Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 321

What He Really Wants You to Remember this Christmas

She hands me this two-inch Christmas tree.

A Christmas tree made of salt-dough, painted and varnished.

She gives it to me right at the beginning, right when we meet.

A story carried back from

Links for 2011-12-22 [del.icio.us]

"We see him come and know him ours"

... with John Rutter and the King's Choir... what is playing here this morning...
What Can We Give to the King?

One family's tradition of shepherds pouches inspires in beautiful ways...
When the Holidays are Hard

Holley Gerth @ The Mom Creative.... true, helpful encouragement.
And Patricia, she is still counting : Advent 2011...

@ Pollywog Creek ... it's her heart after Christ that lights and warms every frame in this photographic essay. Reading the Scriptures aloud with you, Patricia... *God with us*
And in Forbes Magazine?

My. What a wonder to read this article in Forbes...
Ah, the loveliness of this...

In the Bleak Midwinter with the Gloucester Cathedral Choir...

10 Ways To Celebrate Christmas Morning {regardless of what's under the tree}

Ten Things to Do on Christmas Morning

{regardless of what's under the tree}

1. Birthday for Breakfast

To serve Birthday Cake for Breakfast — with ice cream and an arch of balloons and birthday hats and light the candles and sing of wondrous grace! He has come! And for us!

Our tradition is angel food cake for the birthday cake — made with freshly ground wheat — and I think of the wheat that fell to the ground, died for us and the harvest of the many.

And we make breakfast a feast fit for a king. One of our best meals of the year is reserved for Christmas breakfast — recipes we serve only for Christmas Morning Breakfast —- Victorian French Toast with whip cream and fresh fruit and a cranberry raspberry slushy drink and Sausage bake and orange juice and pineapple and we decorate with floating candles and and a nativity scene center piece and our best linens.He's invited us to His table, adopted us, made us one of His own— and we have time to come, to say yes to His invitation!

2. Gather as a Faith Community

To gather in a chapel, in the sanctuary, in the pews as community, to bow low together with the body of Christ and marvel at the mystery of Christ — God with us.

3. Gifts for the Birthday Child

To give gifts to the birthday babe, the King Come —- and these are all gifts to the least of these, because Jesus Himself said, when you give to the least of these, you give to me. So we pick out more gifts from His catalogues. We don't open presents per se — but we open a far deeper joy.

{It may sound, yes, terrifying, to not exchange gifts on Christmas morning, it did to me —- but the utter and unadulterated joy we unwrapped in giving away to those Jesus Himself says He's with, the poor. And we discovered all that He is absolutely true to His word: it is always better to give than to receive, and when you give to them you are giving to Him, it leaves us filled in the realest sense. To read more of our tradition: When Christmas Gets (sorta) Radical )

To do the one thing that is needful — touched the hem of God, murmured adoration and offered up gifts to Him.

4. Serve Him a Meal

A loaf of fresh bread to an elderly neighbor spending his first Christmas alone, a still-in-the-dark cup of coffee and an egg sandwich delivered downtown to a homeless person, ladling bowls in a soup kitchen at lunch time, delivering sticky buns and a hug to the family who buried a child this year, gifting all the neighborhood with cookies and a card rejoicing in Christ come —- serve Christ a meal this Christmas, bread of heaven come down for all the hungry.

5. Invite Someone in Need

It may be a single relative in need of a welcoming hearth, a lonely person from your faith community, a widow from down the road, a grieving friend, a lonely stranger, but to invite someone in need to His party because Christ who came to a world that had no room in the inn now calls all to come and He calls us to His kind of hospitality. We have done this and this is His party and this is who He wants to come — the one who feels as unwanted as He did when He came to us. So we open the door and say come and celebrate with those He came for…

6. Give a Talent Show

Give the only gift we ever can really give, the gift of ourselves, by offering a little Christmas Day Talent Show. A crazy little tap dance — and everyone laughs —- and she joins him —- and everyone howls. What can you give of yourself to offer to Jesus, your family, on Christmas morning? Write a poem? Compose a song? Script a little play?

