Simply Christmas

This year is a little different.


To help everyone focus on Jesus this year, we have simplified.


My side of the family exchanges names, so Tim and I bought just two gifts, including a donation to Heifer International, to help families in developing countries.  We bought 5 shares toward the purchase of a goat.


Tim's side of the family no longer exchanges names for adults.  We used to exchange adult names, then all get presents for the grandkids/grand-nieces/grand-nephews.  Now the adults exchange names for the kids, and make a donation toward a family in need.  This way, the kids just receive a few things, and the adults are able to bless someone in the name of Jesus instead of accumulating more and more stuff.


Tim and I have simplified our giving to the kids and to each other as well.  Our major purchase was a donation to our church's Beyond Our Valley Christmas Offering.  We bought one toy present for the kids (scooters for family time and exercise - sssshhhh, don't tell!), plus a few clothing items and their stocking stuffers.  


We want Christmas to mean something more than just presents.  We will be baking holiday goodies to give away to neighbors and friends at church with the intent of blessing them in the name of Jesus.  We will be buying canned goods to donate to our church's food basket giveaway in the name of Jesus.  We will intentionally give of ourselves without expectation of receiving anything but God's smile.  We will give.


"This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again." - John 3:16-17 (the Message)

Every Story Whispers His Name

The kids and I have recently been overdosing on Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre dramatizations of the Chronicles of Narnia, so I suggested a break.

We began listening to the Jesus Storybook Bible on CD.  We have been reading it as a supplement to our Bible curriculum in home school, but hadn't listened to the accompanying CDs yet.  

Imagine our delight to hear the same intonations and rhythm in the vocalization as we heard from the character of "Aslan" in the Narnia CDs!  We all looked at each other in stunned silence and wondered if it could be the same man.  It was!  David Suchet is the voice of the Jesus Storybook Bible.  I can't tell you how much more meaningful it is for us to hear how "every story whispers His Name" when it comes from such a friendly, lordly, great voice that we have come to love.

The kids and I highly recommend this terrific Bible and resource for all ages.

More information can be found here at Zondervan.

First, they came for the Muslims...

To be perfectly honest with you, the raging debate over the zoning issue in Manhattan regarding the mosque and activity center a few blocks from the site of the terrorist attacks 9 years ago has really not interested me.  I tend to avoid most news, because it just depresses and frustrates me.  Thank the Lord, we do not have cable, so I am not subjected to 24-hour news coverage of everything in America that the talking heads think is important (but really isn't).  I read Scripture, then look through my local newspaper in the morning, check in on what my friends think is important on their blogs and Facebook, then go about my joyful day, occasionally checking in with NPR for Morning Edition or All Things Considered. 

Yesterday, I listened more to Morning Edition than I usually do, since my kids were not in the car and not clamoring to listen to "Deliberate Kids" or "They Might Be Giants."  Morning Edition played a clip I remember hearing 9 years ago, and I remember being so grateful and overcome with emotion for the words and the president we had at the helm of our nation following the terrorist attacks.  

President Bush said, "I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world.  We respect your faith.  It is practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends.  Its teachings are good and peaceful and those that commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah."

Many Republican - and even Democrat - politicians are using this issue to attack the other side, and President Obama.  It's become a terrible mess that I'd just rather tune out.  

However, again on Morning Edition, I heard Newt Gingrich (from a program on Fox News) invoke the Nazis in his rant against the mosque.  He said, "The Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.  We'd never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.  There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center."

Normally, I think Newt is a pretty level-headed thinker.  I tend to listen to him when he speaks.  So this brought me up short.  And I started to think about the Nazis and the way they targeted people for their ancestry, their race, their religion, and the essence of what made them different from the Nazis.  The Nazis began by limiting freedom, then they escalated their hatred to horrors that still shock the world.  I was horrified as I began to wonder which typifies the Nazis more: insensitivity to those hurt by their actions, or the attempt to restrict the freedoms of those they hate?  

On January 6, 1946, a pastor by the name of George Neimoller gave a speech before representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt.  His words should remind all of us, but especially Christians, of the dangers of limiting religious freedoms in America.  

Neimoller said, "They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.  Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Now, I'm not going to get into the facts of where the mosque is planned to be built, why it's going to be built, or even who is arguing against it or defending it. 

I just want us all to take a breath and consider the ramifications of limiting religious freedom in America.  If we limit the Muslims in where they can build a house of worship, what's next? 

David Ramadan, a member of a group of prominent Muslim Republicans, wisely said, "If 2 blocks is too close, is 4 blocks acceptable?  Or 6 blocks?  Or 8 blocks?  Does our party believe that one can only practice his or her religion in certain places with defined boundaries and away from the disapproving glances of some other citizens?"

