First Tuesday of Advent

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Advent Reading

Isaiah 11:1-10; Luke 10:21-24

 Jesus said:

 "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not  your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." 

 Peace is not only possible; it is the gift already given.  Christ gives us his peace by giving us himself, for he is the Prince of Peace...The peace that is ours is not a peace of pretending that things are not as they are; nor is it a peace of being blind to conflict.  It is the peace of faith. Faith is trust in the Prince of Peace.  We neither hold ourselves aloof from the anguish of a conflicted world nor delude ourselves that the resolution of all conflicts is within our power.  In the child of Bethlehem, in the powerlessness of a baby, God entered into our conflicts. 

Heavenly Father, look out for your children who are imperiled by war around us and war within us. Prepare us to welcome the Prince of Peace in his birth at Bethlehem so that in a violent world he may make us instruments of the peace that he gives.

Amen.

Let it be.

Taken from "God with Us"

First Monday in Advent

As I did last year, I will be posting Advent readings for each day.  There is so much to be done this month, but I really am going to be intentional in focusing on Christ and the amazing gift he offers, and continues to offer.

Much of the material I will be using comes from a book that I have used for several years now.  "God With Us". I like reading these words year after year, I see with different eyes with each reading.

Isaiah 2:1-5

Matthew 8:5-11, 13

Matthew's gospel tells about the centurion at Capernaum who asked Jesus to heal his servant in distress.  "I will come and heal him," says Jesus. To which the centurion responds, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed."  Jesus says the word and the servant is healed.  Of the Roman centurion he then says, "Not even in Israel have I found such faith."

Faith does not assert claims; faith receives the gift that is undeserved. Faith is itself a gift, the gift of receptivity. Mary received the gift in saying, "Let it be to me according to your word." To her, and through her to us, was given the gift of the Child who is nothing  less, no one less, than the Savior of the world. For us he lived and suffered and died; for us he was raised triumphant that we might, even though we suffer and die, forever live in his glory. The gift is already given and forever is now for those who give him permission to let life be a gift in response to gift. It really is a matter of giving God permission, as Mary gave God permission. He will not be the Lord of our life without our permission.  Faith is giving permission. 

 (Our yes is required)

"Lord, I am not worthy." On our lips and in our hearts, these are words of surrendering love-of love surrendering to love. They are words by which we empty ourselves, to receive the gift. It we are full of ourselves, complaining about what we deserve and do not deserve, there is no room in our hearts to receive the gift.  If we deserved the gift, it would not be a gift.  "Lord, I am not worthy." With these words, we make room in our hearts for the gift.

Christmas is the giving and receiving of gifts.  What a joy.  What a hassle.  What gifts to give to whom? What gifts to expect in return? The hassle surrenders to gratitude as we, setting aside all calculations of who deserves what, respond by giving as we have been given.  "Lord, I am not worthy." With these words, complaints and grievances are banished. With these words, the gift is given to receive the gift of giving. With these words, faith gives permission for Christ to be in our lives Emmanuel, God with us.

Lord Jesus Christ, like the centurion's servant, we are in distress. Save us from the sin of presumption and complaint, for we have not claim on your love other than the promise that you love us. Purge us, cleanse us, empty us, open us, so that every moment becomes a gift in response to your gift of life eternal, beginning now.

Amen

Let it be.

The above is taken from "God With Us" this particular piece written by Richard John Neubaus.

Advent

To the Wonder and Mystery

Advent

The season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas.

It is a season set aside to prepare for the mystery we are about to celebrate at Christmas: the arrival of God with us, God incarnate. 

Birth

Wonder

Astonishment

Adoration

"Every year Christmas comes around again and forces us to deal with God in the context of demanding and inconvenient children; gatherings of family members, many of whom we spend the rest of the year avoiding; all the crasser forms of greed and commercialized materiality; garish lights and decorations.  Or maybe the other way around: Christmas forces us to deal with all the mess of our humanity in the context of God who has already entered that mess in the glorious birth of Jesus."

(Eugene Peterson, God With Us)

Birth

Wonder

Astonishment

Adoration

I am choosing the latter.  I am choosing to dwell on the wonder. To be astonished again. To dwell in the mystery. And to adore.  I am choosing to focus on the God who chose to enter my mess.  I may not do it perfectly, but that is where I want to be.

This is the irrational season

When love blooms bright and wild.

Had Mary been filled with reason

There'd have been no room for the child.

(Madeline L'Engle)

Lord Jesus, 

Master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for

Christmas.

We who have so much to do, seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day.

We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us.

We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom.