7. Join all of Creation

We spend hours outdoors on Christmas day, joining all of Creation and the heavenly throng in giving Him praise. We walk through the bush and sing Christmas carols, we go sledding down the back hills, we play in the snow and we laugh. We've decorated trees outside with treats, strings of popcorn and cranberry, suet and peanut butter and, if the conditions are right, it's the one day of the year that we pour maple syrup over snow and eat taffy — we taste and see that the Lord is good!

8. Tell the Story

Over the years, we've told the Christmas story on Christmas morning, recounting each of the Jesse Tree ornaments on the tree, all awonder that since the beginning of time, He's been coming to save us. We've told the Story with cousins and kids getting dressed up and re-enacting it for us. With kids written-performed-directed puppet show, with blankets and spotlight and silhouettes. Old men have been Joseph and toddlers have been Mary and this is the story that we love to tell — to remember the gift who came.

9. Sing the Hallelujah Chorus

Sing it in the woods, on the streets, in a nursing home, a hospital hall, a prison lounge, around the piano with the family, for the next door neighbors, a shut in across town. We join the angels this day and we fill the world with the music of the Messiah here. Find a way, somewhere, to sing because isn't this the day of all days, we need to sing?

10. Follow the Light

And come Christmas night, we follow the light and some years it's outside in the woods, luminaries, candles in jars, lighting a path to a nativity scene and we sing worship in the deepening dark, and some windy years, its filling the house with candles and spending the last hours of Christmas day singing glory, glory, glory, glory to God in the Highest.

Light of lights! All gloom dispelling, Thou didst come to make thy dwelling

Here within our world of sight.

 

Lord, in pity and in power, Thou didst in our darkest hour

Rend the clouds and show thy light.

 

Praise to thee in earth and heaven, Now and evermore be given,

Christ, who art our sun and shield.

 

Lord, for us thy life thou gavest, Those who trust in thee thou savest,

All thy mercy stands revealed.…

~Aquinas

GIFTS FOR SUBSCRIBERS: 1. Click here for the Jesse Tree Advent Celebration. This is private gift only for those, like you who have subscribed and given us the wild grace of friendship — Thank you!
2. Click here for The Trail to the Tree: An Easter Devotional, our personal gift just to subscribers who have chosen to walk with us, such friends.
May you and yours know it again today, the wooing love of Christ….

Links for 2011-12-22 [del.icio.us]Ah, the loveliness of this...
In the Bleak Midwinter with the Gloucester Cathedral Choir...And in Forbes Magazine?
My. What a wonder to read this article in Forbes...And Patricia, she is still counting : Advent 2011...
@ Pollywog Creek ... it's her heart after Christ that lights and warms every frame in this photographic essay. Reading the Scriptures aloud with you, Patricia... *God with us*

Links for 2011-12-21 [del.icio.us]

The Hum of Something Holy

@The High Calling... "Then she looks at me with the same eyes she's always had and they tell me, one day she will be better, and all because of a Baby born in a manger."

when your Christmas stretches you …

A

ll day long, I pray to be a womb for God.

On the way to town in the morning, I whisper it to Father, "Come dwell in me, Lord. Come dwell in me."

When we come home from errands and appointments, to crusty bowls still on the table and the entrails of scarves and mittens and boots flung everywhere, I remember.

And I pray it in earnest, as I pick up, put away, the words coming breathless like a woman made heavy, "A womb, Lord, a womb, a dwelling place for You."

It's when the phone rings at supper hour and I'm caught off guard, that I forget. That a conversation about a family gathering, about what he said and she said and now we've got to do this. That's when my prayer seems to miscarry…

I don't even remember that I have forgotten until afterward.

After dinner and after our nightly advent readings.

When we light the candles on the advent wreath. 

When the figure of Mary who is swollen with the Child lumbers ever closer to her deliverance.

Shalom, she counts the holes of our spiral Advent wreath, the candlelit evenings we have already passed.

"All these nights of waiting…" She methodically counts the remaining carved cups for candles. "And just…1, 2, 3…  four more nights and Mary will be in Bethlehem!"

She's clenches her hands in giddy glee and it's not about waiting for gifts, but waiting for the Child.

