Archive for December, 2008

« Older Entries

On the 7th day of Christmas

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

On the 7th day of Christmas we say good-bye to 2008.

I am pondering: if I could change one thing about this past year, what would I want to change?  And the only thing I can think of that was unbearable, I couldn’t change or I’d never have learned from God what I needed to in that thing – which will keep me from having to face it again in 2009.  Hallelujah!

So then, is my answer: nothing – not one thing could or should be changed?

Peace to you, my friends, my readers.  Peace and joy to you as we pass from one calendar year to another.  Blessings to you in all you do.  I wish you wholeness and healing in 2009.  I wish you repair in the broken places and hope for the future.  I wish you a double portion of any love you have ever given, the reward for every sacrifice you have made to bless another. 

Remember, though this year is at its end and this season is passed-your story isn’t yet.  He is your Author and He is your Finisher…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: It has all, every little thing, been worth it to know You tonight like this.  Dang, some of it hurt, but wow-You are so faithful, mighty God!  You are so loving.  I am amazed.

“…I will remember the  years of the right hand of the Most High.  I will remember the works of the LORD…”  Pslam 77.10b-11a NKJV

Tags: , ,
Posted in God's Word, Keep Christmas, Memories/Melancholy, Prayers for a God-full life, Stuff I actually think | 1 Comment »

Blinded by the Light

Monday, December 29th, 2008

We are leaving WalMart on a winter night.  Dave unlocks my door and quickly starts the car while he throws our bags in the back.  I buckle my seat-belt and I’m singing when I look up and notice the SUV parked nose to nose with ours.  The man in the passenger seat seems to be glaring weirdly at me.  I feel color rise to my cheeks as I think, “He must think I am talking to myself.”  A flutter of a giggle almost emerges, but I decide to keep singing.  I glance back and think “He has the angriest expression.”  Then I chide myself for thinking poorly of his face, that is just the way he looks.  How paranoid am I, I wonder?

Suddenly in very agitated and exaggerated movements, he reaches over and turns on his headlights.

Oh, now I see.  Our headlights come on right away when we start the car.  We didn’t mean anything by it, fella, really.  We didn’t even know you were in there.  They aren’t bright or anything.  I wasn’t staring at you, ‘promise.  I nervously keep singing to keep from bursting into laughter at the fact that he WAS really giving me ugly looks and I was somewhat oblivious, only believing myself to be judgemental.

As Dave climbed into the car, I turned my head towards him in case my parking-lot-counterpart was a lip reader, but couldn’t stop the giggling from tumbling out as I said, “I think we ticked that guy off.  I think he thought we just turned the headlights on him on purpose.” 

Apparently he was a lip-reader.  For at this time, in an even more exaggerated way, he flipped on his brights and we backed out totally blinded by them and unable to see if this brought him any satisfaction, whatsoever.

Really, guy, we meant you no harm.  I can’t help it.  You are still making me laugh.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Stuff I actually think | 6 Comments »

Repeat the Sounding Joy!

Friday, December 26th, 2008

I LOVE Christmas!  I am not a very exuberant person by nature, not easily just all happy and light-hearted, but give me a vision and some understanding and I come alive.  My Holy-Holiday-Calling is to remember and release a spirit of rejoicing in myself and in others as we make Jesus Christ and worshipping Him central to our sincere and over-the-top Christmas celebrating!  And for all of the days of the year to follow…

 

“Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared.  This day is sacred to our Lord.  Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”  Nehemiah 8.10

The joy of the LORD is your strength.  Are you hearing the sound?

   

This is the truth of this Christmas season for me.  This is the message of hope God has directed me to over and again.  This is the revelation of the gospel I am just beginning to understand.  This is what the Apostle Paul tried to get through to the Philippians when he said “Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again, Rejoice!” (Ph 4.4).  This is what I heard for the millionth and the very first time this Christmas season.  It is the words you hear Linus recite in ”A Charlie Brown Christmas” and a sweet child’s voice inserted into Amy Grant’s 2008 Christmas hit, “I Need a Silent Night.” It is the truth above the roar of busyness and my epiphanic-fervor:

“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.  Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of GREAT JOY which will be to all people.  For there is born to you this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.’”  Luke 2.8-11 NKJV

The revelation of Jesus Christ and His arrival as our Savior was good news of great joy!  Our strength indeed!

The Jesus and joy connection?

“I have told you this so that My joy may in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15.11).

“Ask and you wll receive and your joy will be complete” (John 16.24).

“But I say these things…so that they may have the full measure of My joy within them” (John 17.13).

God set forth  (even commanded) celebrations for the purpose of joy for the people.  One example:

“And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy.  The women and the children also rejoiced.  The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away” (Neh. 12.43)

Joy is a verb.  You gotta take action.

