This Merry Christmas

Just under a week until Christmas. 

Sitting here with some beautiful music, my tree all aglow with ornaments made by little hands.

 
5 years ago I would have had no little-made beauties on my tree. 

5 years ago all that mattered to me, to be really honest, was me. 





My tree would have looked 'perfect', but been perfectly meaningless. 
Now I wouldn't trade all those little beauties for all the designer ornaments in the world. I wouldn't trade the drawings held by magnets, or the smudge marks or the piles of laundry for anything. No one could have told me that I would stop caring about things being 'just so' and how it all looked from the outside. I just had to find out, over time, what really matters.  



 
In another 5 years I am hopeful I will have died to self a little more, to be able to look back and see more selfishness dissolved with time. Some days it seems like there is still so very far to go. I am so thankful for His grace.

The little ones are all tucked in sound asleep. And when they are asleep and I am waiting for the one with whom I share a name to come home I am so tempted to sneak in their rooms and steal a kiss, steal a moment of prayer over them and their little hearts, still so new to the world. There is so much hurry and busy to get through the day and get everyone to bed that when all the rush is done and all that is left is quiet I wish I had taken just a little longer to get them tucked in to sleep. Just one more story. Just one more hug. When the days seem long and hard may I always remember that the time is so fleeting, already passing so fast and breathless. 

When they are all grown and gone off will they come back to their Momma for Christmas? 

Will I be the place their hearts long for as the Christmas Season approaches? 

I hope so. I pray so. I pray that we so impress on them the meaning of this season, the reason for the celebration that they always treasure it as I am learning to treasure it now. Not as the world may see it but as it is. As the gift. Just as they are a gift to me. 
Every year I get Christmas a little more. It moves me a little more. The reality of this Jesus, this Emmanuel. The gift of God with us. It blows my mind. Such a crazy, precious, loving, miraculous gift. May you see it friend. May you feel it and know it down in your very bones this year. The gift. This Merry Christmas ♥

Oh How I NEED You

Be still my soul.
This week has left me so heavy. My heart broken over and over for innocent blood shed, and for all the now small minded so called problems I have been facing. Oh how selfish we are. Thankfully we serve a God who can handle it all. Big and small. All this mess around us. He can handle it. He knows.

In the agony, in the joy, in the heaviness of sorrows, in the peace and comfort.
All I know, all I need to know, is He is there.

When I am petty,

when I am close to almost perfect,

when I am weak,

when I am strong.

When I screw up. Royally.

When I walk in righteousness.

When I fail them. When I fail myself. Time and time again.

There He is. 

Waiting. Never pushing, just waiting for me to turn to Him and say "I need you"

Abba. I need you. Help me. Show me. Forgive me.

I never have to ask Him to love me. He always does. I just have to choose to see it. To be covered by it, by His love and grace, over and over again.
This past week has worn my soul. And in the places where it was stretched thin I broke. I didn't choose patience. I didn't go to the throne. And it showed. I didn't show them Jesus. I sit and weep over the moments of  weakness, the figurative spilling of blood. Cutting them down by my impatience. Showing them my frustration with sighs and signs of aggravation.
But with each moment comes a chance to start again.
To hug.
To say I am so sorry for yelling.
To put them before me.
To choose hope, instead of fanning the fire of despair.
To choose to give grace, instead of the ugliness of frustration.
For as freely as we can receive so too can we give.
And tonight I need to receive.
Receive, so that tomorrow morning I can awake with a smile for them.
So that they know they aren't a burden.
So I can stop worrying about our future.
So I can know that I can do all things.
So I can look at tomorrow at a gift and not a check mark.
To remember I don't have to have it all together to have it all.

 Lord hear the prayers of the hurting, the humble, the weeping, show us Your mercy, Your grace and forgiveness, though we don't deserve it, keep us in the palm of Your hand. Take those broken Mommas and Poppas with anguished hearts and lift their heads, Lord. Give them Your sweet sweet peace. Oh Lord Your PEACE.
In Jesus name. Amen
God Bless You.