All posts by Jeanie

About Jeanie

Wholehearted living somewhere in the middle of all my years. Aging parents, grown kids, and grandbebes everywhere! Married to my love and lifelong best friend, Dave for 33 years now. We raised 5 kids and lived to tell about it. My life's mission is to declare the great faithfulness of God to the next generations, especially those in mi familia!

Turn around and you’re 2…

“Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two,
Turn around and you’re four,
Turn around and you’re a [grown boy] going out of my door.” -Harry Belafonte, 1957

The grand-boys

Only four of my 10 grandbebes are of the male persuasion. Hunter, who is 10, is keeping score and wants everybody to work diligently on even-ing the tally a bit.

the four grand-boys

Gavin is 12, holding Oliver who was about 4 weeks here. Hunter is 10 and Kai, 2, did not want to be in a picture!

Kai is 2 – this is mostly about him…

Kai on a walk

Malachai spent the night last week when his parents were doing a concert in the Springs. He is two, in all its’ glory. He has shot up like a spring weed ready to take over the world. He has opinions and understands every single thing I say, even if I cannot quite return the favor. If a request I have made vexes him, he need only cover his eyes with his hands and slump his shoulders for Nonna to take it back {{No, no, it’s ok – you don’t have to put the toys away, Kai-Kai}}. If he’d like one more piece of candy (after too many, already), tilting his head a bit while drawing me into the liquid blue pool of his gorgeous eyes and jabbering away (saying something quite funny, which I know because he then laughs uproariously) is all it takes. Ok, one more…

Alright, I must interject here: he is soooooooo smart! Malakai randomly pointed to the Excel icon on my Mac a few weeks ago and said, “Oh, Nonna – X!” I was like, “Kai-how did you know that???” Whereupon, he jabbered a long paragraph of explanation in his own Pentecostal-toddler language before clearly and assuredly saying, “I know that!”

Then the other night Dave was wearing a Broncos shirt and the font was kind of scrolly-semi-cursive. Kai said, “Oh, Poppa: B-O-O,” pointing to the letters that were obvious. Can you believe that? He is TWO…and pretty much extraordinary! IMHO.  ;)

Kai and his toys

Life is a vapor, people. James 4* was not kidding!

It is here and then, like a breeze just lifting a dry leaf and blowing it across the lines on the front walk, time is blown quietly way on down the road, section by section and everything has changed. And you wonder – how did we get here, already? You don’t notice it much day by day. But my little leaves, my darling grandbebes, are swirling and growing and each time I turn around, my breath catches and I wish, with eyes closed tight and fists clenched, I wish I could just stop time for a little while. Oh to love more, hug my bebes, kiss-kiss sweet cheeks and just soak in everything each one is right now, today.

But time marches on and there is nothing to stop it.

Gav & Hunter devices

Gavin will be twelve soon. He was only 3 when I started writing here on the blog. So it is here I have wept and laughed and tried to put words to the depth of my love, the increased capacity to feel and rejoice that grandchildren have brought me.

“Being a mom was the most wonderful thing.  Being a Nonna, I am completely undone.” ~From a post I did about Gavin, Hunter and Guini in 2007 SEE MORE HERE

And every now and again Kai says or does something and I remember Gavin or Hunter doing the exact same and it nearly knocks the wind from me to realize how fast that happened.

Gavin was building wooden block towers with Poppa just so very recently, wasn’t he? He was two, like, minutes ago…But now he texts me and we play games with our iPhones (he teaches me little tricks and secrets for using it). He seeks me out in crowds to give me very warm hugs and never leaves without kissing me good-bye, so thoughtful and grown-up. He was 2. Then a *snap of the fingers…Now he is almost 12.

Kai is 2 and I dare not look away, because he is also, I know now from experience, almost 10, nearly 12.