She turns and says to me knowingly, her head slightly tilted, her nod and smile so certain, "I know it didn't take her 24 nights to really go to Bethlehem. It's just the way we count the waiting... right, Caleb?"

"Yep." Caleb's rocking chair creaks.

He leans forward to straighten one of the candles. "Did you move Mary a bit closer, Shalom?"

It's when she reaches for the wooden figure of Mary that I remember.

I see the swelling silhouette of Mary there on the back of the donkey and the starkness of it strikes me, what it really means to be a womb.

Mary's distended.

Her skin is pulled taut.

Her belly swells round and her abdomen bulges and she is drawn to the outer rim of herself.

Mary's stretched.

To be a dwelling place of God, a womb for Christ, means to be extended, taken to one's outer edges… stretched.

To be a womb for God means there will be stretchmarks.

This season of Advent may hurt. I may feel weary. These days may not be easy. This is the how God may be growing within me.

I reach out and touch Mary full with Child and I hurt in the knowing: A true Christmas, one that God indwells, will experience pangs and pain.

Kids will cry and siblings will bicker and relationships will grow taut and there will be days where nothing goes right and the season rather dissolves into one sloppy, muddy puddle.

And this Christmas, I'll be stretched thin and I will feel myself asked to love to the furthest edges of myself, asked to extend grace to the outermost reaches — because how else can I grow full and large and round with God?

To be a womb for Christ, I'll feel my inner walls, my boundaries, stretch.
Stretching the shape of a soul hurts.

Shalom waits long before she blows out the candles on one more peaceful night of our advent waiting.

I linger with her in the flickering light. I pray.

I pray for those pregnant with Christ this Christmas.
For those who will extend themselves for difficult family members, those who will let God take them to the utmost extremity of selflessness.
For women who will be heavy with the Grace-Child.

I pray for the stretching — when I'm in the midst of six chaffing kids and I feel utterly discouraged and the season seems to be dissolving into one soppy, muddy puddle — that I will give way and let God enlarge me.

I pray for the willingness to return a phone call and try again — to let go of the stiff sides of my heart that God might stir within.

I pray for the soul stretchmarks.

Shalom leans over the figurine of Mary and blows out the candles.

We sit a moment longer, her and I.

Her and I here —

expecting Christ in all this dark…

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F

riend, if this season is stretching you, this Christmas, a bit painful in some ways, and you need prayer at all? Join us here with a note — We'd love to gather round you today in prayer…

Every Wednesday, we Walk with Him, posting a spiritual practice that draws us nearer to His heart.

To read the entire series of spiritual practices

Next Week and the following two weeks: The Practice of New Habits How do we begin again every day? How do we make a fresh start every day and begin anew? We look forward to your thoughts, stories, ideas….

Today, if you'd like to share with community The Practice of Preparing and Advent … just quietly slip in the direct URL to your exact post….. If you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other by sharing the community's graphic within your post.

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GIFTS FOR SUBSCRIBERS: 1. Click here for the Jesse Tree Advent Celebration. This is private gift only for those, like you who have subscribed and given us the wild grace of friendship — Thank you!
2. Click here for The Trail to the Tree: An Easter Devotional, our personal gift just to subscribers who have chosen to walk with us, such friends.
May you and yours know it again today, the wooing love of Christ….

Links for 2011-12-21 [del.icio.us]Ah, the loveliness of this...
In the Bleak Midwinter with the Gloucester Cathedral Choir...And in Forbes Magazine?
My. What a wonder to read this article in Forbes...And Patricia, she is still counting : Advent 2011...
@ Pollywog Creek ... it's her heart after Christ that lights and warms every frame in this photographic essay. Reading the Scriptures aloud with you, Patricia... *God with us*

Links for 2011-12-20 [del.icio.us]

how turning comments off saved me

@Scribing the Journey... "....somehow, in the grand mess of it all we start to accept ourselves only as we perceive others accept us."
Beautiful Place Cards and Gift Tags For You

@ Geninne's Art Blog... an exquisite, artistic download to print to make any gift, table look elegant and welcoming (not to mention that I...um... like birds and nests ~smile~)
Extending the gifts ... the joy!

