How do we celebrate Christmas? To answer that question I would like to share two things that we are doing differently this year in efforts to celebrate Christmas instead of celebrate all the things that go along with Christmas.

1. We are doing our best not to give in to the consumerism of Christmas. It’s hard though, isn’t it? Every time you turn on the TV, there is a commercial for something that is on sale…be it a TV, car or that flying fairy toy, the commercials suck you in making us feel that in order to have a really great Christmas we need to buy these things and stick a big red bow on them. The stores…oh, my the actual stores! Everything is pretty, glittery, glowing, shiny, and cheaper than normal. The aisles are so jam packed with toys and clothes and KitchenAid mixers that you can hardly get down them. I wonder if they do this so you’ll put one in your cart in efforts to just get down the aisle?? Jen Hatmaker wrote a great article about this very topic. In it she writes what she and her husband do in efforts to avoid overspending, and after Paul and I read the article we both agreed we should give it a try this year. Our kids will get four gifts from us this year: something they need, something they want, something to read and something to wear. That’s it minus a few things from the Dollar Tree in their stocking. Why? Because over the past several Christmases, even before the kids came along, we overspent and got so consumed with buying gifts that we lost sight of the true purpose behind Christmas in the first place. Jesus was an afterthought. Never again, folks. We don’t want our kids to be all about “getting” and not about “giving”. We don’t want Jesus to be an afterthought for them.

2. We are not “doing Santa”. It’s a hard thing to get away from because…well…he is everywhere. He’s on TV, Coke cans, shirts, in songs, in parades, at the mall. You could argue that Santa has become more prevalent at Christmas than Jesus…and I think you would be right. It is not that we think Santa is bad, but we want our kids to know why we even have Christmas in the first place. I want them to celebrate with praise and adoration the God who loved them enough to leave his high priestly robes to put on the ordinary clothing of man. He loved them enough to sacrifice himself. He loved them enough to send His Spirit to dwell in them. So, no, there are no gifts from Santa Claus this year. We also don’t want our kids to one day look at us and say, “So, if Santa isn’t real, then what about Jesus?” How do you explain that we lied concerning Santa but not Jesus? No thank you. I’ll just skip that if at all possible.

We want our family to focus on Jesus and giving, not Santa, getting gifts, and spending lots of money that forces us to live above our means.

We will talk to them about the actual St. Nick and share the historical story.  A man of generosity.  A man who saw needs and gave gifts out of compassion.  If you want to know more about the real story of St. Nicklaus and how you can lead your family this Christmas season to create a culture of generosity and not a culture of greed and materialism, check out this article here.  This new mindset has been freeing for our family and we’re sure it can be for yours as well.  

A couple of days ago Paul asked me to read a blog post about Elf on the Shelf. The writer of the blog spent the entire post more or less condemning other moms who make their Elves do naughty things, like take all the ornaments off the shelf, tear up the toilet paper, or throw flour all over the kitchen floor, and making other moms feel inferior or like bad moms. The post was humorously written, and I laughed quite a bit. And admittedly, I have felt the same way at times.

I’ll be the first to admit that I stopped looking at Pinterist because it made me upset that I don’t have the money to make all the cute, easy to make crafty things on there. It also created feelings of jealousy because I am unable to create things that after seeing it you think, “Well, that’s obvious.” I have also been guilty of comparing myself to other moms that seem to have it all together. You know, the ones who can refinish a $10 cabinet they found at a yard sale, make everything at their kids’ birthday parties from scratch, clip coupons saving their families hundreds of dollars, and feed a baby…all at the same time.

I have been thinking about all this for the past few days and I have come to a few conclusions.

1. Women who seem to have it all together will more times than not tell you they don’t. The thing is they are not putting all their junk out there for people to read about. They are only putting the good stuff. And that’s perfectly okay. But nobody has it together 100% of the time. Nobody.

2. Women who make their Elves do more creative things than move from one shelf to another (I can hardly remember to do that. As I type this I remember that I forgot to move the little dude last night. Maybe I can move it before anyone notices him in the same spot), who can create something out of nothing, who homeschool seven kids with a smile on their face everyday and never seem to need a break…those women aren’t making me feel jealous or envious or inferior. I allow myself to feel that way by comparing myself to them. Let’s be honest, that’s where those feelings come from, right? Comparing. And we women are oh so good at comparing ourselves to one another. There have been many articles written about the battle of the moms going on. We compare our kids, our marriages, our homes, our creativity or lack thereof, our jobs, our everything to one another. Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? It does nothing but hinder relationships and at its worst, end friendships. Again, I ask why?

Over the last several months everything I knew, or thought I knew, about discipleship has been stripped away. This journey, that will last a lifetime, has been both troublesome and exhilarating.