Gav & Hunter

Where are you going my little one, little one…

Kai woke up at exactly 5:55 a.m. the morning he was here. Even though his mommy told me that when he does that you can tell him he has to wait until the sun is up high in the sky to get up, I didn’t want him to feel unheard or uncared for being in a different place. I went to him and picked him up with such great affection I thought my heart would burst. “I’m here, Malakai, Nonna is here.” Dragging his blankie along he reached for me, then wrapped himself around me securely. In the quiet I hesitated, memorizing this fleeting moment, this tiny sliver of space and time in which you know that you know you are fully loved and fulfilling your purpose exactly perfectly. He relaxed, then, and he felt the  features of my face with his little hand in the early morning dark, “Nonna?” he asked, just to make sure.

Oh yes, I am, I thought. I’m your Nonna, baby boy. Let me hold you, let me carry you while I can. Let me love you and cheer you on and keep you safe and drink you in.

I brought him to our bed and placed him between us, his Poppa and me. He wanted to chat, but I whispered that we needed to wait until the sun was high in the sky. “High and ‘lellow’?” he asked. For “lellow” is his favorite color. It’s the color of his ultra-blond hair and his favorite cars and school busses and everything he loves the most. It’s the color of sunshine and it’s warm and happy and all the things Kai is to us.

Yes, bebe. Wait until the sun is high in the sky and bright lellow…

So he closed his eyes, he settled into plump pillows, his little feet resting against my leg. And as if my wish for making time stand still came true, a wave of deja-vu came over me: Gavin at not much older, in this same bed, he and I watching a Christmas movie. I kept drifting off and would be awakened with his little hand on my face, whispering, “Don’t go to sleep, Nonna – watch with me.” Then he would hold my face and look into my eyes making sure I stayed awake with him. I did.

And wasn’t  it just yesterday little Hunter would spend the night and when I’d think he had gone to sleep finally, on a special bed right beside mine, I’d wake up to find him, head propped on his hands, leaning on his elbows, practically nose to nose with me – just watching me. When he saw my eyes were open, he’d ask, “Are you awake, Nonna?” He just wanted to chat, middle of the night or not.

The memories felt thick and real.

For a second I couldn’t tell what year it was, suspended in timelessness and love.

I opened my eyes to check. And there was Kai, looking right at me in the slowly increasing light. He whispered something about us waiting for the sun to get high and lellow. He was holding his blue blankie and his little ‘lellow’ motorcycle {aka Vroom-Vroom}. He took the tiniest corner of the blankie into his mouth. It’s his comfort, the way he deals with things. You’ll see him just barely, very gently bite the very corner. It’s his alone, his thing.

We looked at each other in silence for a little bit, me, mesmerized by his baby blues, him, just barely touching his teeth to soft blue fabric.

Then he offered it to me – the corner of his blankie. He extended it my direction. “Bite? Want a bite, Nonna?”

He was giving me all of his earthly treasure, sharing the deepest love he could possibly share. Even recalling it now, *melting…

Kai and his umbrella

He is two. But he is already almost grown, too,  and the man God created him to be (so quickly). And I am not only undone, I am blown away at the power of the beautiful love of God through him.

Oliver is 7 weeks and 2 days old. Soon, so very soon,  he’ll be two, too.

See his newborn pics by Stephanie HERE.

oliver-small-size

Photo by Stephanie www.maydae.com

Thanking God for my grand-boys, His little men, today!

*James 4.13-14

 

 

My Sandy-girl Died

I have so many words inside my breaking heart, I am going to need a few days to sort them out, to tell her sweet story.

sandy and me 12 27 14

Sandy and me on 12/27/14

So, this is just to say that right now my heart is tender, and I never even wanted to have a dog because I didn’t want an end, but she was more than worth the mourning and pain I am experiencing now.

My daughter, Stephanie, rescued her from the landfill near DIA 14 years ago. She was full-grown even then, so we have no idea how old she ended up, but we had her for 14 loving, affectionate, gracious years. We called her our junk-yard dog, but her worth to us cannot be measured.

I have so many words, but for this post, until I can cry them out on another day, suffice it to say, she belonged to us all, the whole Rhoades tribe, kids and grandbebes. We all grieve.

