So, How Do You Do It All?

        For some reason, and I still haven’t quite figured out why, people often ask me, “So, how do you do it all?”   I always laugh at this question because I really don’t know, but then again I do.  

A progression in my life brought me to where I am today.  I did not grow up learning all the details of domesticity.  In fact, I bulked at anything more than vacuuming or baking up a box of brownie mix.  I used to tell my grandmother that I was most definitely going to have a maid when I got older.  Domesticity taken care of, check.  

When I hit adulthood I knew I could not do life without an all encompassing vision for my life.  Who can wade through hundreds if not thousands of ideologies about how to live without a compass?   So, I latched on to my “true north,” a person, Jesus Christ.  My life’s vision and mission became solidified.  All of Christ for all of life.  

Then entered the love of my life and the other loves of my life.  I became a wife and mother.  Instead of just adjusting to these two new roles in my life, I discovered who I was and what I loved even more so; my life was enhanced.  The things that didn’t really matter so much faded into the background and I pursued what really mattered, what I really loved.  

Waiting By the Window by Carl Hosoe

What I have gained in return for laying my life down for others has been an amazing journey of blessing upon blessing.  Waiting for the better thing has become so sweet to me.  The art of waiting is like reading a story, waiting for the turning point when all comes to light, finally making sense of the mystery.  

I live an amazing, full life that came to me as a gift.  I keep unwrapping what comes my way and finding joy and awe and treasure inside.  I have turned the radio station of the world down to an almost inaudible whisper.  Instead, I have tuned in to where God shows forth His glory and His beauty.  It is a hard fight, but the gains are innumerable.  

So, I don’t do it all.  Instead, I fight to do less well.  Several years ago my husband and I adopted a motto, “less stuff, more people.”  Less time worrying about what will not last in exchange for what will last forever.  Less time doing and running to and fro to things that are not our passions.  More time stopping and reflecting, asking ourselves, what do we need to be doing right now, what do our children need right now, our loved ones?  Is this someone else’s passion or our own?  Letting go of more and slowing down to savor what we believe to be most important to us, and to God.  

So, what does that look like?  It means we often have a family consensus if the television screen gets pulled out from behind our living room furniture. We talk over plans and hear one another out before we put things on the calendar.  We drop what we are doing if a loved one presents a need.  We go slowly with our young ones and with those that are carrying a lot emotionally.  We give grace because we know all too well that we cannot live without it.  We think about who we want to be and what that looks like.  We press in to one another.  We listen to and counsel one another and pray that we can extend our circle of gracious living. 

Summer Fruit by Li Zhou

    We know our plans and priorities will change, even daily, and we roll with it.  I have begun to jot down what was most memorable at the end of each day in my planner.  So instead of focusing on what we didn’t do that day, I end the day with what did happen and I am filled with joy and wonder.  

It is a road less traveled.  It is slower.  The outside voices are very few, but the old and true is all around us.  The conversations are long and deep, the meals are big and boisterous, the mornings are intentional and sacred, the music and songs play all day long, the art is all around us, and the fight is constant.  The dragon is prowling around the castle walls, plotting and disguising himself, hoping to enter, to infiltrate, kill, steal, and destroy. We know we must be vigilant and fight but we are not alone.  We have Another who is leading and guiding, singing His song in the night.

Outside can be ever changing, always moving, full to the brim, but inside we are pressing forward to rest, to peace, to joy.  This is the key - the life inside guides the life outside.  Looking ahead and not down at your feet. Looking in the direction you are headed, not staring at where you stand.  Where you are now is not your final destination.

And so the answer is that we don’t do it all.  No one can.  In fact doing it all will kill you one way or another.  We say “no” to some things in order to say “yes" to others.  We let go to hold on to more, and we leave the rest to a sovereign God.  We choose to live in simple pursuit of something that is not of this world.  And that is how we truly can do it all, all that truly matters.  

Wheat Field with Cypresses by Vincent van Gogh

We know that though we try our best to choose correctly, God’s ways are not our own.  We are His, and when we are truly His, we look to Him for the what and where and why.  And in this looking we rest - we rest content and secure that He is the one who directs our steps and brings about any and all fruitfulness.  This is where the “sweet spot” of life is - not when everything is working out and we are in a groove, but when we rest, in the hands of the One who made us and leads us.