As Neimoller warned us 64 years ago, if "they come" for the Muslims, who's next?  Will there be anyone left to speak up for the freedom of Christians?  Think about it.

Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." - Matthew 22:37-40 (the Message)

My Issues With Twilight

"In the end everything will be all right, nothing can harm you permanently; no loss is lasting, no defeat more than transitory, no disappointment is conclusive.  Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement and death will be part of your journey, but the kingdom of God will conquer all of these horrors.  No evil can resist grace forever." - Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

I've read the entire Twilight series, and seen every movie that has come out so far.  While Stephenie Meyer is not a terrific author, and the movies don't meet my high standard of quality in filmmaking, I have been reasonably entertained.  The storyline is fascinating and very creative (witness all the people trying to copy it - from True Blood to The Gates).

Down through history, many stories have featured romantic love and obsession, and the books allude to stories such as Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights to (not-so-subtly) flesh out the relationships in Twilight.  Just as in works by Shakespeare and Bronte, these characters are consumed with themselves and with each other.  Twilight's prose is of a lesser quality, but the themes are not new.

However, as a wife and a mother, I have some deeper issues with the series and its characters.

BELLA:

Bella is a whiny, bratty, self-absorbed girl, and I don't want my daughter to be anything like her.  She is described as plain, klutzy, very ordinary.  That's fine.  Every teenage girl feels this way, whether she admits it or not.  However, Bella somehow manages to attract a beautiful, "perfect" specimen and his every desire is directed toward her.  As a former teenager, I can tell you that this is a recipe for disaster.  She is now desired for her scent, her blood, and sex.  He wants her body and soul, and she is all too willing to give it all up for him.

This flies in the face of the wisdom taught to us in Proverbs - the desire of particular types of people (and to be desired BY them) invites destruction.  The opposite of wisdom is death.  Bella comes to see death as a desirable outlet, and living without her boyfriend is impossible.  Wow.  I am teaching my daughter to be obsessed with Jesus, and her mind, soul and strength belong to him.  While she may marry someday, her first love is Jesus.  God's blessings will be given to her through her husband.  Her husband should not be the center of her existence.

EDWARD AND THE VAMPIRES:

He is so beautiful and perfect that mere mortals cannot compete.  All of the vampires are portrayed as having "remarkable good looks," and they have the money and clothes to complete the whole package. Bella longs to be accepted by them, no matter the danger or the cost to her family.  In the first movie, Edward even tells Bella, "I'm the world's most dangerous predator.  Everything about me invites you in.  My voice, my face, even my smell.  As if I would need any of that.  As if you could outrun me.  As if you could fight me off.  I'm designed to kill." 

At multiple points in the book, Bella feels pain and anguish over the absence of Edward.  Beyond the warped desire to be with a boy who wants to hurt her, this screams of female lust to me.  At the risk of seeming stereotypical, there are different kinds of lust for men and women.  Men look at women and desire, and women want to be looked at and desired.  There is the sin of lust for both men and women, and the danger of destruction in both the desiring and the being desired.

Edward is set up in the books as a savior for Bella, the person who can deliver her from her normalcy, the mundane aspect of her life.   I don't want my daughter to think it's okay to be fascinated with a boy to the extent of her own destruction, especially a "bad boy," a dangerous person.  An obsession with Edward (or Jacob, for that matter) feeds into the idea that a woman needs danger and fear in a relationship.  No!  I want my daughter to yearn for a godly, upright man, who loves Jesus more than he loves her.  With those priorities in order, she will live a blessed life.  God will be her constant, her steadfast companion.  "For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you." - Isaiah 54:10

JACOB AND THE WOLVES:

The biggest challenge I have is with the idea of "imprinting."  Jacob and his wolf brothers can become imprinted on a person, instantly experiencing love at first sight, and a deep connection to that person as a soul mate.  The last thing Elisa needs is to feel like she has no choice in the matter when a boy falls in love with her, or when she falls in love with him.  Young love will come and go.  True love is a choice, a decision that mature people make every day.  Love is work, not hormones or instincts.

DECISION-MAKING:

Every decision Bella makes leads her deeper into danger.  We need to realize the consequences of our actions and our choices, and question where our steps are leading us.  There is not much in the way of redemption in Twilight, beyond the good "works" and choices made by the Cullen family to help humanity instead of kill people.  There is a great deal of struggle over whether the vampires are damned because they have been transformed into vampires.  Vampire legends are rooted in the idea that vampires sold their souls to the devil in exchange for eternal life.  Twilight vampires do not have the same choice (although Bella seems to choose vampirism even with the chance that her soul could be eternally lost). 

