Lord of the Ringless

The Angel that Fell out of the Closet Christmas 2008

Last week the festivities began for Christmas season when a group of my friends filled one of fifty tables for our annual Christmas dessert. Myriads of settings and arrangements set the ambience for sipping tea from bone china, adding sugar with silver teaspoons and reveling in song and conversation.

The Christmas celebration spurred conversation at our table about Scriptures surrounding Christ's birth . We talked about the angels and how exciting the events in Scripture preparing for Christ's birth. All of heaven was aglow with angelic activity as celestial messengers prepared the human race for their Savior… by personally delivering messages to Mary, Zacharias and the Shepherds dtraight from God in heaven.

Suddenly one of our friend's effervesced, "An angel appeared to my sister also, and bruised her cheek." Joyce laughed pointing to her sister Gina sitting beside her.

I looked at Gina as she grinned and pointed to her right cheekbone with an index finger. She turned her head revealing a darknened black translucent hue instead of rosy pink blush.

What happened? I guffawed.

Her eyes lit up brightly as she explained . "This weekend I was rummaging through the house for Christmas decorations. I opened a closet and looked above me on the top shelf. Just as I was thinking, there's so much stuff in here I need to get rid of it all, something wrapped and hard fell from the shelf and banged me on the cheek.

She laughed. When I opened it up… it was an angel. I thought about it, trying to place the significance and realized it was the angel my neighbor had given me last year. I wracked my brain again and suddenly remembered that very same neighbor had invited me to her church Christmas play—It was a Christmas event and it was this very night. I had forgotten about it.

I was so thrilled the little angel reminded me about it, I forgot my throbbing cheek. We called my daughter's little friend and scurried to get ready. I brought my daughter and the little neighbor girl who was thrilled to come. After the play the little girl and my daughter both wanted to ask Christ into their heart . They prayed together. It was a joyous occasion.

Thinking about the chain of events, it amazes me still. God sent me an angel, a little figurine angel, to remind me about an event that would be significant to my life…and the children.

It was the best Christmas present ever."

When she was done with her amazing story I had to glance up at my Grandma seated in those heavenly places with real winged creatures and smile. I could almost hear her saying for the zillionth time, "God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform."

It happened a week ago…Christmas 2008

Last week the festivities began for Christmas season when a group of my friends filled one of fifty tables for our annual Christmas dessert. Myriads of settings and arrangements set the ambience for sipping tea from bone china, adding sugar with silver teaspoons and reveling in song and conversation.

The Christmas celebration spurred conversation at our table about Scriptures surrounding Christ's birth . We talked about the angels and how exciting the events in Scripture preparing for Christ's birth. All of heaven was aglow with angelic activity as celestial messengers prepared the human race for their Savior… by personally delivering messages to Mary, Zacharias and the Shepherds dtraight from God in heaven.

Suddenly one of our friend's effervesced, "An angel appeared to my sister also, and bruised her cheek." Joyce laughed pointing to her sister Gina sitting beside her.

I looked at Gina as she grinned and pointed to her right cheekbone with an index finger. She turned her head revealing a darknened black translucent hue instead of rosy pink blush.

What happened? I guffawed.

Her eyes lit up brightly as she explained . "This weekend I was rummaging through the house for Christmas decorations. I opened a closet and looked above me on the top shelf. Just as I was thinking, there's so much stuff in here I need to get rid of it all, something wrapped and hard fell from the shelf and banged me on the cheek.

She laughed. When I opened it up… it was an angel. I thought about it, trying to place the significance and realized it was the angel my neighbor had given me last year. I wracked my brain again and suddenly remembered that very same neighbor had invited me to her church Christmas play—It was a Christmas event and it was this very night. I had forgotten about it.

I was so thrilled the little angel reminded me about it, I forgot my throbbing cheek. We called my daughter's little friend and scurried to get ready. I brought my daughter and the little neighbor girl who was thrilled to come. After the play the little girl and my daughter both wanted to ask Christ into their heart . They prayed together. It was a joyous occasion.

