Is It Holiday Joy or Holiday Cheer?

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I love Christmas.

I love the colors, and the lights, and the food, and the parties.

I feel unusually happy this time of year. Next year has not yet started, and I am hopeful about what is to come (at least until January sets in, but that’s another post).

Most people would define this elated Christmas spirit as joy. After all, that’s a key Christmastime word, especially for Christians. But I think it’s actually something a little bit less than joy, and a little bit more like holiday cheer.

Now don’t get me wrong, holiday cheer is awesome! But joy should not be confused with it, because they are quite different, even though they initially give us that same warm feeling inside.

So first let me define holiday cheer, for those of you wondering. Holiday cheer is that feeling you get when your Christmas tree is decorated to perfection, and there are cookies baking in the oven. It’s that feeling that you get when you walk into a department store and there’s tinsel in every corner, and big wreaths, and lights. It’s your first peppermint mocha of the season.

Holiday cheer is so wonderful, but it is not to be confused with true joy.

True joy can weather any storm.

It is there during the holidays, through the mundane, and even in the deepest pain and suffering.

Joy is powerful.

Joy is more than a season where all seems merry and bright.

It is more than a peppermint mocha, or the beauty of bright lights, or the warmth of a holiday party.

And so I challenge us this season to give true joy the recognition it deserves and not just lump it in with the excitement of the Holidays.

Because true joy cannot be seen very well in the good times, but instead shines brightly in the darkest of places.

I wish you all a season of holiday cheer and a lifetime of joy!

 

 

Thankfulness Is More Than Just A Season.

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Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I am brimming with thankfulness.

As I write, brownies are baking in the oven, filling the entire house with the smell of dutch chocolate. The house is clean, and the laundry put away. Eric will be home from work soon, and we will spend the evening watching a movie snuggled in front of the fireplace. Tomorrow we will spend Thanksgiving with our family, stuffed to the brim with good food.

I have much to be thankful for.

Many of you can relate. Though you may know hardship, there is much to to be thankful for.

There is great importance in acknowledging our many blessings. It humbles us, and gives glory to the one from whom all blessings flow.

But I also want to know thankfulness in the less obvious sense. Thankfulness when all seems to be falling apart, thankfulness in the messiness of life, thankfulness when I am not getting my way.

That’s a different kind of thankfulness, one that must be practiced. Because thankfulness when we are surrounded by so many wonderful things, is, let’s be honest, kind of easy. But thankfulness in the midst of not-so-wonderful, stretches us.

I don’t just want to be thankful when it makes sense to be thankful; like when I am surrounded by people I love and stuffed full of turkey. I want to be thankful when it doesn’t make sense to be thankful. Like when anxiety is gripping my very soul and I just want to curl up in bed, I want to be thankful for a bed to curl up in and a God who hears my cries. And when our January heating bill comes and it’s almost as much as our mortgage, I want to be thankful for a home to heat.

I want to practice thankfulness in every moment. Not just tomorrow, or until after the Holidays are over, but in every single moment.

Because thankfulness is more than just one day where we acknowledge all that we have before going out and buying a bunch of stuff on sale. Thankfulness is a mindset, a choice, a lifestyle.

So much to be thankful for, both when it’s obvious, and when it is not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Those Aching This Holiday Season.

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Thanksgiving is upon us.

We are rushing to the store, baking pies, stuffing turkeys, vacuuming the house, cleaning windows.

Everyone is busy, alive with the hustle and bustle of the season, the cheer of the holidays.

But every year, right before the holidays begin, before the distractions ensue, I am reminded of the pain of this world.

This holiday season there will be empty seats at tables all over the world. People we miss dearly, people we want back.

This holiday season some will spend in hospital beds or beside them, in chemo treatment, rehab, secluded with debilitating depression.

The holidays carry much joy, but are also a reminder of the deepest pain.

Let us be gentle with how we celebrate. Because, for so many, this holiday season cannot end soon enough. Every decoration, every meal, every song, a reminder of what is missing, of what was lost.