I almost wondered at the idea of works salvation - how the Cullens seem to be trying by their actions alone to be "good."  Their fate was chosen for them, so they did everything they could to fight their nature and do good works/deeds.  Bella even says, "you couldn't be damned" because she sees Edward (his actions) as good.  People/vampires/wolves seem to be relying on good works instead of relying and trusting in the goodness of God.  The topic or personhood of God is not introduced into Twilight saga at all, beyond the concept of damnation.  No vampires, wolves or humans are introduced to God or his offer of eternal life.

WOULD I LET MY DAUGHTER READ TWILIGHT?

Yes, but only with me reading along with her to discuss themes and choices made by the characters.  I want my children to know that I'm not able to be shaken by what interests them, and we can talk about anything.  I don't want to be the "cool mom" that lets them participate in all aspects of the world.  However, I want them to see me seek after God while in the culture, either contributing to it or battling it, and finding true joy by seeing Christ in my fellow man and maybe even in the culture around me.  I don't believe that ignoring Twilight or any other aspect of culture is the way to do that.  My mom caught flak for my obsession over Michael Jackson in fourth grade, but she knew that withholding and restricting me from all things Michael would only feed my desire and create a stronger devotion.  My parents helped me balance my interest in "Thriller" with more wholesome pursuits and helped me develop into a person who could - not always successfully - navigate my teen years IN the world but not OF it.

I would also allow her to watch the movies, with me, and with my finger firmly on the pause button.  I do this with most movies.  I don't want my children to absorb things without questioning the legitimacy of the worldviews and statements put forth in movies and TV shows.

I am aware that evil comes in many disguises and is made to look alluring and fascinating to appeal to our senses.  Like Twilight, like many things in our culture.  Many times songs and images have become embedded in my mind and I realize that I need God's divine help to remove them from my soul.  I know that Twilight has become just such an obsession for many people.  I'm not ready to call Twilight evil, but I am recognizing its dangers and drawbacks.  Twilight is deeply in the American culture, and we need to find ways to discuss it and transform its followers into devotees of the true God, grateful recipients of the real sacrificial love of Jesus.

Interesting article for teens and how to talk about Twilight at youthministry.com: http://www.youthministry.com/?q=node/20393

Observations on Marriage After 15 Years

Many words have been spoken, many books written about marriage and how to make it work.


After 15 years, I'm not saying I have it figured out.  In fact, I look forward to many more years trying to figure it out with Tim.


ATTRACTION
We had an attraction from the beginning.  Tim was cute and had great legs from playing soccer, and Tim said I caught his eye because I was different from the other freshman girls at Milligan College.  Apparently he had never met a girl who knew how to shoot a rifle and thought the East Tennessee mountains were mere speed bumps compared to the "real mountains" out west.

Solid marriage - even a solid dating relationship - isn't based on attraction, though.  I could list hundreds of "beautiful" people who started out with attraction and fizzled shortly.  In fact, I'm shocked to hear how short some Hollywood marriages are.  

IDOLATRY
To rely solely on attraction and chemistry reduces the relationship to a flimsy shadow of love, simple lust.  In fact, it makes one's beloved into an idol - the object of our hopes and desires - instead of a partner in life.  When I set my beloved up as an idol, the Apostle Paul writes that I have "exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator." (Romans 1:25)


COMMON PURPOSE
Antoine De Saint-Exupery said, "love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."  Beyond the attraction (which does cool somewhat over the years, by the way),  Tim and I had found similarities and common experiences that helped us understand each other and appreciate each other more.  Even deeper than that, we knew we had a shared faith in God and commitment to follow Jesus Christ with our whole lives.  As we continued to date, I knew I had found a man who loved God more than he loved me, and I knew that God would bless me through him.  


We spent a summer apart in 1994.  We had separate internships - mine in North Carolina, his in Indiana.  The disconnection from each other was deeper than loneliness, and stronger than absence.  We realized that summer that we were better together.  I was a more effective person, better at my job - a better woman when he was by my side.  He found that he was a better minister, worker and person with me working alongside him.  We knew it was time to talk about getting married.  


The thrill of a common purpose and a shared passion keeps us together - beyond attraction, beyond the promises we made on June 24, 1995 (and renew in our hearts every time we attend a wedding),  and beyond "staying together for the sake of the kids."  We are a team in life, in parenthood, and as disciples of Jesus Christ.


When I was a girl, I thought I wanted someone who would be my "everything."  I wanted to be "everything" to someone, too.  But after 15 years of marriage, one thing I do know is that I am NOT my husband's everything.  His heart belongs to Jesus.  And that's just the way I want it.

How am I mirroring Jesus to the world?

Our imitation of God in this life ... must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human conditions.
- C.S. Lewis, from his book The Four Loves

Happy Mother's Day, Grandma!