It is troublesome because I realize how much I don’t know, but more troubling and important, how much I don’t do. Discipleship is not only about knowing God or things about God or how God has called us to live. It is about doing something with that knowledge. In James 3, we learn that faith without works is dead. He’s not saying that our works save us but rather that true faith bleeds out in how we live our lives. What does it matter if I hide His Word in my heart if it never leads me to not sin against Him? And not doing what He has commanded me is just as much sin as doing something He has told me not to do. There are things left to be learned…knowledge about being a disciple that I don’t have but am longing to learn. However, I am realizing now that I can know everything there is to know about being a disciple but if I am not actually being a disciple, then I am not truly living as Jesus has called me to live.

It is exhilarating because I am drawing closer to God. I am approaching the Scriptures in a different way. Lately, I have been more open to what God would have me learn from His Word than I have been in a very long time, and oh, the joy I have found the past few days as passages leap from the page and speak to my heart. I want to have His Word on my heart, to meditate on it throughout the day.

My heart is craving Him in a new way. I am no longer satisfied with knowing about how to be a disciple.

I want to be one.

As I sit looking at some pictures of my grandfather memories begin to stir. I try not to let my memories lead to thoughts that bring sadness and eventually tears. It’s hard not to though. I imagine it’s hard for most of us who have lost people we love. We want to hold on as long as we can to them. To some piece of them. That’s why we keep pictures and items that belonged to them or that they gave us.

Have you ever noticed that if you ask a friend about the person that died in their life they will sometimes go on and on about him or her? It’s nice though when people ask, isn’t it? Don’t we want to talk about them? If we know that we enjoy talking about our loved ones who have died, no matter how long ago it may have been, why do we cease asking others about their loved ones who have died?  Sure, we ask for the first couple of weeks how they are doing or about the deceased but after that we generally forget about it. I am as guilty of this as the next person.

Why is that?

Do we assume that after a few short weeks our friends are ok? Do we think the pain of the loss they have experienced have lessened in the matter of a 30 days? For some it takes months maybe even years to move through the grieving process. For others only weeks. But no matter how long it takes I am becoming convinced that people will always have some size hole that will never be completely filled. It might heal somewhat but there will always be a scar there and at any moment it could come a little undone.

Because we don’t forget it can be hard when people stop asking how we are doing or allowing us the freedom to talk about the person who died. But again, don’t we want to talk about them? It’s a way of remembering them. Of not forgetting those little details that make us smile.

My grandfather had a smile that could put you at ease and his eyes would twinkle. He gave really good hugs as well. And I think he was a good-lookin’ young man.

 

He loved Christmas time. He wanted us all together. And together we were. He’d point out Santa Claus on the weather map during the 10:00 news and usher the grandkids to bed. He also liked the house to be hot during the winter. Not warm. Warm was not good enough. It would be sweltering. We’d all be sweating and he’d be putting more wood on the fire. I sometimes have thought my brother-in-law was going to pass out from a heat stroke.

Tom was a hard worker. Nobody could ever accuse him of laziness. He did several different jobs during his lifetime. One allowed him to travel through Asia.
He liked cutting the grass, working in the garden, and babying his chickens. He did not like helping my grandmother and great uncle with their dayliles. He loved his church. He liked coffee, Wheel of Fortune, Raisin Bran, sweet tea, ambrosia, Ford Rangers, reading and his recliner. He wore Old Spice cologne. He gave me my first vehicle. His old green Ford Ranger. To this day it is my favorite vehicle I’ve owned because every time I got in I smelled Old Spice and thought of Tom.
More than anything Tom loved his family. He had this ability to make you feel special to him. I think it’s because we were special to him. At the funeral I was thinking about my siblings and cousins. I realized that we each would probably say we had a close relationship with Tom. None of us will ever doubt his love for us.

Who have you lost that you sometimes yearn to talk about? Let me know, I’d love to hear about them.

Thanks for listening,
MacKenzie

What does happen when you put a Lightening McQueen car on your head while your brother holds the remote control?

 It gets really, really tangled around the wheels. Your dad will have to spend ten minutes gently unwinding your hair while your mom looks on snapping pictures and holding scissors just in case a few curly locks have to cut in order to release you from the entrapment in which you find yourself.

By nature, I have always been a fearful person. As a little girl, when I would go to my friend Rhonda’s house I would think about terrible things happening back home. It almost always took the form of a fire. It would scare me so badly that I’d call my mom to come get me. Relief would set in as my irate mother drove up in our red Econoline van, while Rhonda sat in her bedroom crying because I was leaving. Eventually my mom stopped letting me go until I was “old enough to be away from home.”

As I got older, my fears expanded. Due to unfortunate viewings of “Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Gremlins”, “Critters”, and “Child’s Play”, in order to get to my bed at night I would get a running start and leap in to my bed from several feet away (the creatures, after all, lived under the bed). It probably wasn’t several feet…probably only several inches, but there was leaping, lots of leaping. Upon landing in my bed I would immediately cover my head with my covers (the creatures, after all,  couldn’t break the force field my blankets created) and begin to pray that God wouldn’t let them get me. Eventually, the rigidness in my body would subside and the covers would slowly come down…they also came down because I had a fear of suffocating.

