Sarah Dixon Young's Blog: Love Much, page 5

Prayer in the Present Tense

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We drove 2,088 miles to be with my parents for Christmas and 1,662 miles to come back home again from my in-laws’ house. 

Driving from the top of the country to the bottom and back again gives my family the opportunity to see varied landscapes, animals, architecture, and people. 

It also expands my prayer life.

Somewhere in the middle of Kentucky, in the middle of a construction zone, in the middle of the night, there was an accident. There was smoke, fire, sirens, blind...

The Beauty of Advent

It is early morning

Fog rises over Devils Lake just as the sun rises over the horizon. 

The world, snuggling under two blankets- one of snow and one of mist- begins to twinkle in the muffled light. Instead of dispelling the fog, the sunlight shows that the fog has frozen on every branch and fence post, every tree and string of barbed wire. 

Suddenly, even on a misty day, the air fills with light as the ice reflects it, and even naked trees are clothed again with beautiful, white dresse...

The Burden of Advent

Did you get it right this year?

Advent, I mean. Did you do it right?

Did your perfectly clean house smell like gingerbread? Were all of your gifts purchased and wrapped before December began? Have you had angelic family devotions every night where your children gathered around the piano and sang Silent Night perfectly on key?

What is it about Advent that makes us want to do everything perfectly?

Today, my house is a gift packing and car packing disaster that smells like burned noodl...

“Letters from Father Christmas” : A Review for the Advent Season

In 1920, a small boy asked his father a simple question: “What is Father Christmas like and where does he live?” 

In answer, the father began the tradition of writing a newsy letter from Father Christmas to his children, detailing the preparations for the holiday, the past year’s events, and other fun tidbits from the North Pole. 

The letters he wrote span from 1920 to 1943 and give insight into family life, political and economic affairs in England, and the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien,...

The Blindness of Advent

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Fourteen years ago, my grandmother gifted us an ornate advent calendar. It is shaped like a house, and each door is numbered. 

She also sent little ceramic animals that I remember from my own childhood. “Put one in each door,” she wrote in her letter, “and then, each day you can see who is waiting for Jesus to come.”

She also sent M&Ms to sweeten each day of Advent. 

My children- even the ones who did not know my grandmother- still love the Advent house, and they get exc...

The Battle of Advent

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I live on a reservation where I see many battles.

Even while I watch my little boy fight imaginary foes with a wooden sword, I am praying for my brothers and sisters in Christ who are fighting the battles of addiction, grief, loneliness, rejection, generational trauma, and hopelessness.

Those foes rise up with intimidating strength to snuff out goodness, truth, and beauty. One smiling, laughing little girl was transformed to a shadowy figure hovering in a dark doorway, f...

Growing Popcorn

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It takes 100 days for popcorn to grow.

I planted the seeds in May. I watched the stalks grow throughout June and July. By August 25th, the yellow ears were ready to harvest.

My kids helped me take the kernels off about fifty of the cobs, and I couldn’t wait to fry them in some oil and watch them pop into fluffy, white popcorn.

The funny thing is that I don’t even like to eat popcorn, but I love watching it pop!

Imagine my sadness when my first batch of popc...

Word of the Year

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I am a word person, and my word for 2024 was “Rise.”

I had in mind Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, getting up earlier (an unreached goal of mine every year), and overcoming obstacles.

I hadn’t thought of rising dough or the kneading it takes to ensure the rising works right. 

I haven’t had a year of suffering or anything like that, but I have felt the Lord’s gentle fists, kneading me, stretching me, tossing me- just like a man we watched in a pizza shop, working the ...

Today’s Babel

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What havoc the original Babel incident caused!

God confused peoples’ languages, forcing them to disperse, teaching them that uniting behind evil is not uniting at all.

What if it happened again?

But this time, God determined the point at which the world was full of language. The last word would be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

And there would be silence.

Silence reverberating around the world forcing us to cease speaking, typing, blogging, and b...

Pickleball Lessons

When I play pickleball with my son, we both go all out.

Pickleball is America’s fastest growing sport according to USA Pickleball, and it is easy enough to learn that our whole family can play together. It is fun to watch our children play with full effort, and I am thankful that our local pickleball court has padded walls. My teenage son, in particular, would rather hit the wall than miss the ball.

I thought of my son’s fully extended effort this week while I was reading 1 Peter 4:8. “Ab...