She left quietly, trying hard not bother any of us, which was exactly the way she lived. It was Saturday morning, the birds were singing in the trees and she was leaving us with no particular fanfare.

She died in the backyard, her hair sparkling in the bright morning sun, waving gently in the sweet breeze…on a beautiful spring day, like all the days she gave us.

I’ve written about *Sandy* before:

5-12-2012Sandy, true to her German Wiredhaired Pointer characteristics, lives to please us.  She is like a trusted friend, always ready with a warm greeting when I come home, edging as close to my feet as possible when I sit.   In fact, where I go, she goes...” READ MORE HERE

2-18-2010The scraggly family mutt who was abandoned at the landfill years ago to run wild and fear her own shadow, the trembling pile of fur we drug home, intent on saving whether she wanted us or not, and named “Sandy” after the dog from the Broadway play and the 1982 movie, “Annie,” has come full circle.

Yes.  Sandy-the-Dog played Sandy-the-Dog in Prairie Playhouse’s production of “Annie,”  at tonight’s OPENING NIGHT!!!”  READ MORE HERE

11-17-2014As I write this, my dilapidated old dog is at my feet. Sandy is somewhere near the finish line. It makes me feel better knowing she’ll be joining her cousin-doggie soon, where the two of them can romp like puppies again together, well and whole.

Don’t try to debate me theologically on this point. Sandy is one of the most Christ-like creations of God I have ever known. She is a godly old girl…” READ MORE HERE

8-21-2014Oh Sandy, you sweet, old dog, you. I love how you watch me from the corner of your eye when I have told you to look away while I eat. I love how you patrol the yard and make a ruckus at the hint of the first sprinkle, as if you can hold thunder and lightening at bay. I love how you chase the birds loudly one day, then share your water bowl the next while you just look at them inches away from your nose. They are not afraid of you at all. And you’re a bird-dog.  I love your big, brown, pouty eyes and how you know when I need a friend…READ MORE HERE

7-26-2013She loves you already.  It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t even know you yet.  She has never met a human being she didn’t want to adore fully right off the bat, with the possible exceptions being screaming-2-year-olds.  They make her nervous.  But fully-grown people? She loves even the dog-haters.  She is just a great big lover.  She will attach herself to you as if she is the Secret Service on Presidential Guard duty.  No one will be able to get to you on her watch…READ MORE HERE

There are so many posts. But I’ll stop…I am so missing her.

Good grief

I spent the day after she died researching, desperately looking for a to-do list, a set of guidelines for getting through the grief process quickly. I even researched what “acceptable” grief for the loss of a beloved dog is. I found out that it will take however long it takes. I learned that old grief gets mixed in with new grief. I learned that I cannot be cured or fixed and there is no universal timetable and that life will go on, but that losing Sandy is a change, a loss of huge proportions to my heart and soul. So there will be tears and I will grieve. For however long…

…Missing my Sandy-girl tonight.

Ten Little Monkeys! {{.*Oliver:is:here*.}}

I have been woefully neglectful in posting, but that is because I have been deliriously enjoying the fact that I now have TEN Grand-bébés! Oh yes, I do! And isn’t that just THE most fabulous number???

“There were ten in the bed and the little one said, ‘Roll over, roll over’…”

“Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped his head…”

Yes. It is true. I am very well versed in toddler and pre-school songs and rhymes.

Ten!

Well, you have heard of Gavin and Hunter, and I’ve told you about Guini and Gemma May and Averi-J. We also have Amelie Belle and Malakai plus Bailey-Baby and Eva-Girl. But may I introduce you to my newest, darling grand-boy?

This is Oliver. Born to Dessa and Ryan (and to his big-sister, Evangeline) almost 2 weeks ago.

Oliver

*Oliver*

3 4 15 oliver

So much to say, but I’ll try to share it in small doses. Because, as you know, Nonnas can be overwhelmingly exuberant about the little-grands! Oh, yes, we can!