My mom had this huge black and white picture of her great-great-great (not too sure how many greats are in there) grandfather in our house. It hung at the end of the hallway that led to the bedrooms. He hung there, staring at me, taunting me as a child. In my mind he was the leader of all the “bad” guys…the ones mentioned above as well as Dracula, the Wolfman , and Frankenstein. I would dream that he – The Grandfather – would have meetings with all these infamous spooky, scary guys and devise plans to “get” me. Looking back, I reckon I was also highly imaginative as well as highly fearful…now some of the things Gingernut says are starting to make sense to me….

The closet in my room….don’t get me started on that one.

My parents had no idea that I had seen such movies. I think my  mom clued in that something was going on when I began to continually beg her to move the picture of The Grandfather. I came home from college one day and it was moved. Thanks, Mom. But you were only about 12 years too late.

As I grew into an adult, my fears were less of the boogie men out to get me and more of being alone. The summer after my freshman year the guy I’d been seeing for the last year broke up with me. To say it devastated me is an understatement. It took a long time to let go because I was afraid. I was afraid of never being loved. I was afraid of being alone. I was afraid of what life what look like if I did move on. Fear kept me depressed for almost two years. Fear kept my heart from healing. Fear kept me from seeing the one who truly loves me even if no one else ever did. What a waste of two years due to fear.

As I entered my mid-twenties, my fear began to be shaped not by boogie men or being alone but again, by bad things happening to people I cared about. That fear never really left me. It followed, always lurking in the shadows waiting for the boogie men to finish with their turn. This fear kept me up at night, it caused worry and stress, hysterical crying, and anxiety.

A pivotal moment that proved to be the turning point in my fear came about 4 years ago. Paul and I were in Naples., and he had left to go somewhere for a day or two. I was alone, and fear began to creep its ugly head into my thoughts. “What if he doesn’t come back?” “How would I get his body home?” “Who would the pallbearers be at the funeral?” “Should I call my parents or his first?” On and on it went. It was awful.

 At some point I was sitting in our bedroom on the navy bedspread that covered our bed, reading my bible. For some reason that day I was reading Psalm 34. The entire psalm calmed me, bringing me deeper into the arms of God, but verse four…verse four was a game changer.

Psalm 34:4 “I sought the LORD, and he answered me; and he delivered me from all my fears.”

At that moment I finally understood that I did not have to be afraid. Fear did not have to dominate…to win. It wasn’t that he would deliver me from my fears that struck me but that he would care enough to answer when I came to Him with those fears. What sweet, beautiful knowledge! To know that when I seek Him (in some versions it says “cry out to”) he will answer me. And my fears….they will no longer enslave me.

The phrase “do not fear” appears at least 58 times in the Bible. Christ has not given me a spirit of fear…not of anything. How often do we allow fear to cripple us? To keep us holed up in our tiny cocoons never experiencing life the way our Creator intended us to experience it, never living the way He has called us to live?

Fear had crippled me for long enough. In that tiny bedroom on a sunny day, I feel deeper into the arms of God, in the knowledge of Him who had saved me and I was changed. And while I still have to say Psalm 34:4 again and again, I know that I am no longer a slave to that fear. I am no longer its captive. I have been delivered from its clutches by Almighty God who answers me when I cry out to Him. And life is a much freer place.

Why do we go?

“Go, where?” you may be asking.

Why do we go across the street?

Why do we go across the ocean?

Why do Paul and I go to places and people that are different than us?

We go because Jesus tells his disciples to go. He says, “Go, make disciples of all nations….” He didn’t say, “Sit around and wait for someone to come ask you about me.” He said to get up and go. Maybe it’s across the street to a neighbor’s house. Maybe it is to the next cubicle. Maybe it is to a different continent. Just “Go.”

We go because people compel us to go. There is an empty feeling inside when I think about hell and all the people that will be there. There is a sense of loss when I think about people I know who are searching and striving and they don’t even know what they are searching and striving for or they are searching and striving for things that will only lead to more searching and striving. The lostness of the world compels us not only to want to go but to help the Church understand the importance and necessity of its going. The Church is God’s chosen vessel to make Himself known to the every tribe, tongue and people. Does He need us? Certainly not. But He has chosen us. We must complete the task He has given us.You cannot expect people to want something they know nothing about. People will not hear the gospel if we, the Church, do not get up and take it to them.

We go because the gospel is worth any sacrifice that “going” may incur. It was worth three years away from family and friends in a culture that was not my own and in which I struggled daily to communicate with people. It is worth the week we were away from the children when we went to Cuba. It is worth Paul being away from us a few weeks out of the year. It is worth him working late nights or hanging out with people who are far from Jesus instead of us some nights. Christ has sacrificed everything for me, and He is worth every stressed out moment that I may have while Paul is away. Us not seeing Paul for a week is worth it if one person discovers the forgiveness and love found in the beauty of the gospel. The gospel…Christ… is worth everything, even our very lives, and I dare say we would both gladly give them if it meant that someone else could come to know the redeeming love of Christ.

You ask why we go. This is why. And now I ask you, why do you go? Or yet, why do you not go?