We whose hearts are heavy, seek the joy of your presence.

We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking light.

To you we say, Come Lord Jesus...

Amen.
(Advent Prayer - Henri Nouwen)

Happy Thanksgiving

Thank you all for the encouragement you give
 Thank you for enriching my life
You bless me in so many ways

Happy Thanksgiving

Meg's 19

Today is my precious daughter's 19th birthday.  

she is beautiful inside and out

she is creative

she is kind

she is funny

she can be shy

but that is changing

it is a joy to watch her stretch her wings.

Thank you Lord, for the gift that she is,  

may she grow in the knowledge that she is precious in your sight,

that you love her unconditionally and completely.

And may she discover and grow in the gifts and talents you have given her,

and use them to glorify you.


Happy Birthday my Meggie, I love you!

   

Abiding Monday

My sweet daughter is home.  She arrived yesterday afternoon.  She is home for a full week.  I am oh so thankful.

I have so many things running through my head and heart.  Yesterday's workshop was wonderful.  About 25 women attended, some returning and some new.  The hours go by so quickly, and I never feel like I get to share as much as I want to.  I guess that's why we are having more.  I love watching these precious women create something, some have never done anything like this.  I love watching them "get it".  I love seeing the returning women's journals and what they have done on their own.  I asked them if they were surprised at how wonderful, and therapeutic visual journaling is.  They all smiled and shook their heads up and down.  I am so grateful to be able to share this...so grateful!

In fact, I have a little dream tucked in my heart.  I debated sharing it, part of me wanted to keep it secret, just for me and God.  But I am going to say it out loud, and hold it with open hands and heart.  I desire to have a little studio, other than my home, to offer these workshop, and have a place for women to come and create during the week.  My studio can only sit about 10, or 12 if we really squeeze.  And you journalers know how we like to spread out.  So, I am going to keep praying about this.  And if God so graciously chooses to open doors I will gladly step through.  And if not, that's okay too. This is God's gig anyway.  I would not be able to do this without his gifting, his prompting me.  I would have never had the courage to do this on my own.

Oh, remember the painting I asked you abut in the last post?  I have decided, (I really think I knew all the time) that it is not complete.  As I gaze at it I see chaos.  That got me to thinking about how God creates order out of chaos.  How God brings healing from brokenness. How God brings light out of the darkness.

Transformation comes to mind.  I do not know where I will take this, I just know it will be more.

Grace and peace to you dear friends.

working on something

My husband walked into the studio last night and said, you have a new painting!  I asked him, do you think it's finished??  I know, I know, that was probably not nice.  :)  Now how is he going to answer that loaded question I ask you?  So I asked another.  I asked him if I handed it to him to hang in his office would he hang it up??  He said yes!  Then I asked him if he really thought it was finished and not just being nice.??  He said, "yes, it could be finished!"  It's funny because I am not sure where to take this.  Part of me actually likes it, part of me says you need to do more, it's really not done.

So, I will let it sit for a bit.

I really do think it is incomplete as is.

I am learning to let things sit and simmer, even in my heart.  To be okay with something not finished.  I used to not like waiting.  Somehow it's easier at this point in my life.

Live the moments of this day, even if you are waiting......

Grace and peace

Guided journal page

I had a wonderful time with my friends last weekend. We laughed, cried, and ate really good food.  One of us is a really good cook - not me.  She shops for and prepares most of our meals.  It is such a gift to us.  Thank you Susan.  

Friday we walked around the little town of Blue Ridge and stopped for a wonderful lunch, wish I could remember the name of the restaurant. I am sure there is one women in my group that will remember, though we are all at that certain age where retention flies out the window when our estrogen is low. 

Saturday after our study - we are finishing up TrueFaced (a really good book) we completed a guided journal page.  I read a scripture, and prayer and then we asked God what he wanted to say to us.  I am always amazed at how different our pages are and how God personally speaks to each one of us.

How is your week going?  I am preparing for next Saturday's visual journaling workshop at church.  If God brings me to your mind will you pray.  Specifically that I stay well, and that I speak clearly, and listen for what the Lord wants to say through me.  Thanks friends.

Run the plough share deep,

cut the furrows round and round

overturn the hard dry ground.

Spare not strength nor toil,

even though I weep.

In the loose, fresh mangled earth

sow new seed.  

Free of withered vine or weed

bring fair flowers to birth.   

Tremper Longman

Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind

Grace and peace

Abiding Monday

This is from Jan Johnson's website. You can sign up to receive these "Wisbits" and find all kinds of good books, articles and resources to aid in your journey.  I have read several of her books and find them a cool drink of water.  "Experiencing God's Presence" and "When the Soul Listens" are two examples. It is worth the time to explore her site.