@Christianbook just tweeted: "Extended through until this Friday, save 53% off the book, One Thousand Gifts -- $7.99"

A jacketed hardcover at the cost of a couple of lattes? Maybe it helps someone extend the hope of real joy to just one person this week?

Why You Need to Go Look at the Stars Tonight {and become One of the Wise Men}

It's after midnight.

And he's driving down the middle of an empty country road when he just flicks the headlights right off and the black isn't black after all.

"Look at it!" I whisper it out the passenger window. The bowl of milky moon's spilling over snow sleeping fields. "You could drive the whole way home without the lights on."

"That moon sure is bright… " The Farmer's leaning over the steering wheel. The moon's reflecting the sun and the Christmas white countryside's reflecting the moon and we're all faces shining tonight nearing the solstice, the whole world looking up.

It's Advent. Isn't this what wise men do?

Two thousand years ago, far in the east, magi were like this, craning necks back to touch the black.

To read star Braille in the dark.

Members of the ruling body of the Megistanes, they were robed sages with absolute powers in the selection of the king for the eastern empire. The wise men were king-makers. King-Makers feeling along the stars for a sign, knowledge revealed.

We're just farmers heading back towards the hearth.

But these waiting nights of advent, we too press our ears up to the heavens to catch a word of this speech pouring forth, press our faces into the night, looking for knowledge of Who is I AM, of who I am.

Isn't the whole planet out, looking up for a King?

Up is deep, a sky of endless emptiness, endlessly full.

Sun-stars so far away, they're small.

That make me feel my own smallness.

The cosmic dome blinks and sparks and spins with the heavenly host.

Eight thousand light years into that celestial ocean, the whirl of a stellar wind forms the waving threads of the Hourglass Nebula with the peering eye in the center.

I can't see it but the Sombrero Galaxy's blinding white, its bulbous centre spinning like an explosive broad-rimmed hat, whipping up a spiraling dust ring 28 million light years from these December fields.

A mere 7,000 light years away, the filmy wings of the 90 trillion kilometers high Eagle Nebula, bears newborn stars in its explosive nursery.  I wonder if I should clap for this speech thundering down?

I can't.

I am bereft of words, movement. Awed still.

Night air snaps cold and heaven pushes close, blanketing, and I think I can almost touch them, all these stars.

Aren't there only a few thousand I can see with the naked eye?

And then all the deeper ones in the galaxies farther in.

Seventy thousand million, million, million in the known universe, so the current wise men say.

Who also say that "that is 10 times as many stars as the grains of sand on all the world's shores and deserts."

We're out here looking up in this season of waiting for a king. I read along the stellar dots raised in the night:

"He breathed the word, and all the stars were born" (Ps.33:6 NLT).

Our God breathes stars.

Is that the wisp of His breath rising in the Eagle Nebula?

Sitting here beside The Farmer, my swine herder, I think of sheep herders who saw God breathe a Star of Wonder over a Bethlehem sky.

That night, like this, the heavens declared the glory of God, pouring forth speech: "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased" (Lk. 2:14).

Did the angels' wings rise over the shepherd's fields like the Eagle Nebula's rises high over ours?

We're driving home on an advent night, looking up, hearing, seeing, nearly touching the glory of God, but it all begs the question: who are we that He is mindful of us?

I look up at starry host and marvel at omnipotent I AM… but who are we?

Voyageur 1, the spacship, snapped the picture of who we are, on Valentine's Day, 1990, from 4 billion miles away, as the spacecraft turned around for one final glance back at its home before it drifted forever out of our solar system.

The photograph initially seemed inconsequential.

But men leaned in, read the sky painstakingly — and there we are.

That's who we are: the entire planet an infinitesimal 0.12 pixel in the photographed scheme of space.

It almost looks like nothing, this globe with its craning wise men.

Pale Blue dot of Earth in shaft of sun light, taken 4 billion miles away

So we float, captured quite serendipitously in a scattered light ray from the sun, suspended in the lonely black of space.

We're just driving home on a cold, Canadian night.

And the whole of the world sleeps, and works, and schemes and worships, and is, a pinpoint.

If the heavens declare the glory of God… what does this picture of the pale blue dot declare of earth?

Eminent astronomer Carl Sagan, deeply moved by the photograph of us in the universe, said,

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.