If you are aching this holiday season, can I say that my heart reaches out to you. I am praying for God’s strength and peace. For He also knew suffering in this season, and he walks with us. He takes our hands and he says, “I know this is hard. I know you cannot bear it. But am with you and you will make it through.”

“The Lord Bless you and keep you; The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” -Numbers 6:24-26

 

 
 

 

What David Is Teaching Me About The Mundane.

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I took Max for a walk today to break up the monotony of writing (or more accurately, binge watching Dawson’s Creek). And as he dragged me five blocks I did some major thinking. Not just regular walk thinking, but the real questioning life stuff.

When I look around me, I don’t necessarily see an obvious purpose for my life. I am a 25 year aspiring writer making a living off of watching other people’s kids. The day to day often feels monotonous and uninspired. And while I love my life in so many ways, I can’t help but feel like I am missing something that everyone else is getting.

And so I look to my good friend David, as I always do when I am drowning in the mundane.

Yes, David the shepherd boy who no one noticed for years and years. The one who spent all of his time with the sheep, walking up and down hills, and playing his harp for an audience that couldn’t applaud. And yes he eventually became a king, a ruler over many, but what Is most interesting to me is how all the mundane stuff shaped his character.

Years and years at the bottom of the rung, spending all his time with animals, looked down upon by even his own family. I’m sure he felt discouraged on many occasions. His life may have even felt purposeless at times.

But if he hadn’t experienced the mundane would he have made a good king? If he had never learned to defend his helpless little lambs, and walk through the mountains would he have made it to the palace in the first place?

This boy spent years alone with God; listening and resting in his presence. Even though his life wasn’t getting anymore exciting there for a while.

And so as I walk the mundane, a time in my life with many directions yet no direction at all, I remember the shepherd boy. A boy whose mundane was actually the important stuff, the stuff shaping him into the man he was meant to be.

So if your walking in the mundane today, unsure of where you’re going or how to get there, take heart in the truth that these moments matter. We grow the most in the little moments, not the big ones.

 

 

 

 

 

Why Struggling With Our Faith Is A Good Thing.

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I’ve struggled with my faith since the day my Sunday school teacher told me that God is three in one (um…what?). That was the beginning of a never ending confusion about what exactly I believe.

It has caused me the greatest turmoil, and the deepest peace.

The enigma that is God is terrifying. We like to control things, know things, understand things, but this is one thing that we will never be able to grasp. We hate that. Some of us cannot live with that. So we line up all of our ducks in a row, dot all of our “i’s”, and still have no control.

I have spent most of my young life assuming that there are answers out there to my God questions and I am just missing them.

What if there are no answers?

What if there are no formulas?

What if faith is always a struggle?

And most importantly: What if that’s ok?

What we like to call “struggling with our faith” is a part of faith. It’s not this separate thing that we need to get past in order to have real faith. It is faith. it’s the most beautiful part of our faith.

Who needs to have a relationship with a God that makes total sense?

All of our questions and our unknowns only pull us closer to our creator.

Even questioning the very existence of God.

Yup, I totally just said that, so sue me.

God wants a real relationship with us. Like a really real one. None of this fake stuff that we do so much with each other.

Even the hardest stuff.

A friend of mine told me the other day, “I want to believe in God, but I just have so many questions”. And so I told her, “there doesn’t need to be a ‘but’ in that sentence. Believing is having questions”.

Our questions won’t scare God, they won’t offend God, they won’t even make God hate us.

They may actually be the thing driving us straight into His arms.

Struggle with your faith friends. Ask all of the deepest, darkest questions. That’s the real faith.

 

 

 

How Living Life Intentionally Is Unintentionally Driving Us Crazy.

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I hear a lot of stuff about living intentionally. The idea is a beautiful one, revolving around living on purpose and not wasting moments.

However, because of the fact that we are humans, living intentionally is often distorted into the idea of living in constant fear that you are missing out on something or not pouring enough of yourself into something. This is also known by some as FOMO or the Fear Of Missing Out (read what Brené Brown has to say on this here).