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“Oh, my sweet grand-bébés ~ YOU are my life’s greatest story!” -me :)

grandbebes

 

Oliver and his proud grand-poppa-

Dave and his newest grandson

 

A Prayer for My Grown Children

A prayer for my 5 grown children

This is from an email I sent them in 2012. Tara, Stephanie, Tredessa, Rocky & Stormie… 

the rhoades kids

May you each {within your own homes and families, now} live full and exciting lives, marked by sheer delight and pure joy, along with the surging Holy-Spirit-strength that comes from that!  And I pray you will have many good conversations with the people who matter the most and will enjoy experiences and memories that warm your heart at the end of each day along the way.

I pray that you will be blessed with work, the life-giving kind of service and labor that comes from knowing you are doing the good things God actually created you to do way before anyone else even knew there would be a you (see Ephesians 2.10). I speak grace to you, over your lives. I shake heaven’s gates praying you will have the grace to be everything God created you to be and the grace to accomplish everything He created you to accomplish!

I pray you will press in to know the One who loves you most (Hosea 6.3), and that you will zealously, and with consecrated energy, live for the praise of His glory! I urge you to break off the chains of the quotidian existence sometimes imposed by the times and our culture in its’ pursuit of amassing things, gaining impressive status or careers with fancy titles.  And  I pray and declare that you’ll live, really live, in the hope for which God has called you.

Make every effort to enter into the rest of God (Hebrews 4.11), my sweets. Jesus paid it all, so don’t bother trying to earn your place in Him. He has got you covered.

Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost – that is Kingdom of God, the doors-wide-open welcoming House of the Lord. This is where we live, in the Household of Faith. There is bread in His house, you’ll never lack for His provision. Come, eat, my beloved children. Don’t go hungry when the feast has been spread.

I pray you’ll sleep sweetly through all your nights (Proverbs 3.24) under the moon and stars hung by your loving Father, having lived your days without regret and shame. And I pray you’ll drop into bed in sheer exhaustion, but that it will always be that “good kind of tired.”

I never even hoped to dream I’d have children like you. You were made for me. And I was made for you. I love you all very much and am wholly honored that God chose me to be your mom. And I am, you know…And I pray for you!

These are not just a random selection of nice thoughts for these who came from me. They are actually dedicated, targeted prayers for wholeness (and healing, too as it is needed) for a few of my weak areas – places where I may have (probably) failed them. Thank God He can redeem and restore and His grace is greater!

Averi-Girl: The 5th grandbebe turns 7!

averi4

I was so proud of myself when I took this picture of you at 1 1/2 years old. But I did have to chase you around the yard for an hour as you excitedly explored the garden before I got this! You make me smile! Oh, yes, you do!

Hey, my sweet birthday girl~

averi & sisters

 The day we all did our make-up. :)

Happy-hApPy-delightful-delirious-joyful-head-over-heels-laughing-dancing-rejoicing-fun-FUN-fun-gladhearted-jumping-jelly-beans-cartwheels- & -kisses Birthday, Little Miss Averi!

Oh your Nonna loves you, girl. You know that, right? You’re funny and sweet and wry and so-very-mature and insightful. You’re considerate and thoughtful and every bit the perfect firstborn, and big-sister. I just don’t know what we ever did without you! You make life sweeter and neater and so much more beautiful! Every time I think of you, I smile. When I get to see you, well, I just go a little bonkers with happiness!

averi 7th

 I thank God for you, Averi Jadyn! I think He outdid Himself in creating you! I thank Him and I add my blessing. I bless your days and all your ways. I bless those piercing, liquid-blue eyes. I bless those oh-so-kissable cheeks.

I bless you as a big sister and a good cousin. I bless you as the perfect niece and a wonderful granddaughter {we’re so lucky to have you}.

averi1

You were 4 or 5 months here and so scrumptious I could just eat you up!