“I will rejoice in the Lord.  I will JOY in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3.18).

Jack Hayford’s notes in The Spirit-Filled Life NKJV Study Bible gives this on the word “joy” in Habakkuk:

JOY: Strong’s 1523: To joy, rejoice, be glad…contains the suggestion of “dancing for joy” or “leaping for joy” since this verb originally meant to “spin around with intense motion.”  This lays to rest the notion that the Biblical concept of joy is  only a “quiet inner sense of well-being.”…altho everything is wrong in Habakkuk’s world-he is leaping for joy over his relationship with God …

These can be joyless times.  The “holiday season” may have just been one more drain on you after a year of disappointment or lack.  The condition of our nation may be bringing fear.  Religious duty, a significant loss in our lives, strain in our marriages, unhappiness at work or any number of things may cause us to put on the smile-mask a Christian “should” wear and yet feel as flat and used up as the neighbor’s giant inflatable Santa looks on the lawn this morning.

But the good tidings of great joy are for me and for you.  So how do we appropriate it?  How do we walk in the kind of joy that gives us the strength we need to endure?  Repeat the sounding joy.

The sounding joy?  Good news!  Great joy!  I have a Savior!  He came to save me!  I think I’ll jump up and twirl and spin around like a madwoman while I echo the angels as loudly as I can: Glory to God in the highest!  Glory to the God of my salvation!  And peace to us here on earth, goodwill towards us from You, Father!

It is possible, I truly believe, that this act of joy as a verb – to joy – may actually begin to bring true giddy life-giving happiness to my soul.  The sounding joy: God is God!  He is faithful! He rules!  He reigns!  I receive my King!  I join with all heaven and nature in rejoicing that the curse has been broken on my behalf!   He has saved me from certain death and a joyless existence!  Glory to God in the highest!

Repeat the sounding joy.  Repeat the sounding joy.  Repeat, repeat the sounding joy! 

Not just at Christmas, but - as needed!

Joy!  Seriously – be glad and dance a little!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Don’t let the enemy steal my joy!  Not one day.  Worship and crazy praise a must!

pictured: an etsy.com image, Stephanie on Christmas morning (in the midst of physical joy!) finding out she had received the antique oak dining table and chairs she really wanted, and the chalkboard in the kitchen with my “epiphanic” stuff on it (and I am preety sure I invented that word this Christmas!)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in God's Word, Keep Christmas, Photos of the Fam, Prayers for a God-full life, Songs I am singing, Stuff I actually think, Worship | 1 Comment »

The Twelve Days

Friday, December 26th, 2008

Technically, Christmas was day one of the 12 Days of Christmas. 

The Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas – representing the Wise Men coming to worship Jesus,  is January 6. 

So, really, we are just getting started.  So, I wonder why it feels like the party is over?  Is it because we truly do not know how to celebrate, really celebrate?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Keep Christmas, Stuff I actually think | No Comments »

With love from Gavin, Guini, Hunter, Gemma and Averi’s grandparents!

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Our Christmas card to you!

Click on images to enlarge.

Gavin 5, Hunter 4, Guini 3, Gemma 1 1/2,  and Averi on her first Christmas – 10 1/2 months.

Good tidings of great joy to you and yours…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: I could even plan to get my Christmas card photo taking done in like, October or November next year! (?) !

Thanks again to Tredessa and Tara for the photos, Wrex and Stef for the awesome locale and animals, Stormie for putting this together for me even though she is unbelievably busy, and to my children who have blessed me with these amazing five grandchildren.  And thank You, Father, for the joy…

 

Tags: , ,
Posted in God's Word, Grandkids, Keep Christmas, Mi familia, Photos of the Fam, Prayers for a God-full life, Songs I am singing, Stuff I actually think | 8 Comments »

Christmas Past

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

2007

2006

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Grandkids, Keep Christmas, Memories/Melancholy, Mi familia, Photos of the Fam, Stuff I actually think | No Comments »

The Father of Christmas

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!”  Matthew 7.11 NIV

“The glorious gospel of a blessed [happy] God” is that He loves you (1 Timothy 1.11).  He is happy with you.  We have a Father well-disposed towards us.  He is rejoicing over us with singing.

Daddy loves you.  God rest you.  God keep all dismay from you.  God save you from Satan’s snares.

Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy!…Jeanie

pictured: the grandbabies helped Dave set up the town this year.  No levels or train this time, just a nicely laid out vista with lots and lots of trees!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in God's Word, Keep Christmas, Stuff I actually think, Worship | 1 Comment »

The Broken Curse

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

I LOVE Christmas!  I am not a very exuberant person by nature, not naturally just happy and light-hearted, but give me a vision and some understanding and I come alive.  My Holy-Holiday-Calling is to remember and release a spirit of rejoicing in myself and in others as we make Jesus Christ and worshipping Him central to our raucous Christmas celebrating!