God Speaking To You

If the Bible is merely words on a page, you are missing out on God’s primary way of speaking to you and me. Try taking a passage of Scripture from that viewpoint: God wants to speak it to you. As you read it, speak those words aloud to yourself from God’s (or Jesus’) point of view. Better yet, write them down; best yet, do both. Paraphrase the words and pull in phrases from elsewhere in Scripture if they fit.

Here are two examples (please read these aloud and insert your name):

"_____ (your name), don’t worry. Just keep trusting me. I will never leave you isolated; I am your constant companion, always at your side. You are in me and I am in you. You really can live in union with me. The Counselor—the Holy Spirit—is eager to teach you everything you need to know and remind you when you forget. Doing the things I’ve told you will bond you to me even more and give you a rich life in God. My companionship will provide you with a peace that the world cannot give, cannot experience, and cannot even understand. You really don’t need to be troubled or afraid of anything ever again” (John 14:1, 18, 20, 23, 26-27).

And,

“___ I want you to truly know me. I want to give you spiritual power—resurrection sort of power. This will mean you have to let go of quite a bit, especially those things you regard as success. But you won’t be sorry because you’ll bask in the surpassing richness of knowing me as your all in all. You’ll need to lay aside certain things that look good (and you’ll see how silly it was to hold on to them) so that you can gain more of me and make me your own. It will gradually become clear to you and others that you are mine—not because you do good things—but because you radiate a self-forgetful unassuming goodness that can come only from me.”

“Now, _____, you aren’t there yet, but press in—don’t give up—because I’ve got a hold of you and I am doing this in you. You’re going to have to forget, to let go of, and to lay aside the glories (and faults) of yesterday, last year and ten years ago, and then turn your attention and energy toward me and the with-God life I’m drawing you into. Trust me more than ever before” (Philippians 3:7-14, beginning with the theme verse: 10).

You may think, I can’t do it like that. Try it anyway. You’ll probably do it better because the Holy Spirit knows you so well and will provide the words you need. Try not to use churchy language. Jesus spoke in everyday Aramaic and the New Testament was written inkoine (common, not classical) Greek so today God speaks to you in everyday language. In this way, you can hear Jesus speak these words to you today. (This is a slightly different twist on the method suggested on pp. 134-135 of ’Savoring Gods Word.)

janjohnson.org

serendipity?

I love when this happens.  Some would call it serendipity - making happy discoveries by accident. Now I know this has happened in my art.  Some journal page or painting that started out one way turned out differently because I screwed up on it, but it turned out that I liked it.  A happy accident.

But sometimes it is something different.  Sometimes I know I am being guided by my Father.  You have seen this journal page before, minus the journaling.  In my reading this morning I came across a familiar scripture but felt the nudge to record it.  I first tried it on another journal page and the pen would not write correctly.  Then I tried it on another - nope wouldn't work there either.  Then I landed on this page ready and waiting for this passage.  When I added these images a few weeks ago I did not know where it was going, I just liked the images and words.

The passage reads - Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him....

And - fix your attention on God.  You'll be changed from the inside out.  (Romans 12:1-2)

And when I/we do this, God changes our hearts.  He changes my/our desires into his.  In the changing we become people that bubble up and over with God's love.

Father I want to bubble up and over!!!!!

I am leaving today for a weekend in the mountains with my share group.  I'll see you on Monday. Have a marvelous weekend.


Grace and Peace

snow??

okay, I know this doesn't look like much - there was more but we were staying warm and toasty in front of the huge fireplace   

a few moments outside on the swing

my most precious husband

Yes,  we had snow!!  For the past 9 years or so we have stayed at the Snowbird Mountain Lodge in  

Robbinsville, NC. We usually go in the fall around the same time each year either late October or the first weekend in November. This was the first time we ever had snow. It was too cold to do much walking, or rocking on the porch, so the main room in the lodge was quite busy. We came home a day early and hung out around home. We did hit the gym this morning to try to work off some of the eating we did.  The lodge provides all your meals, and they do it in the most marvelous way, including desserts that we did not pass up!!

We had dinner with  Marsha and Mike Harwood, they are friends that we met when they lived in GA.  I know some of you know Marsha from Marsha's Musings, and they have a wonderful ministry in the Snowbird area. It was good to see them and catch up.  

I am heading to the mountains again this coming weekend with my share group, my third trip to those beautiful Smokey Mountains.  So if I am a little scarce, and not leaving many comments please know it is because life has been quite busy around here.  