I bless the things you’ll see, that you may see them with God’s eyes. I bless your hands, those beautiful, graceful little hands, that they’ll be applied to good works God prepared ahead of time for you to do – even before you were born.

averi2

I bless you as an honoring daughter – knowing that as you honor your mommy and daddy, the Bible promises it will go well for you and you’ll live long on the earth! What will go well? LIFE! The life Jesus came to give you, abundant and wondrous and free from any kind of captivity! I bless your life. May you always be in Christ. May you find your most treasured identity and home in Him!

You’re becoming more beautiful by the day because it is coming from the inside. As I see you growing up, 7 going on 17, I see a deep radiance, a caring girl. It is lighting you up from the inside out. And oh, how your Nonna loves you and is blessed by you. I know God is pleased by you, too. I sense His joy in you!

averi5

Someday, when you need reminding about what I have always thought of you and maybe you’ll need to know how much God loves you, I hope you’ll remember to come to this blog and read these words again and know that Nonna is shaking heaven’s gates for you, praying for your life, for good things for you. And I am reminding God over and over that I want Him to be with you always and make His face to shine right on you and to surround you with His favor like a shield and to give you grace to be all He created you to be and to do all He calls you to do.

And you what? He has already promised that He will do and be all these things to you in His Word! All the wonderful secrets are there – in your Bible! But I will keep on praying for you and reminding Him for you, anyway. And I will agree with His good plans for your life and shout AMEN! Yes, Lord! Let it be!

Happy Birth~week, my sweet! You are a good girl. And I’m so proud of you!

Love, {Nonna}

I bless the girl my son married

Hey, Jovanie~

jovan and rocky and family

Oh, sweet girl, how did almost 3 months pass before I got to this post? Life has been a whirlwind, yes? And YOU had a birthday, and moved a little too far away for my heart – all at once {October 31st}. In the middle of so many good and wonderful gifts from above, a whirlwind of exciting living – we breathlessly paused and celebrated. And thanked God for you, again.

jovan with bailey

As birthday posts go, I have never been later. And this one has been sitting in the drafts folder, not quite finished far too long. But know this, at least: as daughter-in-loves go, there is none more cherished or delightful! And I still thank God for you, birthday or any day and everyday of your life and mine!

I love you, Jovan Marie Rhoades! And I bless the day you were born, born to a future that included marrying Rocky and to giving me three of the most adorable little grand-girlies in the world…so far, anyway! :)

jovan and rocky selfie

We’ve known you for half your life!

It is really strange to imagine our family without you, having known you now since you were 14 years old. And when you came into our lives (fourteen years ago, to be exact), you just fit. You were easy to know, easy to have in the room. You hung out with Stormie, sometimes spending the night at our houses and then got up and did chores, like any of our kids.

Who is this amazing girl, I wondered? I must remember to thank her parents!*

jovan and rocky

I love that his heart is safe with you.

And you befriended Rocky, too. You admired him and respected him and looked up to him ( a whole 2 years older, right?) and I liked how I saw you looking at my son. I thought that Rocky choosing you was one of the greatest things he could ever have done. I still think so. And I love that even before we knew you, during the years you were growing up with your two sisters and godly parents, long before we were ready to think of our only son ever even getting married – you were being equipped to be Rocky’s. God was at work in your heart and life, and he was at work in our son. He alone knew what the two of you could be together, as one. So mysterious and beautiful. It makes me wonder why I ever worried over my kids at all – the way God so carefully orchestrates adventure and life and love and goodness and mercy over you all.

IMG_6197

So, even though I thought I had all the daughters I could handle, with the four incredible beauties I birthed myself, it turns out, getting to have just one more {YOU} has been a blessing of mammoth proportions! You have been a sweetness and grace, a reward to me for getting through the years of raising 5 children! Ha!

I do thank God for you, Jovan. I was so happy to get to tell Averi and Amelie recently, as we were “doing hair and make-up,” what I have told you many times before: I grew up saying I intended to have 8 sons, eight! It sounded fun. But then I had 3 daughters, finally a son and in an attempt to get one more – another daughter! But wow-Rocky was an energetic handful of rambunctious-ness and I later realized I would have fallen dead from exhaustion if I had actually birthed 8 little Rocky-types. Haha. Oh, how I love that little boy and the man he has become for the ways he has challenged me! LOVE him.