Thinking about the chain of events, it amazes me still. God sent me an angel, a little figurine angel, to remind me about an event that would be significant to my life…and the children.

It was the best Christmas present ever."

When she was done with her amazing story I had to glance up at my Grandma seated in those heavenly places with real winged creatures and smile. I could almost hear her saying for the zillionth time, "God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform."

It happened a week ago…Christmas 2008

Getting ready for Christmas 2008, I am reminded and rewarded by the verse in Isaiah 9:6-7.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace…there shall be no end…”

 

The problems we are having with our mortal government are not unlike some of the problems with human government even 2000 years ago.

And even as the shepherds received relief on the hills of Bethlehem when the angels, God’s messengers, announced the Good News of a Savior to be born, Christ the Lord—so we are able to receive relief when we accept the Light of the World in our hearts. He stokes a fire and fills us with peace, a peace that the troubles of this world cannot take away.

 

“My peace I give to you , it is a peace that the world cannot give,”…Jesus said.

 

And so we enter Christmas Holy Days carrying within us the light of our Savior. May we accept His gift of peace today and every day, sharing it with others along our routines and rounds of life.

The gift of a smile. Patience. A kind word. Pausing long enough to say hello, how are you and stop to listen for a response.

Always remembering who we are honoring by our actions and who we celebrate and why…

 

"Lord, you were one solitary Light coming to a dark world but You kindled the Christian faith and YOur candle has never burned out. Thank you for lighting Your love in my soul.                        Alma Burkman

Thanksgiving Thoughts from a Single Parent

Today I received an email from a single parent without her children for Thanksgiving:

"I have to say that I've learned a lot about having a different perspective....the holidays are nice, because somehow, it does bring warmth and good cheer.  But for those who don't have family, or for whatever reason, can't be with family, or have family that are difficult to be with, those expectations of the love and good cheer that is not in the picture sure makes this time of year very difficult. 

 I have been thankful for the Word of God that brings so much comfort any time of the year, because whether it's Thanksgiving or Christmas, we can have both in our hearts every day of the year.  I am reminded of that song that Barry Manilow sang...It's Just Another New Year's Eve"....(does he still sing that for New Year's?)....it's rather a melancholy song and one that always made me so pathetically sad because I didn't have a significant other at that time...but now that I have a Significant Being in my life - my Savior - in one way, it can be just another day that doesn't have those lofty expectations.

  But it is a day that He has made and I can rejoice and be glad in it.  Thanksgiving is a day that reminds us to be thankful, but if we can remember that every day should be Thanksgiving Day in our hearts, then perhaps, it wouldn't be so difficult when those worldly expectations are before us....thanks for letting me share my two cents with you all...."

Station's of the Cross- A Day to Remember

She drew near to one of the three wooden crosses and gripped the folded paper in her hands.
Her Good Friday noon vigil was ending. She was half way through the last station of her 2 hour walk through the Stations of the Cross.
"If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,O Lord, who could stand?" (Psalm 130:3)

She knew the Scriptures well. Rehearsing them she picked up a paper and pencil from one of the baskets loosely scattered in the area and pressed the pencil into the paper. With every letter she laid on the paper scrap her heart panged. It was as if each stroke of her hand carefully dispensing the letters outwardly, recarved the secret sin as a knife over her heart like fresh bark. Still she rehearsed the truth which she knew, should set her free.
Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

But no matter how much she knew, she could not break free emotionally. She knew she was a sinner, but she knew she had a Savior and she loved Him. Just as Mary Magdalene wept and washed his feet, so would she...if she could feel him.
But, all she could feel was the suffocating weight of her guilt. "I've struggled long and hard over this for years," she told us. "The enemy had me. He told me I was a piece of junk and I felt like it. I would actually become physically ill when he would assault me with terrible thoughts about myself."