My motto when it comes to “doing stuff” ~ wisely plan, then wait to be led. Hold one’s plans with open hands; this is a way to worship with our time.  It is freedom to be led.  We all follow something, let it be the One who holds all of our days and hours in his loving hands.  

  ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

“You keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

 Trust in the LORD forever,

for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock”

- Isaiah 26:3

A Different Kind of Woman

        Elizabeth Elliot said,“The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.” And so, I am a different kind of woman.  What kind of woman do you ask?  That is somewhat hard to explain. There are some things that I am sure of and others that I am still working out. But one thing has been my heart beat for as long as I can remember, pursuing truth.  

I want to know the whole, ugly, complex, disgusting truth about life, all of it.  Where did life come from, where has it been, and where is it going?  I want truth to speak for itself and I want to know it to its fullest extent.  Why is this so important to me?  Why should I care?  

17th Century Painting of the Queen of Sheba in church in Lalibela, Ethiopia

Truth is the source of freedom.  Every soul longs to be free.  When people embrace lies, they are bound to those lies.  But the real truth, even the hard truth, sets bound people free because they see with new eyes.  The blinders come off and they see the end of where their lies are taking them.  Lies, like all sin, can be pleasurable for a time, but in the end, they lead to death.  But truth brings life.  

Unfortunately, there are “authorities” who tell women like me that “we are not qualified to know the truth,” “that we have been indoctrinated with too much to truly ever know what truth is.”  It’s a really good thing that I don’t care what the “authorities” says about me.  I am not moved.  Truth is truth and cannot ever be anything else.  There is truth and there are lies or there is nothing.  

Reading Woman in Violet Dress by Henri Matisse

I know I have been wrong about many things in my life and I do not know everything there is to know.  I also know that spending a lifetime in pursuit of what is real and good and beautiful is worth it. I may get older and I may slow down;  I may come up against many unforeseen walls, but I do not intend to stop searching for truth.  I know there is treasure underneath all of the sudo truths that the world has piled up and I want to get at it.  

       I am an unsatisfied woman.  I know there must be more. I want to hold it in my hand, to not take petty answers and explanations as final.  I want to push closed doors open and search through long dusty shelves and say, “ah-ha!”  I want to know real, raw truth that exists to be known, truth that is alive and never grows old, making the old young again and the young wise beyond their years.

Psyche Entering the Garden by John William Waterhouse

I may not find all of what I am looking for before I fly to worlds unknown, but I want to blaze a trail that others can see.  I want someone to be there when I drop the trowel and lie down for the last time.  And I want them to pick up my dirty, chipped tools with a glimmer in their eye and begin to dig again, to search for what my heart longed for and then tell a lie-weary world the beautiful, unadulterated truth. 

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”  - Philippians 4:8, NLT

A Sojourner's Walk Through Psalm 23

^{The LORD is my shepherd;  I have a provider, protector, and rescuer.  He is the Redeemer of my soul, my very life.}

^{I shall not want.  Even though I feel want many times a day, I know that my Good Shepherd will not leave my soul in a state of want; He will not abandon His children to “lesser loves.”}

 ^{He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He will stop me when I am veering off into danger and will cause me to rest where I can safely recuperate. In these green lush pastures of soul nourishing truth I taste and see that He is good.  No one else will lead me into places of restoration and safety like my Lord.}

^{He leads me beside still waters.  Water is life and without it I perish - neither can I drink from a fire hose and survive, I would be swept away.   He satisfies my thirst without overwhelming me; He knows exactly what I need.}

 ^{He restores my soul.  A work of restoration is slow, tedious and hard - yet, He patiently restores, remakes and heals over time through many different means, even in one sweet word. He is the great physician.}

^{He leads me in paths of righteousness,  I do not know where to go unless He leads me.  But so often my fearful flesh rebells against the path He has for me.  Oh how wonderful the thought that He has gone before me in His perfect righteous life and His death shattering resurrection!  There is no flaw in Him, but only what is good, right, and eternal. Because I am covered in His righteousness, I have no need to fear.}