 

In our 1860s Victorian house in Nebraska, we had 9 fully-decorated trees.  I have never run out of ideas for decorating a tree, each in a unique and personal way.  Now, though, we’re down to two.  One is the collections of our lives (the tree of my sentimental heart) - the ornaments the kids made at school growing up, “baby’s first” ornaments and now treasures from the grandchildren.

But the main tree,too tall and big enough to fill too many totes with it’s ornamentations, is the tree of my faith.  The centerpiece in the branches reads: For unto you is born this day (with the print of a baby’s foot to represent Jesus’ birth), A Savior, who is Christ the Lord(a bloody hand-print reminds us that He was born to die for us)!

From the 12 foot peak flows down wide, red swaths of blood-red satin to represent His sacrifice for me.  The tree, evergreen representing everlasting life, is decorated with crosses and the angelic hosts.  It is decorated with symbols and words of all Christ came to accomplish.  It is, for me, an altar of worship.  I raise it yearly to remember and celebrate the completed work of Jesus Christ in my life.  My tree is a symbol of a broken curse.

There was another tree.  It was stripped bare of it’s branches, save one, which was affixed across the trunk up high.  And that tree is part of our celebration, even now during Christmas, and symbolizes everything that happened there bringing us eternal life.

At the foot of our Christmas tree, we lovingly exchange gifts.  Our tree is laden with sparkling ornaments, twinkling lights, and bedecked with glittering beauty.  And why? 

Because it was on a tree that God hung His greatest gift to us all and He calls us to that tree to receive the greatest of all gifts – His son, Jesus.  Galatians 3.13 reminds us that on that tree,  Jesus redeemed us from the curse.  It holds nothing on us.  We are free and redeemed from the law of sin and death and we commemorate Christmas with joy with our ornamented tree – celebrating His love toward us which flows out as we gift one another.

I’ll kneel at the tree within the next couple of days, my altar of remembrance and pray:

Father, I am kneeling at this tree thanking You that at that tree You broke the curse for me.  I am open, during this Christmas season, Lord, to receive Your deliverance for anything that haunts or taunts me.  Set me free from the things that have entangled my life.  I remember, today.  In the light from this tree, I receive Your gift from that tree…

His coming wasn’t random.  It was planned.  Remember to remember…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Make funny faces in the round glass ornaments.  Crack God up.

pictured: a close-up view of the message of our tree; some up-shots

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in God's Word, Keep Christmas, Photos of the Fam, Prayers for a God-full life, Stuff I actually think, Worship | 3 Comments »

My new grandkid

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

Stephanie, Tristan and the new grand”kid”

Tags: , ,
Posted in Keep Christmas, Mi familia, Photos of the Fam, Stuff I actually think | 7 Comments »

The lights on my tree, I wish you could see…

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

I LOVE Christmas!  I am not a very naturally exhuberant person, not just all happy and light-hearted, but give me a vision and some understanding and I come alive.  My Holy-Holiday-Calling is to remember and release a spirit of rejoicing in myself and in others as we make Jesus Christ and worshipping Him central to our raucous Christmas celebrating!

 

Between Steph and Tristan’s house just a couple of miles east of us and my house as you travel back on Bridge, you hit Brighton’s “high point,” which isn’t very high – as we are in the valley of the great Rocky Mountains.  But there it is.  And even in this recently rural-and-still-small, but-booming town, suddenly, you reach the peak and there they are: the lights!  And especially in these long, dark nights, Christmas lights line streets and neighborhoods have come alive with twinkle.

Some one asked me recently why on earth people would still put their lights out with the world’s problems and the economy the way it is?  If they had heard Guini the other  night when we drove the kids around Brighton to see the lights, they would understand.  For she and Gavin and Hunter oohed and awed over every single light.  But Guini, each time she spotted a lit up star (and especially the really large one atop the 100-foot tree at the City Building, would scream, a la Buddy in the movie “Elf,” “CHRISTMAS!  CHRISTMAS!  Star!!”

Yes, there are hosts of people all over Brighton and Denver and Colorado, all over our nation and the world who are celebrating, whether they even yet understand it or not, that the Light has come and the darkness can never be the same!

Isaiah 9.2 “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death – a light has dawned!”

John 8.12 “Jesus said, ‘I am the Light of the world.  Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the Light of Life.”‘

I love the lights of Christmas!  And every twinkling light, every candle we light during this season is piercing a darkness that would otherwise be there and is representing that Jesus is the Light of the world!

Living in great light…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  More candles. 

pictured: part of Dave’s Bedford Falls town

Tags: , ,
Posted in God's Word, Home, Keep Christmas, Photos of the Fam, Songs I am singing, Stuff I actually think | No Comments »

« Older Entries