Now she was ready to nail this sin, to leave this burden of pain, this haunted thing...at the cross.
It was the same sin she had confessed and battled during the year, over the years, from Easter to Easter...with no relief from the guilt.
But this year would be different.
"I walked up to the cross with a hammer a nail and my sin written on the paper folded neatly and tucked closed. When I reached out my arm to nail it at the top of the cross I saw another paper with something written on it for all to see nailed in the place next to my spot. I read it and reeled. Someone had nailed the exact sin as mine- open for me to see-in the spot by mine. I could have picked another cross. I could have picked another place on the cross and not seen it.

I knew as soon as I saw that sin, written exactly as mine, God had led me there. He met me at that cross with my sin, not a secret to Him and forgiven by Him. It was no coincidence. When I pounded that nail into my paper on the cross this time I told the Lord, "I'm leaving it here Jesus. I'm never taking it back again.
YOu defeated Satan at that cross. He can't have a field day with me anymore."

"I walked out of the stages of the cross that year a different woman."

And we believed her and rejoiced.

Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Loving God

So God is displaying His love to us through the beauty of nature again. I just got off the phone with a friend driving through hills of white snow. Here the white and pink cherry blossoms are topping our trees and our world with the colors of divine love. Our Creator's love for us, His creation.

Does our relationship with God lack creativity and spontaneity? A guy I know sometimes takes off to the hills and totes his guitar for a day of worship, even encouraging a friend or two along.

Referencing God’s own call to us in Revelations 2:4, to return to Him as our “first love,” have we staled in our expression of ingenuity, work well done, surprise bursts of praise and creative expression in our relationship with Him?

It’s time to build something new…get to the drawing board of our imagination and offer God a new thing. And how do we start? As usual, with a whisper of prayer.

So we might serve Him in newness of spirit… Romans 7:6

Valentine Thoughts to Reckon With...

Valentines can be a hard time... for singles or married. Desiring a romantic relationship and life long partner can be hard for singles. Those who are married are often disappointed by the romantic expressions of their mates ...if it doesn't match theirs. It's important to get together with significant people who love us and share an expression of love to them by card or email (not just a significant other) but those in our lives who we appreciate. Here are some thoughts for singles from some of my journals:

Past days of reckoning:

God is the God of miracles
He brings joy out of sorrow,
Love out of hate
Praise out of cursing
And peace out of turmoil
For those who trust Him
James Montgomery Boice

2 Corinthians 13:14 The fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.
Give Him time and listen to Him. Spend time in prayer exercising spirit by the act of our will. The spirit in us is strong to overcome

Excerpt Women Who Love too Much
Explore, develop and enhance yourself. The less you need a partner, the better partner you become and the healthier partner you will attract and be attracted to healthy:
Solid , trustworthy, thoughtful, dependable, handsome (beauty in eyes of beholder)
Now for the first time you’ve got a nice steady reliable man who adores you and you don’t have to change him. He already has the qualities you’ve wanted in a man and he’s made a commited to you.

Once upon a Time
Advice from a friend : Help for those struggling to Let Go of Wrong Relationship:

"You are God’s property...
Holding onto this relationship is a “rights issue.”
God is redirecting the potter’s wheel. He is establishing His rights over this area of your life…refocus your emotions and don’t get re-involved.
Rebuild your thinking process, renew your mind…grow out of it
Yieding your rights to Him to find your mate. God takes care of his property. He takes care of it well. God’s taking a little more control.
Don’t dwell on it anymore
Rebuild your thoughts, (“Romans 12:1,2)
Ask for wisdom to prevail over emotions."

God wants to have a place in our lives where we’re not doing our own thing…we’re being directed by God.

“Closed doors are just as much God’s leading as open ones…” Chuck Swindoll

Trusting God Prayer by Pastor Lambert
When there is not surety let us wait in rest upon you, knowing the answer will come, the direction will come. Rely on God’s wise providence. God’s already made His decision about your tomorrow before you get there. Relax, rely on God’s providence.

…we know and rely on the love God has for us... I John 4:16

Happy Valentine's Day; Jesus Loves You Now and Forever...