In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."



~Carl Sagan

Really? "No hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves"?

This century's supposed wise man — he didn't look high enough.

God didn't bother with a mere "hint."

He rang it across the heavens, broadcast it from the astral apex, shattered the skies with the tidings.

True wise men look up and know whence this pale blue dot's help comes from: Our help comes — wildly — from the very Maker of these staggering heavens and minute earth.

He who breathes stars, breathed Bethlehem Star, then took on lungs, breathed in heavy stable air.

The cosmos sings. We are not alone.

We rightly know who we are, a "lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark" — but we know Who He is: on those living in land of the shadow of death, a great Light has dawned (Isa 9:2).

Incomprehensible One who cradles galaxies in the palm of His hand, whom highest heavens cannot contain, curls his newborn fist in a barn feed trough on orbiting earth — and we're saved from ourselves.

God with us.… God whirling with us here on this singular, pale blue dot.

Emmanuel… God with us.

We are not alone.

Who cannot bow low before Cosmic King, God come down?

Love come down…

We turn at our sideroad, drive up through the woods, still looking up. Following the way of the wise men — eyes looking up.

The snow's lying still, bright.

The moon hangs, an ornament, in all these trees that have thrown off their coats in joy of the season — the joy of His coming.

And all the world tonight —

It glows this wonder in the dark.:::

"Celestial Word, proceeding from

The Eternal Father's Breast

And in the wend of ages come

To aid a world distressed."

~Short Breviary

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edited archive

Related:

Louie Giglio's How Great Thou Art @YouTube and Part 2

GIFTS FOR SUBSCRIBERS: 1. Click here for the Jesse Tree Advent Celebration. This is private gift only for those, like you who have subscribed and given us the wild grace of friendship — Thank you!
2. Click here for The Trail to the Tree: An Easter Devotional, our personal gift just to subscribers who have chosen to walk with us, such friends.
May you and yours know it again today, the wooing love of Christ….

Links for 2011-12-20 [del.icio.us]Ah, the loveliness of this...
In the Bleak Midwinter with the Gloucester Cathedral Choir...And in Forbes Magazine?
My. What a wonder to read this article in Forbes...And Patricia, she is still counting : Advent 2011...
@ Pollywog Creek ... it's her heart after Christ that lights and warms every frame in this photographic essay. Reading the Scriptures aloud with you, Patricia... *God with us*

Links for 2011-12-19 [del.icio.us]

When It Comes To Marriage, Many More Say 'I Don't'

@ NPR.... "Half a century ago, nearly 60 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds were married. Today, it's just 20 percent. But the Pew report finds fewer married people across all age groups."
The Christmas Story told by Children

@YouTube ... Shalom keeps watching this over and over again, smiling...
A Plan for this week...

@ - Shauna Niequist "Present over perfect. Quality over quantity.
Relationship over rushing. People over pressure. Meaning over mania... You've been entrusted with one life, made up of days and hours and minutes. You are spending them according to your values, whether you admit it or not. Let's be courageous in these days. Let's choose love and rest and grace."
The Relevant ’12 Speakers Announced

@ The Relevant Conference ...

3 Gifts You Really Need to Open Right Now: Love Comes Down {video}

Come to the manger… and find the Cross in Christmas.

Will you open your present early this year? Our gift to you…

Scroll to double bar PAUSE symbol, located above the date, and pause the background music. Then, click PLAY button on the video & begin to open your gifts! If you can't view the video, click here… Share video with friends

Come.

Come to the manger and there it is, in perfect script: "To you, my Beloved. Forever Yours, God."

Yes, hard as it is to comprehend, it is meant for you. Go ahead— open the three gifts you really need to open right now….

1. The Gift of Everything You Need

"Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?" (Ro 8:32 NLT)

The impossible has already been done.

It's there in the manger. He's given the impossible. He's given the gift of His Son, Jesus, to makes us right with the very God of the Universe. 

If God's already given the impossible, then everything else we need is not only possible. It's His promise.

This is the thing, the gift we can't comprehend:

He's giving us everything we need. Who could need more?

Go on. There's more.