^{for his name's sake.  Oh what a jealous lover He is!  He will not share me with another but will bring glory to His name through all of His particular workings in my life. His name will be glorious!} 

 ^{Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,  This is not a “maybe” or an “if” but a “when.”  I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death in my life - over and over again - emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  But He has a plan and a purpose for this walk, for He is leading me to the places he wants me to go.  I do not have to fear for I will never be separated from Him, wether by life or by death.}

^{I will fear no evil,  Because I know my good Shepherd, the Lover of my soul, is walking before me, I do not need to fear.  Nothing will utterly destroy me - I choose to not fear evil for my Shepherd is good.}

^{for you are with me;  He leads, but even better than leading, He remains. He walks with me through every shadow of death. I remember that He has defeated every enemy, even death; they all flee before Him.}

^{your rod and your staff,  He has a rod and staff that protects and guides me.  He uses many things in my life to teach and protect me, but I forget His faithfulness and I fear what He may be doing.  In His good and loving discipline He uses everything to make me into the person He created me to be.}  

^{they comfort me. No other teacher, leader, or provider could ever teach or chide me with the comfort that he gives. No other name, no other love could go that deep.} 

"The Breakfast Table" by John Singer Sargent

 ^{You prepare a table before me  He serves me and knows what I need. He lovingly and thoughtfully prepares a table to eat with me.}

^{in the presence of my enemies;  While I am here on this earth, in this mortal body, my enemies will always be present. My fears, my past, the world’s seductive song, and Satan’s lies call out to me even as I sit down at the very table He has prepared for me.  All of my enemies want to starve my soul to death, but the Lord has prepared all the nourishment my soul needs, even in the face of my enemies.}

^{you anoint my head with oil;  He shows me His abundant love by anointing me and caring for me, in front of all that would destroy me.  I feel the richness of His joy and pleasure over me; I am accepted in Him, I am beloved.}

^{my cup overflows. He fills my meager broken cup of clay again and again until it overflows and runs down.  I cannot contain what He is pouring into my cup, it is other worldly.  Mercy, Love, Grace, Joy, Care, Truth. He gives me the cup, and He fills it to overflowing. I do not know where all that He has poured out will go; it is a beautiful mystery.} 

"Invitation to Take Two Cups of Coffee" by Giuliana

^{Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me  I am followed by all that is good for He is good!  I am surrounded by mercy for He mercifully saved me and keeps me.  It is my story. He surrounds me in His goodness and mercy in the midst of trial and difficulty. He turns my head to see all the good that has followed me to this very day.}

^{all the days of my life,  All of HIs goodness and all of His mercy for all of my life without end. No one can number the days of goodness and mercy that I shall know.  It is the music that follows me and the song that others hear.}

^{and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD  I have a home.  I am not destined to be a sojourner on this earth forever.  Every day, every path, every new page in my story is leading me closer and closer to when I will go to join those that have run their race before me.  He is preparing a place for me even now, my bridegroom waits until the appointed day when I will come home to be with Him.}

^{forever.  The good Shepherd watches and waits to be with me forever without end, age after age, from everlasting to everlasting, for He is the Lord.}  

 ^{Sojourning Until That Day,} 

  ^{Your Fellow Sojourner}

                                                                                                                                                    

We Do Not Walk Alone

     We all experience tiring days and periods of loneliness in our lives.  Many times we feel more like an outsider than an insider, identifying with the sojourner and the outcast.  In lonelier times, I am helped by others who have walked similar roads.  I am especially thankful for writers who express how I feel and can speak right to my soul. 

Recently I sat down to “listen” to Mr. Spurgeon in Morning by Morning, and I found that he explained the reason for the sojourner’s life very well.  So come fellow sojourner, sit with Mr. Spurgeon, and listen as he speaks. 

Profile Portrait of a Woman Reading a Bible Holding a Fan  by Williams Tolliver

“Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers.” Psalm 39:12 

         “Yes, O Lord, with You, but I am not a stranger to You. Your grace has effectually removed all my natural alienation from you.  Now I walk in fellowship with You through this sinful world as a pilgrim in a foreign country.  You are a stranger in Your own world.  Humankind forgets You, dishonors You, sets up new laws and alien customs, and doesn’t know You.  Your dear Son was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. Never was foreigner so strange a bird among the animals of any land as Your beloved Son among His mother’s family.  Its no marvel, then, if I who live the life of Jesus should be unknown and stranger here below. Lord, I would not be a citizen where Jesus was an alien.  His pierced hand has loosened the cords that once bound my soul to earth, and now I find myself a stranger in the land.  