May you all take some time to go outside and soak up this beautiful season.  

Grace and Peace

a few journal backgrounds

Wanted to show you all a few of my new backgrounds.  I am not sure what I will do with them, maybe a photograph and a little journaling. I like the backgrounds so much as they are I don't want to add too much to them.


After I posted the "Entering Loneliness" article yesterday I got to thinking about it. The definition of loneliness is:

alone

lonesome

without company

companion less

solitary

isolated

bleak

standing apart

destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship 

But we can feel alone even in the company of others.  When our hearts are missed and not understood. When the needs and desires God placed in our hearts are not met. Sometimes that "loneliness" is far worse then just being alone.


We all need affirmation, acceptance, understanding and love.  We desire these from the people we love, and expect to get our needs met by them.  But we love and are loved by imperfect people.  People that do not love well much of the time.  And when those needs are not met we feel alone.  Sometimes that loneliness come out as anger, either to others (outward) or at ourselves (internal).  For me I would internalize that loneliness.  To relieve the pain I would buy some shiny new bauble, or eat something yummy, or endlessly move furniture among other things, then when that did not alleviate the pain (and it doesn't for long) I would explode in anger to be noticed.


I am changing.  I am learning to take that pain to the One who has the power to fill that need perfectly because we were made for Him.


And it's interesting to me that Solitude is one of things God is using to accomplish that change.


Richard Foster says this:  "Loneliness is inner emptiness.  Solitude is inner fulfillment".


A friend of mine saw this in fulfillment - ful-fill-me.


I am learning that when my need for affirmation, unconditional love and acceptance are met (filled) by the One who made me and knows me inside and out better than anyone else I am less demanding of others in my life to meet those needs.  I still desire those things from my loved ones, we all do, but I give them grace when they cannot meet them for one reason or another.


Grace received and given is so healing.

Greg and I are heading for the mountains for a long weekend.  The main Lodge has a computer, but I am going to try to stay away from it.  (we will see how well that goes)  I want to spend time listening to my Father, with my precious husband, good books, my journal, beautiful surroundings, and yes good food.

Grace and peace

Abiding Monday

Entering Loneliness


"I decided to make a life in the US, and I experienced pain and felt a deep absence of friendship, but then I started to slowly realized that maybe the experience of loneliness and the experience of separation might not be a negative thing. It might, I thought, bring me more in touch with other people's experience of loneliness. If I would not run away from it, but feel it through all the way, it might become fruitful. Then suddenly I had this idea that loneliness which is pain, when you do not run away from it but feel it through and stand up in it and look it right in the face, that there is something there that can be a source of hope, in the middle of the pain there is some hidden gift. I, more and more in my life, have discovered that the gifts of life are often hidden in the places that hurt the most. I am saying that you can stand the pain. I think one of the great challenges of life is to dare to stand in your pain, and to trust that there is something beyond that which is safe. What begins to happen is something like the experience that there is safety beyond the pain, that  if you enter into it, it's not so frightening as you thought it was, and that underneath your loneliness, there is an experience of being held safe...I know it for myself so much that if I experience loneliness or anguish, I distract myself. I go do something so that I don't feel it. But it is always a disappointment, and I am more lonely; I am more anguished.  Then I discovered that if I just stay with it, and live with it to the fullest. Not just accept it, but taste it, chew on it. I would nearly say to myself I am lonely, yes, and let me feel it. I've discovered that there's much more strength in me than I realized, and in a way, the strength is not coming from me, but it is coming indeed from someone who holds me, who loved me long before I came into life, from someone who will love me long after I died. It is not an intellectual thing. Jesus for me is the center of it. Jesus for me is the one who helps me discover that God has loved me before I even was born, and will still love me after I die. The love of God is a love that is there before and after any other human being has touched me. The mystery of knowing Jesus is the mystery of knowing God who embraces me much in a wider and deeper way, more than any human being can do. It sounds quite theoretical, but I have only discovered this gradually in life through much of my own pain, and through much of my own disappointment, and through much of my own running away to other places."
Henri Nouwen in Nouwen Then by Christopher de Vink. p. 134

It's so easy to run from the pain, the discomfort instead of staying with it.

I run from it, to other things, but it is temporary relief, and as Nouwen says, "I am more lonely, I am more anguished."

Do you run from it??

the sweetest dragon ever

Isn't he just the cutest thing ever!!

And check out Mina's colorful new shoes!

Sean was telling his Daddy to pull the wagon.  

After a few minutes of the wagon we ditched it and walked.