So, I was glad to tell your daughters, my cute grandbebes, how delighted I was to find scripture that fit us, you and me, so perfectly. It’s Naomi’s friends talking to her about her devoted daughter-in-law, Ruth:

“And may [your grandchild] be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne [this child].”  Ruth 4

There it is! And I will always be able to tell your children with my whole heart: your mommy, who gave me you, is better to me than seven more sons would have been. So even though I didn’t get the 8 baby boys I always thought I’d have, I got you, and I got a daughter-in-love who has my heart for always.

Averi said, “I’ve heard that story!” And I hope she’ll never forget.

A Birthday Blessing for my Jovan, the world’s best daughter-in-law:

So, today, I bless you. I bless your heart and soul and your thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams. I bless the family you are building with Rocky and the your days with the  beautiful Presence of God. I pray all you give out will come back to you many times. I bless you with the deep love in marriage and the honor of your children and with the long life that goes so-very-well for you because of how you honor your parents. I bless your days, your hours and minutes – may they be lived fully and colorfully, and may they be fruitful and accomplish much to the glory of God. I pray you will flourish, become deeper rooted, and all your gifting and talents will be received with great fanfare and welcome whenever and wherever they begin to show up. I speak against any enemy lies or assignments on your life and agree for any chain that tries to hold you down to be broken and left in a heap while you go from glory to glory, strength to strength, fully shining like the bright joy you are! Yes! In Jesus’ Name! {{*AMEN.*}}

jovan and rocky with girls

You were born to be one of us, Jovan. My thanks to your parents for raising such a lovely young woman. My thanks to Rocky for having the good sense to make you his standard of beauty and desire, his wife and one flesh. And my thanks to God for His grace on all of us, through you. {mom}

*P.S. Speaking of Jovan’s wonderful parents –

Today is Jo’s birthday! I finally got Jovan’s birthday blessing posted on her mom’s birthday! I mean there would be no Jovan without Jo! Happy Birthday, Jo!

Happy-Birthday-jo

Sacred Days and Holy Nights

Yesterday was the final day of Christmas (today is *Epiphany!)…

Christmas afternoon 2014

Our tribe on the first day of Christmas, December 25, 2014

I bet most of you have long since packed the ornaments away and vacuumed up the needles of the tree. You have probably moved on to making resolutions, starting a diet and setting personal and professional goals. You have purchased the newest organizational containers, a fresh planner and have thrown out the remaining candy from Christmas stockings by now.

But what, I wonder, is our hurry? Why do we so willingly follow merchant’s schedules for when to begin Christmas, and when to be rid of it? As believers, we are often miffed that we hear “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” and we send cards saying “Jesus is the reason for the season,” yet we fall right into line with the most secular of thinkers on the exact perimeters of celebration. 

First Thanksgiving, then Black Friday for frenzied shopping: decorate, bake, wrap, shop some more. There are parties and programs and quick-holiday-themed worship services to attend. Then the relatives show up and we all enjoy too much food and revelry together and by the time the gifts are unwrapped and paper is strewn about, we are ready for it to. be. over.

Jesus was most assuredly NOT the reason for a season that looks like that.

But like every other pooped-out celebrant, Christ-following-believer or not, we immediately start putting our joy-to-the-world away and clearing all signs of festivity, usually because we just can’t stand another second of this go-tell-it-on-the-mountain season of decking-the-halls.

By 8:37 pm on December 25th (technically the first day of Christmas) the over-buying, the round-the-clock shopping hours so kindly provided by “caring” retailers, the extreme-indulgence in “making merry,”  it’s all just too much. We’re ready to pack every vestige of the season away (after hitting a few clearance sales for next year’s celebrating, of course), and then it’s off to the future. We emerge from Christmas absolutely unchanged by the observation of the birth of the Savior of the world. We limp from Christmas day relieved to have it over instead of filled with renewed devotion, knowing Jesus more.