Road to Emmaus by Fritz von Uhde

      My speech seems like an outlandish tongue to these 

Babylonians among whom I dwell - to them my manners are different and my actions are strange… But here is the sweetness of my lot - I am a stranger with You.  You are my co-sufferer, my co-pilgrim.  Oh, what joy to suffer in such blessed society!  My heart burns within me on the way when you speak to me, and though I am a sojourner in a strange land, I am far more blessed than those who sit on thrones.”

 ~ Your Co-Sufferer, Co-Pilgrim, and Fellow Sojourner

         

A Child Saved Me

        We can be going through life, thinking that we know what we are doing, that we’ve got this, and then things just happen.  The unexpected curve balls of life break the delusion that life is all about us and that we are in control of it.  If we lived in ancient times we may have had a different view.  Fate may have been our reason for the why’s and how’s of life, but I doubt that there are some old hags somewhere determining the outcome of our lives today. 

I have been doing life for over 44 years now and I have begun to see a pattern emerge.  Just when I see myself pulling inward, shutting down, becoming bitter and closed - a child enters my life.                                     

Mother and Child by Helen Schjerfbeck

I first encountered the wonder of children when I became a mother.  Working through all that comes with motherhood makes you stronger, more vulnerable, and makes you look beyond yourself.  It pulls you out.  It grows you. You have to get up in the morning because someone else is dependent on you.  You have to plan ahead and think of the future because you know this little person may not make it without you.  Children point you to tomorrow, to what is important.

Teaching children also brings a bigger perspective to life.  You see the learning process up close - hard, long, and magical all at the same time.  You want to solve the problem of helping another person gain knowledge and skills so that they can make them their own.  It energizes you.  When you see the light go on in a student’s eyes and they begin to truly understand what they are learning, it is like being on holy ground.  Walking with a disciple and then seeing them go off on their own is so fulfilling.  You see the past connect to the future and it makes life so much bigger.

But beyond the two roles of mothering and teaching, God keeps sending me children to tell me one message - I see you, I hear you, I love you. Just this week I had three such encounters.           

I received a note that both exhorted and humbled me.  The insight and understanding, the purity of language and the reminders of what really matters touched me and caused me to look up.  How can I give up when this younger person is running out ahead of me, calling me to get up and keep going?  It was like receiving a note from God, through the hands of a child.

As I was gathering my things to head out the door after a church service, a little girl came up to me. A little seven year old looked me in the eye, smiled at me, and told me that she wanted me to know that she saw me.  She told me that she had been looking for me to tell me that she liked the bracelet I wore two weeks ago.  I felt tears well up as I heard God say through the voice of a little child, I am the God that sees you and nothing escapes my gaze. 

Hagar and Ishmeal by Miles Carl

Another time this week I was sitting alone in a room full of people, fighting lonely thoughts, and a smiling young woman came and entered into a genuine conversation with me. She really did want to know how I was.  She sought me out, out of a room full of her own peers.  She befriended me in that moment and I felt the love of God.  

We can learn about faith and love from those younger and less experienced than us.  They have not had the accumulation of hardships that wear on our souls and threaten to steal away our joy, energy, and love.  As older adults we often fight the battle of the mind.  We work to overcome the self preserving lies that lure us into believing that maybe we can control our lives enough to ward off more emotional pain.  Our fight is one of tearing down strongholds that we have helped to build.  We have created towers and bulwarks out of our own fears, resting them on the cracked and rotting foundations of our attempts to control our lives. 

“Unless you turn and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3-4.  This can be one of the most daunting phrases in Scripture.  To let go, walk away from whatever false safety I  had and to look to Christ, to take a simple step of faith and follow Him, can be frightening.  I need children to model this beauty and purity of love, a faith that trusts in Christ alone.  