 

2. The Gift of Rest

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Mt 11:28 NIV)

Rest. Oh, how did He know? Chin trembles. How did He know how weary you were, how hard you have tried, but how much further you have to go? Just focus on the manger.

When our eyes are on Christ, real rest is ours. The rest really fades away.

It's okay. Go ahead and laugh at the perfect wonder of His gifts!

There's more.

3. The Gift of Peace

"I'm leaving you well and whole. That's my parting gift to you. Peace." (Jn 14:27 MSG)

The final, extravagant gift. That's what He's giving you in the manger: Once broken, now whole. Once terminal, now cured. Once anxiety-wracked, now limitless, shoreless peace.

Peace isn't a place to work towards, but a Person to walk with.

There's always more peace in the Person of Christ. Whatever's ahead of you — Just keep keeping company with the Person of Peace.

These may be the darkest weeks of the year. But there it is –  a  shaft of light over the manger, shattering the black, flooding the cold, shadowed places with the warmth of Light—the Light of the World.

"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." (Isa. 9:2)

See? You really did need to open your presents early! Now you can throw you head back and laugh in wonder — you have reason to celebrate.

Celebrate a Christmas that cannot be bought, or created, or made by hand.

A Christmas that isn't a product to wrap — but a Person to unwrap.

A Christmas that can only be found —

in the creche…  in the cradling trough…  in the mire and the stench and the unexpected and the unlikely.

Only in the person of Christ.

The mystery so large becomes the babe so small — and infinite God becomes infant.

Christ, the babe, comes in Christmas as Christ the Savior comes on the cross —

Seeking only our embrace.

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Special thanks to Tammi for this video braiding her photography, with words from here, with music by Mark Shultz.

Encouragement for Your Christmas Week:

How to Make Your Christmas Weightless & Without Burden

How in the World to Get Ready for Christmas

When it's hard to Believe in Miracles this Christmas

When Christmas Meets (sorta) Radical

Free Christmas Book: Click here to receive Ann's gift of a Free Book of Christmas Jesse Tree Devotionals

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Free Printables : 3 Ways to Find Joy this week

1. A Year of Graces {A Free 12 Month Gratitude Calendar} Click to print here

 

2. Count all His Gifts Wherever You Are: {One Thousand Gifts Free App}:

Click here for the free #1000gifts app : The gift of joy for a friend? Print this card about the free app for a friend

3. 1 Paper = 1 Week of Joy

Tuck 1 sheet of paper in a pocket & jot down 7 gifts for 7 days:

(perfect booklet to cultivate the habit of the joy hunt for kids)

(folding instructions for booklet here)

 

Will you join us? And happily change everything by keeping your own crazy list of One Thousand Gifts?

Please, jump in, make your life about giving thanks to God! — Just add the direct URL to your specific 1000 gift list post… and if you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other in our refrain of thanks by sharing the community's graphic within your post.

Give thanks to the Lord! His Love Endures Forever!

GIFTS FOR SUBSCRIBERS: 1. Click here for the Jesse Tree Advent Celebration. This is private gift only for those, like you who have subscribed and given us the wild grace of friendship — Thank you!
2. Click here for The Trail to the Tree: An Easter Devotional, our personal gift just to subscribers who have chosen to walk with us, such friends.
May you and yours know it again today, the wooing love of Christ….

Links for 2011-12-19 [del.icio.us]Ah, the loveliness of this...
In the Bleak Midwinter with the Gloucester Cathedral Choir...And in Forbes Magazine?
My. What a wonder to read this article in Forbes...And Patricia, she is still counting : Advent 2011...
@ Pollywog Creek ... it's her heart after Christ that lights and warms every frame in this photographic essay. Reading the Scriptures aloud with you, Patricia... *God with us*

Links for 2011-12-17 [del.icio.us]

psst --- 53% off just for the wkend?

@ Christian Book Distributors... $7.99 for One Thousand Gifts (hardcover!) Worth gulping hard and whispering this, if it helps just one person :) ? Carry on, amazing folks!
Weekend Fun: Pretty Paper Snowflakes 101

if it's a green Christmas... make snow! A little hanging mobile? All that's required: paper, scissors and smiles!