christmas.

It has been a special Christmas, mostly because I have taken the time to truly soak in the beauty that brilliantly laces the life God has given me. It has been such a blessing to just BE, to play games and sip tea and read books and enjoy moments of calm with my family. I have loved seeing new glimpses into the ways God is working in the hearts and lives of my brothers and sisters.

This year, God has begun the work of opening my eyes to the beauty in "mundane" life. On Christmas morning, while most of the house still slept (teenagers, mind you), I set out on a walk...the slow kind that leaves room for conversations with Jesus. I was so blessed to see the roads empty and looking like this:
In a way, I kind of got to spend Christmas with my dad...or at least, the snow was a constant reminder of him = ) I also loved receiving this love-kiss from God:
Watching the sun rise through the ice-covered trees was like getting a letter in the mail from God, gently saying, "My mercies are new every morning...and great is my faithfulness!"

Of course, it was wonderful to return from my walk to this:and this...
Simply a wonderful day with family, remembering God's incredible love packaged in the form of Jesus! A gift two thousand years ago...a gift for me today and tomorrow. He is faithful indeed.

If I allowed myself to, I could be overcome by nervous energy and anxiety. I start school again (after a long break...like 3 months long) in 5 days. I am reminded almost constantly of my inadequacy, of my desperate need for the VINE. I am so thankful I can be a branch and not a vine, that I can turn to Him for strength and courage and grace when I most need it.

I was reminded recently that I cannot live in a state of complacency. God clearly led me to nursing school, but I can't assume that I'll just fly through with no challenges or redirection. I cannot fall into the trap of relying on my own strength to complete what is before me. And I desperately don't want to. In 2010, I saw God provide for me in miraculous ways. I experienced what it was like to throw myself completely into God's hands. I passed tests and skills checks and board exams I shouldn't have passed on my own. As I head into 2011, I find myself once again on my knees, begging Jesus to remind me, once again, of these words:

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).
Bring on 2011!


This year, Lord willing, I am anticipating:
*what?! I'm gonna be 21?!
*147 million minus one! A special baby finally coming HOME forever!
*a medical mission trip to Guatemala...more on that soon
*completing 4 of 6 remaining quarters of school
*learning more than I could ever fathom now
*continued healing from a grief that began 1.5 years ago
*continued growth in my relationship with Jesus...a daily journey I am thrilled to be taking!

Honestly, I'm more excited about what is NOT on that list...Never know what twists and turns God will throw in my plans!

Tell me about your Christmas...and what you are looking forward to as 2011 nears!

Christmas: A Wailing Package of Hope

Boy. 'Tis the season...to be SICK!
Since my head is clogged
(sorry for the graphic language...),
I thought I would share a post
I wrote last Christmas season.
Although sometimes it seems
so abstract to me,
I am praying that Jesus
continues to open my heart
and prepare me
to celebrate His birthday.
How are you preparing for Christmas?

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camera strap!

***********************************

Christmas, the day we celebrate God incarnate, is just 2 days away. And yet, as I walk the dirty, snow-crusted sidewalks of Chicago, a great tsunami of sadness beaches atop my soul. Here we are, 2000 years past that stable birth, and creation still groans in longing for what she does not recognize to be among her folded skirts.

My cardboard Starbucks beverage container is printed with these words, in festive "holiday" colors: "We invite you to listen to your desires and to renew your hope. To see the world not as it is, but as it could be. Go ahead, wish. Its what makes the holidays the holidays."

If only we WOULD listen to our deepest desires, desires we have tried to kill, stifle, and silence since before we knew they screamed. If only we WOULD hope--not the kind of hoping that wishes for what cannot be, but the kind that rests in what WILL be. If only we would stop searching for what cannot be found--a world "as it could be"--and opened our eyes to the depravity of what is. Only in such a reality can we relish in the beauty of the gift birthed centuries ago--a gift that still echoes with the strains of a beautiful love song: "Hold on, Love. Don't give up now. A covering for your naked soul is here."