What we often fail to remember is that living intentionally and with purpose is not about micromanaging and perfection, it’s about peace and surrender.

Living life intentionally is not about constantly looking over your shoulder just to check if you accidentally aren’t being intentional, it’s about looking at what is right next to you in each moment and doing the best you can right then and there.

It’s about peace, not insanity.

And yet we drive ourselves crazy trying to do it all. Trying to living every moment with as much intention as the last, making every moment count.

I can’t help but wonder; what if every moment counts just because?

What if living intentionally is more about noticing and reacting, then actively planning anything?

Maybe we’re all just trying too hard.

Ever feel like you’re constantly balancing a million porcelain plates on top of your head with a pencil?

Yeah me too. That’s NOT how it needs to be.

Living intentionally is about resting in each moment (yes resting), observing what is happening around us, and reacting to those things that catch our attention.

Believe me guys, God is big enough to draw our hearts towards the things he wants us to notice. After all, He created those thoughts.

No micromanaging, no overanalyzing, just living fully present in each moment and responding to where are heart leads us.

Doesn’t that sound so much easier than balancing those porcelain plates?

Yeah, I think so too.

 

When We Only Help Others Because “The Bible Tells Us So”.

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As Christians it’s easy to fall into the trap of caring for others because “the bible tells us so”. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever been caring for or serving someone, but were kind of annoyed about the fact that you “had to”?

I have.

And I have also been on the other side of the table; being cared for by someone who obviously doesn’t care all that much.

Neither position is doing anything all that great for anyone.

You see, we think that as long as we are going through the motions of caring that it is enough, but it’s actually kind of not. It’s not the real thing.

It’s fake.

Of course we’re not robots and not everyone can be on all the time. I, of all people, get that. I can care for one person at a time and I need a serious emotional break in between, that’s just how I work.

But in the meantime, when we need a break from caring for someone else, let’s not pretend, okay?

Let’s not ask people how they are doing and then tune out when they really tell us how they are.

Let’s not offer to do something for someone else and then get annoyed when we have to follow through.

Let’s not just be nice to be nice, but let’s actually be nice to each other because we all know that life is hard and scary and complicated sometimes.

It’s not enough to say all the right things and do all the right things. It’s just not. Our hearts must be in it. Jesus didn’t tell us to just go through the motions of loving people, he said,

“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

So yeah. That seems pretty straight forward.

{picture courtesy of Holley Gerth}

What If We Don’t Succeed.

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As a little kid I dreamed of a hundred different things I would be when I grew up.

The options seemed endless, the sky was the limit.

I never really considered my life looking any differently than the movie playing in my 13 year old head.

But here I am, 12 years later, and I am doing none of the things I thought I would be doing.

And maybe it’s because of this that I’m starting to notice the people around me also struggling to be something greater than what they are. Wanting to “make it” in some area of their life. Following their dreams like a map.

We’re clinging to our passion as our purpose and that’s dangerous.

 

The cold, hard truth is that these dreams may never come true in the way we are hoping.

People don’t really say that anymore, especially Christians. When it comes to writing, I get a lot of “If you follow God you’ll make it” and “Ask and you shall receive (Matthew 7:7)”.

We may work harder than anyone, put ourselves out there in all of the right ways, and never get to where it is we’re trying to go. God is not in the business of paving a way for our dreams, but fulfilling His glory. So the cold hard truth is that our dreams, the ones that we think our hearts beat for, may never pan out in the way we expected them to.

What then?

Do we throw it all out the window and deem it a waste of time and passion?

Can we tear our eyes away from earthly success long enough to see what God is doing?

I pray we can.

When we’re doing what we love, hoping for a big break; let’s remember who is really in control, and whose hand is guiding everything we do.

 

Getting there is only good when God is leading, anything less is empty.

So if we never live up to our own expectations, never succeed in the way that we thought we would, we can hold on to the knowledge that we are right where we are supposed to be because He has led us there.

 

 

I Don’t Know If I Would Say “Yes”.