New Year 2008 Always with God

“Before they call I will answer, while they are still speaking I will hear,” (Isaiah 65:24)

The most important thing I cling to entering the New Year this morning is that God hears our prayers and that He is our God.

“How precious to me are your thoughts O God! How vast the sum of them! Were I to count them they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake I am still with you.” (Psalm 139:17,18)
What hope do we have in this life without the presence of our God?

Each day we open our eyes and He is with us…determining our days…giving us thoughts and ideas for the day, immediate needs and short-term goals, and bringing to mind people we know maybe to pray for, maybe to call, get together with or help in some way.

“I just called your aunt in Germany,” Dad phoned cheerfully this morning. “She got the kiwi fruit I bagged up and sent her on December 24th. She was so happy that she didn’t have to go to the store in the cold and buy some!” Just two weeks ago stuffing Christmas fruit bags in his country kitchen I had mentioned years before on a visit to Frankfurt I’d discovered Auntie has a kiwi for breakfast every day. “I’ll send her a bag,” he had decided. Today it counts.

The other day one of my good friends drove 400 miles for a brief goodbye to someone who was part of our singles hiking-camping group ten years ago-who will be entering heaven any day. He is my age.

“Have a glorious life,” he said to her and her husband upon leaving the hospital room.

A glorious life comes with the presence of God which is why the Psalmist said “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in his temple.( Psalm 27:4)

His brief statement says so much. In the brevity of life as we are daily reminded by the news at home and in Iraq, by our family’s and friend’s losses, we gain hope and purpose by worshipping our Creator first. Our souls awaken with the dawn and we are ready for the new day to begin and now a new Year.

We enter the New Year 2008 embracing the tested, tried and true tenets of our faith as defined by Jesus our Savior: Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves.

PS- I just learned an hour ago...our brother crossed through the Pearly Gates this morning...and as the firecrackers start now at midnite I know He is in the midst of angel's worshipping.

Two Young People Birth a Wonder

“You don’t need to worry, honey, God has promised you strength and his presence for every situation in your life. He already has everything all worked out,” I sat across from one of my long time girlfriends, soon to be Grandma. We were eating out together enjoying tonight’s indulgence- a finer restaurant- when her cell phone sounded. Now, between bites of delicious butternut squash pasta, she coached her young son, waiting fretfully at home in another town with his teenage pregnant bride. Earlier my friend had told me they’d already had a couple false starts.She encouraged him further, eventually ending the call. ….”Call me, I’ll be praying.”

I had to admire the relationship she had with her son- so willing to call for help and comfort at a terrifying new time in his life.

So this Christmas when I read once again, how the angel appeared to Mary and told her she would be giving birth to a son and his name was to be Jesus, the Son of the Most High, it really grabbed my attention. That a fifteen year old girl would inquire and be told she was chosen by God… is one amazing fact. That she would be traveling by night on top of a burro far from , led by her betrothed fiancé is quite another. That is the gift of youth and the gift of faith. When she traveled fully pregnant and bursting at the seams, was she afraid? Joseph first time Dad--Was he prepared to deliver a child with possibly no assistance available?

Two young people enroute from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to birth a life that had been planned for centuries. Both had already endured, no doubt, ridicule , gossip, and rejection. They were not-yet-married, as Mary conceived by the overshadowing of the Spirit of God, and Joseph had already given up any understanding other than obedience. Now they headed toward the destiny that their Heavenly Father had prepared.

Two young people awaiting their first precious birth- possibly with great wonder as they journeyed to the little town they may have understood to be the village prophesied five-hundred years earlier, the humble town, the Savior was to be born in. A town that held the Jewish heritage of Joseph’s family, where his father was born, from a family line descending from another chosen young man of history, King David.

