Hope in the darkness

This morning my family is experiencing yet another reminder of the broken state of our world - my paternal grandmother passed away after years of illness and brokenness in her body and mind.

This is our third Christmas in a row of loss and sadness - two years ago our family celebrated Christmas early and then traveled to Wisconsin for the funeral of my maternal grandfather. Last Christmas we were with NP's family in Florida, knowing that it would be our last time with his mother before cancer took her from us. This Christmas we will making a sad stop in Indiana for yet another funeral.

As I told AG yesterday, I long for Jesus to come and make the bad things come untrue! How we groan for His return!

My sister wisely pointed out that for NP's mother and our grandmother, our Christmas losses really can be turned around - while we miss them in this life, they have received the fulfillment of the greatest gift ever given! They are in the physical presence of their Savior, with all sin, brokenness, and pain forever removed from them! We do not grieve as those who have no hope.

But still, it is loss and sadness and joy and hope all intertwined. How comforting to know that He weeps with us as we wade through the yuck of a broken world. How profoundly grateful for Christmas - that God has entered our world, put on our flesh, lived among us, suffered with us, and ultimately died so that we could live.

I learned something fascinating today. Listen to these comforting words of Jesus from John 10:27-30-

"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

The context of this verse is that Jesus is walking in Solomon's Colonnade in the temple, and verse 22 points out that "the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter..."

Did you know that Hanukkah was also called 'The Feast of Dedication?'

Jesus was actually visiting the temple in celebration of Hanukkah. Not only that, but His words were in response to the Jews' questioning in verse 24 - "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."

Jesus responds in rebuke in verses 25 and 26 saying, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep."  After the verses I quoted above which end with "I and the Father are one," the Jews pick up stones to kill Him.

As you can read in this fascinating Jews for Jesus article about Hanukkah, even the stones they intended to kill Him with were associated with the original event behind Hanukkah!

Even as gentile believers, Hanukkah can be a great time of hope and reminder of God's presence. In a dark and broken world, Hanukkah reminds us that Jesus is the only true source of light and hope. During Jesus' own observance of the feast of Hanukkah, He affirmed His deity so powerfully that it caused those who did not believe to want to stone Him!  Not only is He who He says He is, but He promises to us a great hope and comfort - His sheep know His voice, and no one can snatch us out of His hand.

In the midst of Hanukkah, and as we prepare for Christmas, how grateful I am that we have hope in the darkness and brokenness of our world.

Hope that God Himself has come to dwell among us, sought out a relationship with us, promised us true life even as we are "outwardly fading away."

He renews us inwardly day by day...

And like the miraculous lights of Hanukkah, every day His light of hope and mercy is renewed in our hearts, even against all odds.

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life."
John 8:12

Image from photobucket

Sweet cookies, sweet moments...

Today AG and I have been working on our first batch of decorated cut-out cookies. We mixed up the dough this morning and rolled, cut, baked, and decorated them this afternoon.

These are the moments I cherish as a mom. Snippets of time to enjoy working on something together and talking. We had some sweet conversations during our cookie project.

When the cookies were baking, we were discussing that I know when the cookies are done because they start to get brown around the edges. I explained to AG that the brown edges are a sign to me. Then we reviewed her memory verses (right now Luke 2:10-20), discussing what the angels had said would be a sign for the shepherds that they had found baby Jesus. As I explained in the post with tips for teaching kids Scripture, we rarely have a formal "Bible time." For AG's age and temperment, I have found it to be much more effective to do what Deuteronomy 6 tells us to do - talk about it when we get up, walk along the road, lie down, and bake cookies! ;)

We were listening to this cd of kid-friendly Christmas carols as we decorated.  "All is well" came on, and I commented to AG that it is my favorite Christmas song.

AG - "why?"
KS - "Because this song reminds me that one day Jesus will come back and make all the bad things come untrue."
AG - "Do you think His arms will get too full?"
KS - "Too full of what?"
AG - "Us."
KS - "No, sweetheart, Jesus' arms are big enough for all of us."

Seriously, melt my heart.

Lest you think that our time was all spiritually enriching, I asked AG what her favorite part of baking cookies was.

KS - "What did you like the best?  Mixing the dough, rolling and cutting the cookies, decorating them?"
AG - "I like it when one breaks and we get to eat it.  Could you break that one?"

hee hee...

Have a great time preparing for Christmas with your kidlets.  What precious moments we have to build truth into their little lives.

"O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel"

WFMW: the one where I am anti-tradition

Well, not exactly ANTI.

Does your family have Christmas traditions? Do the same things every year, eat the same foods, have the annual rituals that must not be tampered with or risk having the entire holiday "ruined"?

Our family never really did.

Between my mom being an RN in a hospital working weird shifts when I was growing up, and the fact that our extended family always lived in different states than we did, our holidays were never consistent.

Sometimes we were at my Jehovah's Witness grandparents' home on Christmas Day, which meant that it really wasn't Christmas Day for us.

Sometimes my mom worked on Thanksgiving Day and my dad would make us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - I remember eating them on china in the dining room one year to make it "fancy." :)

Sometimes we did our own Christmas a week before or after the actual date because we would be out of town.

Once our house was flooded by a waterbed [true story] just before Thanksgiving, so we ate at a restaurant and lived in a hotel until the week before Christmas. [Donuts every morning and someone who makes your bed while you're gone every day? Awesome.] Oh, and the flood rusted our artificial Christmas tree so we had a teeny tiny desk-top size one. :)

One year we went to the Shedd aquarium in Chicago on Christmas Day - a fond memory of mine!  Another year we decided to go see a movie and bought the tickets online... to the wrong theater... got slightly lost... and since all the restaurants were closed, we ate "lunch" in the car - frozen convenience store foods heated up in the gas station microwave!!  And oh, how we laughed!!

This is not to make you feel sorry for me in any way... I actually am very grateful for this!

I think this odd every-year-is-different pattern actually was our tradition. :) In some ways, I think this was a reminder every year that Christmas is more than tradition - we celebrate Christmas because of Christ. We love to celebrate His coming together, to show our love for one another in gifts and time together... and it doesn't matter where we are, what we're eating, or how big or small the Christmas tree is!

I am so grateful for the extreme flexibility of my family. To this day, spending holidays with my family is made MUCH easier by the fact that all of us just pretty much go with the flow... the world isn't going to fall apart if we do something different. I mean, really... what is "normal?" :)

So, as NP and I discuss traditions we would like to see in our family, I want to make sure that I pass along the tradition of being ok with not having a set-in-stone tradition. I want my kids to truly see that we don't worship tradition at Christmas, we worship Jesus. And if we truly want to show love for one another, we won't get hung up on insignificant details.

Enjoy your family rituals this Christmas... but don't be afraid to scrap them and find a new plan.

Flexibility works for me. :)