On especially tense days in my teen years, I ran a wooded path to my favorite spot on the Mississippi backwaters. Sitting on a fallen tree near the riverbank ~ toes dug into sandy soil and damp leaves ~ I filled notebooks. Yet, even my darkest writings mention a light. I didn’t know what it was and it was always dim, always distant. Something good, just beyond my reach.

Recently, in “Beauty From Ashes” I shared my  story about the Christmas  food box left on my porch and how it re-lit that glimmer of hope. It inched me toward believing maybe God wasn’t distant. A year later, an unexpected grant paid the $10,000 hospital bill from our son’s cesarean birth. I see the Light again, seeking my attention.

When we look back, perhaps to five minutes ago, we see God show up. In the sunrise and sunset. In the birth, smile, and coo of a baby. In a kind word spoken outside a hospital room.  It’s those serendipitous moments that tell us He’s here. He wants to slow our pace, soothe our pain, forgive our sin. The Light leads us to turn away from whatever robs us of our divine design.

Pastor Brian Wangler, says, “Where you are, you are. But you don’t have to stay there. The Light can lead anyone, from any place, to repentance.” We don’t deny our struggle with bad decisions or difficult life situations. We are where we are. But, we can change direction and move forward, rescued from a cycle of sin or discouragement.

We don’t have to stay sad or stressed or stuck in bad attitudes.

When astronomers—the Magi—saw the eastern star, they researched and found Isaiah’s words written seven hundred years before Jesus’ birth. He prophesied to God’s people who let a dark culture invade their hearts and minds. “Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever … The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine.”

Later at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Matthew records “‘…the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined.’” God’s ancient promise, fulfilled.

I’m long past my teens when  that ray of hope kept me in the fight.  It wooed me for twelve more years until I saw no other way to peace. Though my life isn’t without pain, I now know the Light that always shows up. Then as a glimmer, now as my Bright Light. Jesus is my steady hope and abiding peace. Not only within reach, but dwelling with me.

The light of Christ changes everything.  I chose to walk with Him twenty-seven years ago and he still rescues me from my dark side. From stress, depression, and bad attitudes … when I let Him.

The promise still holds. When “death casts its shadow,” a Light shines for us.

Can you see it? It shows us The Way of hope and peace and a right relationship with God. It calls us to freedom.

 

 

Presents. Presents. Presents. I don’t always like shopping but I do love  finding the perfect present.  Especially for that hard-to-buy-for person, like my husband.

But, can the pursuit of the perfect present overshadow the perfect gift? Are we side-lining Jesus and forgetting God is with us? John tells us in chapter three of his gospel that God so loves us, He gave His presence to the world.

At the time of Jesus’ advent, the world was tumultuous and violent. He came to a discouraged people living in a messed up society. They were oppressed and over-taxed by a brutal Roman government. Children were sacrificed to false gods, burned alive in raging fires. Vicious ethnic divides over religion, culture, and tradition were fueled by hatred, ignorance and legalism. Sound a tad familiar?

I know this is gloomy talk so close to Christmas, but Christ’s arrival is a real story for real people in real trouble. Though Jesus came as a sweet babe, He was born to be a rebel. The news of his birth began a war in the human heart. Herod, already seeing Jesus as a threat to his throne, tried to kill Him by ordering the mass murder of babies and toddlers. Fear makes things really ugly, really fast.

Religious leaders were also threatened by Jesus’ birth and his prophesied future. During His three-year earthly ministry, Jesus declared war on religious leaders and bigots. He got angry and spoke up to defend the voiceless. He fought not for power nor to revolutionize governments but to rescue human hearts from sin, fear, pride, and despair.

 In John’s gospel we read, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”  Jesus gives us life even after our last breath.

In chapter ten, John recorded Jesus’ words, “The thief’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” Jesus also offers abundant life, here and now, but there’s this thief ~our soul’s enemy. Call him a devil, Satan, or just plain evil. If you doubt his existence, you needn’t look far. Like a friend told me, in her sweet southern drawl, “He’s as real as you and me sittin’ here.” His aim is to distract us with bitterness or apathy or even good and shiny comforts until we forget what’s most important: Our personal relationships with God and people. All people.

I’m not gonna lie. I love UPS deliveries and those cheesy, classic songs from Bing, Nat, and Dean. But over all, I choose Jesus. He is my steady hope and perfect peace.

This may not be a typical Christmas story but Jesus isn’t a typical man. His arrival split history and started a revolution. His life, death, and words are still controversial. He’s unconventional but He is our beautiful Immanuel, God with us.

Will you let Him rescue your heart? May your pursuit of the perfect gift stop here. Find joy, freedom, and purpose in God’s presence, my friend.

 

 

 

It was the kind of weather that freezes your nose hairs. The wind hit my face as I stepped onto the icy porch. Steadying my pregnant self, I saw what almost tripped me as three-year-old Justin tugged on my shirt. “Mommy, what is it?” Ice crunched and scraped under the box as we shimmied it into our apartment.