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Yesterday there was another shooting. I am sure you’ve all read the headlines, the stories.

Word is that this young man targeted christians.

In high school, I watched a documentary about Rachel Joy Scott (you can find the website in her memory here). She was a christian girl targeted by the columbine shooters. She was 17 years old when she was killed. 17 years old when she professed her faith to Jesus Christ with a gun to her head.

I always wondered…would I do that?

And now as I scroll through Facebook from the safety of my living room, I keep seeing the hashtag #Iwouldsayyes.

Meant to be used by those who follow Christ. Those would would die before they would deny Him.

Such deep faith.

Such deep love for our maker.

Love and faith that I claim to have.

Some days I really think it’s there.

Other days I wrestle with how much I am willing to surrender.

 

How much I would really give up.

Do I really, truly, deeply, believe that God is greater than all things?

Even death?

Would I say “yes”?

Or would I swallow the bile in my throat, and as my life flashed before my eyes, quietly mutter “no”.

Would I profess my love and faith in Christ?

Or would I quickly put my own life before it?

 

Today I sit in remembrance of those who lost their lives.

Prayers constantly on my lips for all involved.

My heart has been humbled.

Every inch of me wants to say I would not waver.

But I cannot sit here today and say that without a doubt I would say “yes”.

I cannot.

And that is a hard pill to swallow.

 

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” {Matthew 17:20}

 

Why A Lot Of People Don’t Really Like Christians.

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There are so many super obvious, big, reasons why people don’t like christians. They’re usually things that are all over the news and make me not really want to be associated with christians either. But what about the other little things?

When I was in boarding school I had a friend who spoke her mind incessantly. I have her to thank for what backbone I do have now. She was also the first person in my life who really challenged my faith. She wasn’t a christian; in fact pretty much hated christians, and yet, we were friends.

I remember one morning, I was out in the yard (aka a bunch of cactuses and dead grass-it was Arizona) sitting in my crazy creek, reading my bible. It was a Saturday morning, already swelteringly hot. This friend came over and sat down next to me. She threw a few jabs over what I was reading and then paused and looked at me and said,

“Do you really believe that stuff? Or do you just believe it because your family does?”

I looked up at her, ready to say that of course I did, but instead I said,

“I don’t know.”

I think I probably blushed. I couldn’t believe I had said that. What was I thinking? The answer is always that I believe. Always. always. always. How could I have been such an idiot?

That girl saved my life.

She really did.

Because for the first time in probably forever, I realized that I had no clue what I believed. No clue.

Thanks to her, I began a journey to find out exactly what I did believe.

But I also began to wonder, how she saw that inside of me? How she knew that I wasn’t really sure of anything, and how many other people could see that too.

So many of my favorite writers and speakers are making a turn towards vulnerability. A turn towards embracing and then sharing the messiness and the struggles of life.

But in general, I take a step back, and I look at this group of us journeying after Jesus and what I see is a lot of perfection. A lot of trying to “get it right”. A lot of saying the right things. A lot of perfectly dressed for church, and Pinterest perfect houses.

Maybe that’s just  because I am looking in my own mirror. But maybe it’s also because it’s true.

Behind all of those things are hearts that are broken, stories waiting to be told, laundry to be done, faith being shattered.

I think people don’t like us because we look like we’re wrapped up in a nice little bow all the time, not a hair out of place.

Maybe we need to be more concerned with sharing our brokenness, and less concerned with sharing the pretty stuff.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the pretty stuff. I love decorating my house, and putting together outfits.

But maybe that’s not the part of me that needs to be broadcast.

Maybe the part of me that needs to be broadcast the loudest is the part of me that lives in anxiety 90% of the time, and the part of me who doesn’t always believe in God’s goodness, and the part of me who spends some days just surviving.

Maybe that’s what is missing to the people all around us.

The truth.

Maybe we’re so busy showing people how God has changed our lives and how much we are living for him that we’re forgetting to mention that we need him every second or else we fall flat on our smug faces.

“My grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in your weakness.”                   {2 Cointhians 12:9}