Perhaps as this young couple, traveled by foot over the dirt road and Mary began having occasional shooting pains indicating the time was close, perhaps they felt fear. I wonder if they sang the Psalms that were passed orally or read in synagogue, Joseph’s own descendant had written from his desert detour after being anointed king.“The Lord is my light and my salvation, the Lord is the strength of my life,” Psalm 27 rings, sings of trust.

God’s plan includes those times that are difficult, that breed misunderstanding. Times that involve God’s mysterious plans drawing outside the margins of the box--beyond our comprehension. It is at these times especially, we leave the" known’s" at times of our physical surroundings- family, friends, homes, lifestyle and move into a seemingly "out -of-control" future with no light of our own--only the Light of our God of the Ages. We trust help and encouragement from sources beyond our own limited view will come when needed.

Yes, I think Mary and Joseph must have had fear delivering the Christ Child. We know they had help, either from strangers or the strength only God can give when we’re living way beyond our comfort zone. And yes, they must have trusted in the Scriptures and the peace that God who hears prayers gave them to come through that first Christ mass.

For the Savior was birthed and wrapped in swaddling clothes and lay among the animals. And soon after… many─ shepherds, wise men, and even angels─ came to worship him. Mary and Joseph were comforted by the visits designed by God, each and every time. They had learned from the beginning that once on the road with Jesus, their lives would never be the same again. They would be stronger people for Him and because of Him. Someday He would become their light, their truth and their way for the rest of their days.

The wonder of the Son of God had begun. Their lives, His life, our lives on this earth were, are, continue to be spun into a grand tapestry—His story—that will one day be complete and completely understood. For now, let us enjoy the wonder we have, not knowing exactly all the answers and all the questions.

The Lord is my light and my Salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1

Balancing the Tree

I love the season and the Reason…however the balancing part becomes even harder...

"I'll be out of here in half hour," I put my cell on loudspeaker and cut a conversation with a friend trying to separate garments from another crammed rack with my other hand. Hours later ...I emerged and never called. This morning I remembered that I forgot. Yesterday's shopping ... no dropping money spree put me back. Every year I say I won't; every year I do, and wonder if I'm doing the right thing.

As we whir within the holy-days (holiday word replacement per Pastor Rick Stedman) lthe pressures burgeon to spending extra time on everything else... but Jesus. The myriad of holiday events and annual occurences that beckon us with joy and sound: the decisions- buying the right gifts for the right people at the right prices (including which friend’s children?) decking ourselves like the festive halls so we look semi-appealing, (although our clothes get tighter with the cookies and candy zooming in from all directions)…helping out with Christmas events …we need to bump time to have true holy-day time.

We’re challenged to squeeze still-time into our packed holiday 24-7’s with the One we’re celebrating and the only one who can help us, “Be holy as I am holy.” ---- especially noticeable when rushing rude holiday drivers trying to pack in their month, kick in high-stress mode and endanger our bliss… and our lives… heightening our sense of holiday season trepidation and cheerful anxiety.

So, at my yoga class the other day ...I heard a welcome message through the instructor's simple directions to us for a "balancing pose" we were doing. I'm still germinating on this, especially now.

We were doing "tree" a beginners pose, where we stand on one leg at a time, the other leg bent and placed on the standing leg--and then hold the position to strengthen our core muscles. I was just getting a little wobbly and noticing other people were too- because I looked in the mirror and saw sprinkled through the room tottering trees putting their feet down.

"Don't look in the mirror," our instrucor said sternly. "If you see others falling you will fall too. Find a focus and center yourself." I picked a large exercise ball on the shelf above the mirror, sitting squarely wedged between other balls...it would not be moving. Immediately as I concentrated on that ball, the stronger I felt -- and maintained my pose.

What a great time to practice focus and balancing our lives...and not looking in the mirror!

One of my favorite carols is "O Tannebaum" (German) or "O Christmas Tree, your leaves are so unchanging." Jesus is our Evergreen. Unmoving unchangeable. AS we concentrate to pull our eyes away from what everyone else is doing, let us concentrate on the focus of our Christmas, our beautiful Savior.

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith..." Hebrews 12:2a