By the time you get this email, I will have been through two services at Living Water, singing the special music: "Perfect People" by Natalie Grant.  The lyrics go something like this: 


There's no such thing as perfect people
There's no such thing as a perfect life
So come as you are, broken and scarred
Lift up your heart and be amazed
and be changed by a perfect God


The sermon is about the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31, which sometimes makes me feel guilty about the Mom/Wife/Woman I'm NOT.  Sometimes it challenges me to be a better person, but it always makes me grateful that God's grace is sufficient for me.

The sermon also will have a speaking part for one of my best friends, who is going to talk about how she is working to change her family history and be a better mom than her mom was to her.  Her mother is an alcoholic, and just a couple of months ago, I went to babysit while she and her husband drove to pick up her mom who was too drunk to drive home. I spent that evening thinking about you, Grandma, and how grateful I am that you raised such a powerful woman of God, my mom.  I know you faced adversity in your own home life as a child, and watched imperfect people make a life together and struggle through.  You, yourself, took a broken background and changed my family history.  You raised a daughter who loves the Lord more than anything in her life and strives to follow him wherever he leads.  You raised a daughter who puts her husband second, teaming up with him in ministry and in life.  You raised a daughter who raised her children to love Jesus and family, to be adventurous and independent, while still tethered with the bonds of faith and love.


My friend is struggling to reinvent what family means for her, her husband, and her children.  She is determined to change her family history and raise her daughters in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  I know in the not-so-distant future, her granddaughters may be sending her this same message I am sending you ... a message of gratitude for her faithfulness and determination.

With the help and grace of God, you and Grandpa - two imperfect people from imperfect backgrounds - were the turning point for me and my mom and therefore my own family's history.  Because of you and how you raised my mom, I don't have to struggle with so many challenges my friends face with their own parents, spouses, or children.  I still fall short of that virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 - that passage will forever convict and inspire me to do better - but I see you and Mom all the way through that passage, and I am encouraged that I can achieve that perfection only because of Christ Jesus.

There's no such thing as perfect people

There's no such thing as a perfect life

So come as you are, broken and scarred

Lift up your heart and be amazed

and be changed by a perfect God

Who lived and who died to give new life

To heal our imperfections

So look up and see love and let grace be enough

Be changed by a perfect God

Be changed.

Happy Mother's Day, Grandma.  I love you.

--------------------------------------------

PS: I could have written this just as easily for my Grandma Dorothy Hardenbrook.  She faced so many challenges growing up it devastates me just to think about it.  What she did to overcome that pain and be the woman of God she was is a real inspiration to me.

This is my second Mother's Day without Grandma Hardenbrook, but my gratitude and love for her are still being conveyed through my prayers for my own family every day.  

Jesus is Coming (Look Busy)

Driving through downtown Roanoke yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker I'd never seen before: Jesus is coming (look busy).  


I couldn't help but laugh at the misinformation perpetuated by such a message, and then be immediately convicted of my own busyness.

I am too often wrapped up in activities for Jesus instead of abiding in Jesus.  Church work can really get to be a busy work.  Especially as the church grows (this is a good thing), the busyness increases (this is a bad thing).  If I am not careful and intentional about my life, I end up acting like Martha in the kitchen, grumbling that I never get to spend time with Jesus.  But oh, the work I'm accomplishing FOR him! 


Living Water Christian Church is all about creating "reproducing" disciples as part of our discipleship process - meaning we connect people to God, help them grow and serve, then duplicate themselves in the lives of other people.  That means one doesn't just keep piling more and more activities and work on oneself - one creates apprentices and other workers, then goes out to create more disciples.


It's a very biblical, thoughtful, intentional concept - one that I am finally starting to understand.  In the hands of Jesus, I help him create reproducing disciples (disciples make more disciples; small groups make more small groups; churches make more churches).

But left to my own devices, I putter about, doing, doing, doing... and feeling right proud of myself.  This puttering feeds the heresy that we can do anything on our own accord to earn salvation or the grace of Jesus.  How many jokes have you heard about the priest, the rabbi and the so-and-so who meet St. Peter at the pearly gates and plead their case to get into heaven?  One of Satan's most successful lies is that humankind can earn salvation.  


Jesus IS COMING again ... but busyness and toil will not save us.  Jesus already did all the work necessary for our salvation when he died on the cross.  I Timothy 1:9 tells us "For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus." (NLT)  God saved us not because we deserved it - not because we were busy - but because that was his plan; to show us grace.


Grace trumps busyness.


Grace covers the weary and heavy laden, too worn to be busy.  Jesus's yoke is light, not heavy.  He gives us rest, not work.  As Eugene Peterson's Message translation of Matthew 11:29-30 puts it: "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."


Jesus IS coming ... but the only thing I need to do about it is accept him, obey him, and begin to live in him.  He did it all for me.  If I were the only person on earth, Jesus still would have died to save me.  My life in Jesus should only be a visceral, grateful  response to his grace and mercy.  All else is busywork, not holy, and it definitely does not save me.