Why on earth we spend all year looking forward to something that wears us plumb out, I am not sure. We are excellent at romanticizing our traditions and must-dos, even if they will eventually suck the life right out of us.

Oh how utterly conventional, how completely secular we have really become. Is a casual reading of Luke 2 on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning really enough to call what we just did a celebration of the Christ?

epiphany

What if we added 12 devotion-and-worship-filled days to Christmas and topped it off with an *Epiphany?

What if we celebrated, I mean really observed and worshiped through Christmas in the liturgical-church-calendar way, all the way through Epiphany? I am not from high-church tradition at all. We didn’t observe religious customs or days in my Pentecostal upbringing (often eschewing them as mere “traditions of men”), but I have realized through the years that there are parts of my faith still so unexplored, holy things I have yet to comprehend, though other church traditions have been careful to recognize and make way for their understanding through a careful liturgy.

The less days I have, the more willing I am to give more of them annually to find Jesus, to know Him, to press in to know Him.

“So let us know Him, let us press on to know the Lord.”  Hosea 6.3

What if we could become whole and healed by setting aside time, consecrating days on the calendar, sanctifying a season for deeper reflection, time to rest, time to heal, time to focus on the Light of the World?  What if, instead of letting Target and WalMart determine our celebrations, we let Christmas, as I-have-decided-to-follow-Jesus types, really begin on the 25th and we spend the days until Epiphany seeking Him like the Wise Men did, following that bright light of mercy in our darkest nights?

What if we pondered the things of Jesus and held them in our hearts like Mary, who, while carrying the Him within gave us one of the richest examples of worship (Luke 1:46-56) in the scriptures? Or what if, on some day after the retail madness has died down, we become filled with the Holy Spirit, like Zacharias, and prophesy the goodness of God to a world who needs to know Him, the One who so loves them?

“Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”   Luke 1.68-69

We often end the story on Christmas day with a babe in manager, but what if were like Simeon, so longing to see Him, led by the Holy Spirit to witness an 8-day old baby – he just blessed God. He saw the babe and his heart found total fulfillment and utter peace, complete satisfaction. He said to God, “Your servant can now die in peace!” Now that is a full heart!

And what about the very old Anna, a prophet who never left the temple, but ministered to the Lord there day and night with prayers and fasting? Thanksgiving to God poured from her as she came up to find Jesus there with His parents. Is the gratitude flowing from us?

What if we marked the days off on the calendar and decided to find Him again, perhaps having drifted off course during the busy year? What if we used the sacred days and holy nights, all now made holy by His coming, to know Him, pursue Him, and meditate on His goodness? Would He honor that? Would He show up to meet with us there?

I usually post a flurry of blogs during Advent and the Christmas season {you can find these by clicking on the “Keep Christmas” topic at the bottom of the page}. I believe there should be no more devoted celebrant than those of us who have received His salvation. I love it all, the sights, the sounds, the symbols of Christmas. I believe Advent holds much treasure we are often too busy to observe. But I have only recently begun to wonder what we miss by not REALLY making Jesus the reason? What of these days between Christmas Day and Epiphany?

Let’s not be so quick to move on. There is more than the hustle, so much more than the bustle. Next year, for sure, the lights will stay in place, the symbols of my faith represented in the decorations and the tree that represents everlasting life  because of the tree Jesus hung on will stay put. Until I emerge a little more like Him, having spent the time seeking Him and keeping on until I really find Him. That is how to “keep Christmas well,” I think. That’s what I am after!

“he knew how to keep Christmas well” ~ Dickens

How do you keep Christmas? How do you celebrate the twelve days of Christmas, spiritually? I would welcome your ideas as I think about Christmas future. SEND INSPIRATION!

sig keep christmas

Oh and…

I did just get this for my Kindle today. Can’t wait to explore it and use it next year with my grandkids! Be sure to read her post on “The Essence of Epiphany” and the first commenter, who had some awesome thoughts about  the Wise Men’s journey). Good stuff!

lindseybridges.com

Experiencing Epiphany – 6 Days of Intentional Epiphany with Your Kids by Lindsey Bridges

*epiphany: The manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (see Matthew 2.1-12); the festival commemorating the Wise Men arriving to find Jesus, celebrated on January 6th;  the striking appearance or manifestation of a divine being.