In a world where truths become lies and children become increasingly more vulnerable, let us look to affirm the inherent God-given worth of a child’s life.  Let us hold their hands and thank them for loving us and being just who God made them to be.  My kids aren’t perfect sinless saints and neither are yours, but they are amazing conduits of God’s mercy and grace.  Let us thank them and love them by continuing to walk by faith, even the faith of a child.

The Happy Family by Ferdinand Waldmuller

        Children need us.  But somehow I believe that we need them more.  May our children live long enough to find that one day, they may need the love of a child to save them too.

 ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

Resisting a Rest

        Our hearts and minds cry out for rest in the busyness of life.  Like my husband recently opined, “I feel like I have not had a break since before Christmas.”  It is that time of year when the hustle and bustle of the fall holidays has ended, the weather turns cold, the out of doors looks stark, and we grope for purpose in the New Year.  We make plans to do and to accomplish, but not many of us plan to rest.

Resting is necessary for life.  Our bodies need rest for good health.  We are given 24 hours in a day and at least 7-8 of them should be sleep.  But what about our minds and emotions?  Science is telling us that Americans are overworked and overstimulated.  We know this personally already - just look at your screen time.  Our brains need downtime just as our bodies need sleep.  But we have been told all of this for a long, long time and we have resisted rest because we have not believed we needed it.

Resting by Victor Gabriel Gilbert

A verse I love and often meditate on is Jeremiah 6:16,”Thus says the Lord:”Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” But they said, ‘we will not walk in it.”  There is so much in that verse, isn’t there?  We wring our hands wondering how we are to live and yet we have been given a promise of “a good way” if we will only “look and ask.”  

God made man and woman to walk in a garden, to work and enjoy it, to rest, and commune with his Creator God.  We fell and now we have pain and sinful minds to fight through.  Our troubled lives drive us to look for peace and rest.  But God did not leave us helpless, He gave us truths and promises that will never fail. We have been given principles that we can trust and live by.

In the beginning, God establishes a Sabbath - a day of rest.  For most Christians, Sunday is the day of rest.  We all long to make that day more sacred, more restful, and we can if we become more intentional.  But we can also use this principle of sabbath rest for more than just Sundays.  I was struck by a Sabbath practice that Charles Spurgeon employed weekly.  He set aside every Wednesday as a Sabbath rest. He did not do any other work on Wednesdays.  He called it his mid-week Sabbath and he did nothing but spend time with his family, walk in the garden, read and study.  Where could we use more Sabbath rest? 

Reapers Resting in a Wheat Field by John Singer Sergent

Jesus often went away by himself to pray and spend time in solitary places away from crowds and those he ministered to on a regular basis.  We are also admonished to “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Matt. 6:6  When we make the time to come away and pray and read and meditate we are following Christ’s example of communing with God the Father.  Christ tells us to come to Him when we are weary and heavy laden and we will find rest for our souls.  This “coming away” takes some believing and trusting and intentionality.  But God’s promises are all yes and amen!  

In the 23rd Psalm we have a beautiful picture of rest as well.  As we rest and trust in the Good Shepherd, we find that we lack nothing.  Nothing.  Tasks and people can wait as we follow where God is leading us, beside still waters, refreshing our souls.  Our work and our relationships will be more productive and blessed as we follow God’s call to rest in Him.  

Doctors and scientists alike are telling us that we need days where we stop and do nothing, that meditation is good for us, and that resting makes us more creative and productive in the long run.  But God showed us that resting is where our strength lies long ago.  And those who follow Christ have access to something even more profound.  We are not called to just rest, but to rest in Someone.  

Christ tells us, “Come to me… and I will give you rest.”  Because Christ has accomplished all that we need for acceptance by God on the cross, we can rest securely in the love of Jesus.  We strive because we do not believe that the cross was enough.  When we come to Jesus and cast all that wearies and burdens us onto Him, we find the rest our souls long for and crave.  This does not happen over night!  We change by degrees.  This changing, this sanctifying, will go on our entire lives; we will continue to grow in learning to trust Christ and rest in Him and His work on our behalf.  