Both of us wide-eyed and smiling, we dropped to the floor and lifted out each item: a roasting chicken, corn bread and gravy mixes, potatoes, and canned corn. Giggling, Justin grabbed a bag of ribbon candy. The kind I used to find, sticky and covered in red fuzz, at the bottom of my Christmas stocking, next to the orange.

The bag crinkled between us as I hugged him and cried. The candy wasn’t an essential for Christmas dinner. It was an added treat for my little boy.

Jeff was fresh out of the Army and not at his job long enough to have insurance for our third baby’s birth. Money was tight but we lived within our means. Our finances weren’t the source of my struggle.

After our baby girl’s death two years earlier, I learned grief is often subtle. You catch yourself staring into the kitchen cabinet for five minutes, deciding corn or green beans for supper. As a young mom, I didn’t know how to express it or that it was vital to do so. Besides, if I tried, could anyone really understand?

Grief is often a lonely walk. We want others to see our pain and fix it. But, they can’t.

From ages fourteen to twenty-six, my pain relief was weekend alcohol binges. Anything we use to shove grief under the surface—food, anger, shopping—only makes it fester and poison everything. Our words, our actions, our family. It tells us to remain a victim. It hides our strengths, our purpose, and robs us of joy and peace. It becomes our identity.

That’s where I was that winter morning when I almost tumbled over the box. I needed someone to see my struggle. That day, I believe Someone did.

The box on my porch told me I wasn’t alone. I started to think maybe my anger toward God was misplaced. Maybe He wasn’t mean and distant. Maybe I didn’t have to stay stuck in my pain.

It took five more years, but that stranger’s generosity was a stepping stone to find the One who sees, understands, and soothes my grief. He fills the places in my heart that no one or nothing else can.

What a wonderful God we have—he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does he do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us.” 2 Cor 1:3-4.

We don’t have to let grief define us or defeat us. It’s simply a part of our journey that empowers us to live out our faith and our life to its fullest. When we choose God’s comfort, we’ll see Him make beauty from ashes. Be amazed, my friends.

 

 

Photo from pixabay.com

I was given a gift. A three-hour lunch with Faith.

A little spitfire of a lady, her walker supported a back bent by osteoporosis. But it didn’t slow her down. In fact, it made her faster. My grandchildren grinned big when she gave them walker rides in our church lobby.

Where there was Faith, there was giggling. Her joy bubbled out. Sitting at White Street Café, we laughed and talked about the funny parts of life’s challenges. We talked about Facebook and how she reminded people to be kind because “they forgot what they learned in kindergarten.”

Faith, a teacher for fifty years, didn’t really like to read. But she did it so she could learn.  She read my newspaper column and reminded me often, “Your writing’s getting better.”

She admired writers, like her late husband. After Ray had several strokes, she took care of him, converting their bedroom into a hospital room to sleep near him. When Faith spoke, her eyes still sparkled but I also saw her sadness.

We talked a little about grief and other common journeys. Like how our adult kids moved back home. The challenges, the blessings, the funny stuff. Her son and his family moved in after her husband’s passing and she said it was perfect timing. Adjusting to them and planning the 100-year anniversary celebration for our church, it was good to be busy.

Faith told me she was diagnosed with Celiac’s when she was seventy-seven years old. She stood in the middle of a grocery store crying, overwhelmed and wondering, “What can I eat?” Again, there were tears and smiles. “Can you see me, an old lady, standing there crying like a baby?” And, of course, we laughed.

Faith asked about my challenges. I told her I struggled. To love well, to not be cynical, to not go back to old habits. She smiled and nodded, “Yes. Yes. Yes.” Her eyes and that smile said:  I see your struggle. I hear your pain. Don’t quit. As my tears rolled, she pulled something from her purse. A brown resin cross, a bit twisted and off-kilter. She put it in my palm and wrapped my fingers around it. “It’s a Clinging Cross.”

Faith’s hands covered mine and we held it. Leaning in, her smiling eyes locked on mine, “Always cling to the cross. It’s a reminder of the Hope you have in Jesus.” We sat for about ten minutes, her hands wrapped around mine, wrapped around that cross. Such closeness for me is usually uncomfortable. But not that day. I stayed and savored the healing of Faith’s hands.

We agreed, the cross is everything. Our peace, our freedom, our pain-taker, and our life-changer.

Faith, my encourager with those permanent laugh lines, leaves behind her gifts. She not only shared her strength and her struggle, but her source of Hope. She teaches us: Don’t just choose joy, let it bubble out. Live life to the fullest. Don’t quit. Keep going and growing. Be an encourager. And always, always, always cling to the cross.

 

In memory of my friend, Faith B. McInturff, 9/12/29~11/01/16.

                     “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, healing to the bones.”

                                                                           ~Proverbs 16:24~