 

Snowfall ~ A Playlist for Snowy-White Winters

I just realized I should have added “A Few of My Favorite Things,”

“Silver-white winters that melt into spring…”

Oh well.

News flash: I am living in the arctic tundra. Not really. Still Denver. But it looks like the arctic tundra. It feels like the arctic tundra! It is not just cold, people, it’s downright frigid!

“God thunders wondrously with his voice;
   he does great things that we cannot comprehend.
  For to the snow he says, ‘Fall on the earth…'” Job 37 

My friend Kaye posted on her FB yesterday,

If it was 100 degrees warmer, I would not be sad.

Meaning:if it were only 80 degrees outside.” That’s right! It hit 20-degrees-below-ZERO in parts of Colorado yesterday, which was common when we lived in the perpetually icy Minot, ND and the main reason we do not live there now! Ay-yi-yi!

But, you know, standing at the window with a steaming cup of coffee in my hand, I can look out at the snow sparkling in the sunlight on New Year’s Eve and be quite romantic and idealistic about it. For now, anyway.

A Playlist // {click here}

snowfall playlist

Includes: Lots of standards (like Snow from the movie, White Christmas, and A Winter Romance by Dean Martin, some Bing, some Sarah Vaughan, and even Julie London), a little pop (The First Snowfall, Carpenters), a nod to country (Anne Murray’s Snowbird), some bright-kid-fun-tunes (Pretty Snowflakes by Peggy Lee, Little Snow Girl, too), and a few deeply reflective songs (Lazy Snow and Somewhere it’s Snowing, see lyrics below).

“…when snow covers the earth,
That it hides the worlds scars,
and gives nature new birth…

God’s grace, like the snow, is falling again!”

That final song encapsulates what the snow always really reminds me of, when fresh snow, like grace, covers the faded, dormant landscape. The imperfections are evened out, the brown leaves along fence lines and even the litter in highway ditches get covered in a thick blanket of white purity. And underneath it all, where the eye can’t see, magic is happening. The snowflakes have joined hands to hide the forthcoming, joyous surprise ~ The Creator is fashioning a spring, having sent snow from His storehouses (reserved for times of trouble, stockpiled for when we need it most, see Job 38.22-23). The snow is suspended moisture. It speaks of a future, of a spring-green hope, His word in us, causing growth and fruitfulness again, regardless of how dead or lifeless our fields look today.

“As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55.10-11 NIV

Grace to you, friends and familia on a snow-covered day in Colorado.

Are you warm enough?

 

A Christmas Lullaby Playlist – for the grown-ups

Three days out. And for the joy and the love, for the Savior who came, may we live in the peace He brought, the Peace He is. For He came, Emmanuel – God with us {GOD – actually WITH us!}. Don’t miss the magic, the mystery, the relief of a Savior who came and now abides.

This is for all the little girls, from 1 to 92, or so, for quieting your heart this week. With love.

Spotify playlist, {{click here}}

christmas lullaby playlist

“Come, Emmanuel

Come and reign in us

Come and speak to us, fill and renew us

Come and live through us, Emmanuel”

sig keep christmas

He gave us Himself

The greatest gift of all, a Savior, Jesus!

gifts he gave himself

“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans–and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused–and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.” -Sigrid Undset

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3.16

And isn’t all our gift-giving just a variation on the amazing theme of God’s most amazing gift? If I can just include, somehow, a little of myself – infused with the love in my heart towards the recipients: good gifts! Even on Cyber-Monday, ha!

It’s that time of year again…I cannot help myself!  :)

sig keep christmas

“Christmas Eve” Font: http://bythebutterfly.com << see lots of other great fonts