Rest in the Peace of His Hands by Kathe Kollwitz

One way we can combat the unbelief that resting in Christ is not enough to satisfy us, is to look at the promises of God.  What has He promised that He will do?  By reading, thinking on and praying through these promises in Scripture, we find that our faith is built and our unbelief diminishes.  As we learn to trust Christ and His Word, our faith is built and we find that we too are walking in the cool of the day without any fears or inhibitions and we are in sweet restful fellowship with our Lord and Savior.  He loves those He bled and died for and He cannot forget His own.  He is calling us to rest, let us not refuse it. 

“For thus says the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling.” Isaiah 30:15

 ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

Joy Unrestrained

       Christmas.  This word evokes emotions that run all over the map, from anger to giddy anticipation.  Every year the Christmas season seems to sneak up on me, and every year I try to push aside my expectations, both good and bad.  I long to press into what this time of year is all about, to redeem it for me and my family.  

The month of December often brings much stress and strain.  But Christ worshipers, of all people, should have a reason for genuine joy at the celebration of Christ’s birth.  Christmas means Christ’s Mass or Feast Day.   It is the traditional observance of Christ’s birth, His incarnation, God made flesh for all mankind.  Christ is translated Messiah, or King.  The King, the Messiah, the Savior is born, Christ has come.  Not a king who sits on a throne to rule and reign with all of the temptations of earthly gain or ambition.  We have seen far too many of these kings and their endings are never good.  No, this King has not come for Himself, but as a gift for those He came to save.  This is far different than what the retail world is selling!  Have we put on the “impairment goggles” of this world?  Are we seeing Christmas with a skewed vision?  

Christians follow Christ and His life.  Therefore, Christmas is a time where we can give just as Christ gave, and humbly worship unashamed and unrestrained.  A miraculous birth, angels, priceless gifts, stars, and upsetting an empire are a few of the events surrounding Christmas.  We too can be in awe of God breaking in on this crude earth and doing the miraculous.  In fact the angels commanded those shepherds who were caught off their guard, or woken up, not to fear but to have great joy because of good news.  The angels couldn’t help themselves and a little of their glory shone that night - the ultimate flash mob choir, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men!”  

But we are not angels and we have no gold or frankincense.  So, as Christina Rossetti once wondered, what can I give Him, poor as I am?  We can give Him our Joy!  

One of the most touching moments of giving joy away happened in a doctor’s examination room on Christmas Eve.  When Liam was 8 years old he had the unfortunate luck of having to go see his urologist on December 24th.  But to Liam this was one of the most wonderful things that could have ever happened.  He said to me, “Mommy, I want to give something to people on Christmas Eve.  What can I give?” And so, in my haste I grabbed a bag of mini candy canes and we began the treck up to A. I. Dupont Children’s Hospital.  Liam filled his coat pockets with as many candy canes as he could and we walked against the cold wind into the hospital.  Every nurse and receptionist was told “Merry Christmas!  This is for you!”  And at the end of his visit with his surgeon he said, “Merry Christmas, this is for you!”  And do you know what I saw?  I saw an old and distinguished gentleman bend down and look Liam in the eye as he received his mini candy cane with a big smile.  “Thank you, this is the best Christmas present I have ever been given.”  And he hugged him.  Liam didn’t have a lot physically or even intellectually to give, but he had joy.  And he gave it away in the form of a greeting and some cheap candy.  I never forgot that interchange.  One with very little giving to one who had much.  Joy was received and given back in return.  

So let this be a season of joy and joyful giving, not one of expectations unfulfilled.  Joy in God and in His Christ - joy in the little things - joy in longing and awaiting what is to come - joy in hope for change - joy in memories of all that God has done.  As we experience the joys of the season, let us be like C.S. Lewis and be one whose,“mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.”

        Come and be joyful along with me.  Let us fight hard for joy this December, and worship Christ the newborn king in all that we do.  Use the real dishes, go to the Christmas concerts and plays, make the real cocoa with whipped cream, go look at the lights, write cards, make a mess in the kitchen, take spontaneous walks, give plates of cookies away, pour the wine, sing loudly, keep spare candy canes - lots of them, and give more to the glory of God.  Let your kids in on the joy of giving and let it eclipse the expectation of getting. Let us be in unrestrained awe of curses broken, of babies saved, of the ethereal, or dare I say, the magical.  And may every gift of your heart give glory to God in the highest.

Living in the Joy of Christmas,

Your Fellow Sojourner