My sadness is cradled in that little phrase: "It's what makes the holidays the holidays." What? Wishes? Impossible utterings begging the unknown? Seeing the world through rose-colored lenses of naive imagination? The "holidays" are most certainly a bleak reminder for some of longings never to be satisfied. This is what I know: A baby King, God's human form, born in a filthy cave-barn, is what makes CHRISTMAS Christmas. A letter sent to man from his Creator, promising redemption, salvation from an invisible bondage inflicting visible pain. A wailing, pink flesh of HOPE--promises fulfilled, with a P.S. tag reading "LOVE is among you." Yes, Jesus is what makes "the holidays the holidays." He is the reason I can look into the sad eyes of so many I encounter, trying to follow instructions and "wish for what could be" but never will be, and say on the wings of a prayer, "Merry Christmas!"

For some, it will be just another day of heartache and loneliness, an always-present reminder of all they have to wish for. And it was to them that perfect, squalling package was addressed.

Amid the tidings of wishes and false hope this Christmas, aim to be a faithful deliverer of that package to those who need it most.

The Mingling of Life and Death: The Day My Daddy Went to Heaven

My dad and I shortly before His Heaven birthday

I rarely write or talk about the day my dad died. I try not to even think about it very much. There is a song, though, that plays on the radio every once in a while...and reminds me of that day.


I have not yet had the experience of birthing a child. I can only imagine that it is an incredibly spiritual experience...to take part in bringing life into the world, what a privilege! Even so, the pain cannot be bypassed.

The day my Daddy died, I thought of the painful process of childbirth. Just as a baby slowly lets go of his home in the womb, my Dad was slowly letting go of his home on earth. It was painful. It was heartbreaking. But the presence of God in that room was almost tangible. My Dad spent a lifetime walking with Jesus and praying, "Be still, my soul...He is." For the first time, as he was painfully birthed into the realm of Heaven, he was face to face with the One who was, is, and is to come. His soul was quiet.

As I sat by his side that day, reading aloud scriptures from Revelation describing the new creation, tears trickled down his cheeks. He had been unconscious for many hours by that time, unresponsive to our voices whispering "I love yous" in his ear. I don't know if those tears were merely another sign of failed control over bodily functions, or were truly in response to what I was reading. Either way, we sat and cried together for the last time. My Daddy was literally hours away from experiencing the glory of the new creation. I could almost HEAR the world fading away and the soft whisper of Heaven calling as my Dad was ushered into the presence of Jesus, leaving only the shell of his body for those of us who loved him so much.

Thinking about that day hurts. I don't like to dwell on it, mostly because, at the end of the day, I sat on that bed without a dad. But the experience of watching life mingle with death, of FEELING the world fade away as the presence of God consumes a place and takes one of His own HOME...there really is no way to explain or describe it. At the beginning of that week, LH was a husband, a father, a friend, a brother. As his physical body faded, and as he painfully breathed his last breath in the womb of this earth, he was birthed into Heaven...where he was simply HIS.

Life out of death...Be still, my soul...be still. He is.

Ladies and Gents...

We have snow = )

Every time it snows, I think of my dad. A couple of years ago, we had a massive snowstorm in my hometown...the largest in probably a couple of decades. The schools ended up being closed for a week as they tried to clear the roads enough for us country bumpkins to make our way to school.

Well, if you knew my dad, the story I am about to tell you would not surprise you at all...

As the snow "flood" began, my daddy eagerly asked me if I would go on a walk--no, a 4 mile trek--in the elements with him. I was either crazy or overly gullible to the boyish grin on his face. We bundled up and set out, hoisting our legs through the deep mounds of snow. We went in a square, or four "country blocks" as my dad called the longer-than-normal miles we traversed. The third mile was on a usually busy highway, now completely dead due to the road closures. The snow blanket produced a quiet I had never before and have never since experienced, interrupted only by our heavy breathing. As we finally trudged our way back down the driveway, some hour later, our cheeks and noses were pink and our mouths were stretched across our faces in the goofiest of smiles. Hiking in snow when the streets are dead (driving was forbidden by emergency crews) and all human life is securely locked and cozy in dry homes has that kind of effect on you = ) We may have been crazy, but that snowy trek is one of my most treasured memories of that man.

Oh, how he loved snow.