Category: Advent

Did you get enough?

“What did you get for Christmas?” Christmas tree

When we were kids, that question implied the friend really wanted a turn to brag about their new train or bike or roller skates – always something bigger or better than you received.

But were they really asking, “Did you get enough?” Did you, like he or she, arrive at the end of the day and wonder, “Is that all there is?”

For adults, the question is usually, “How was your Christmas?” The question is too often only as deep as, “How was your vacation?” It’s good manners, and makes better conversation than the weather.

With us, the hidden question may be, “Did you survive the crush of activity, expectations and indulgences?” For others, “Did you have to endure family members you’re glad you won’t see again until next year?” Or simply, “Did things go as you planned? Did you get what you wanted?”

In the end, though, perhaps the deeper question really hasn’t changed. “Is that all there is?”

This Christmas was far from normal for me. With many health and energy challenges, I shopped from bed with my smart phone. Advent candles were all I managed in preparation. My husband brought down the tree and plugged in the lights. I hung the ornament my grandson made in school, and set out the manager scene (weeks behind), placing the important figures around the room, to move towards Christmas.

No lights outside, garlands on the mantel or decorations scattered throughout the house, all of which I love. No smells of Christmas baking, aside from the Tropical Christmas Pudding I had started months before for my British son-in-law. Since I couldn’t count on having the energy for a big Christmas dinner, nothing special was planned for the day.

Christmas Eve we traveled north to enjoy a wonderful dinner with our son and his family, then to a candlelight service with YD and her family. Our time with all of them was sweet.

Christmas Day, my husband and I provided music for an intimate gathering of families for our Spanish congregation, then I picked up my mother from her assisted living home. She didn’t even know it was Christmas.

I spent Christmas caring for Mom, and trying to draw her back to reality. Towards the end of the day, she kept asking where she was going to sleep, obviously longing to stay, so I pulled out a clean toothbrush and soft flannel PJ’s.

As I do with my grandchildren when they visit, when I tucked her in, I put my hand on her forehead and prayed for her.

When I finished the prayer, she smiled radiantly and said, “You’re the best Mommy I have ever had.” Then Mom turned on her side and fell asleep.

Mom tucked in on Christmas
When I walked back to the living room and stared at the baby in the manger, I knew the answer.

As long as I sought gifts of time or stuff, even my own mother’s love — anything in this world to satisfy my need for love — I would always end with, “Is that all there is?”

Now that the Manger Child, God become human, has grown into the Savior of my heart, I know that Christmas isn’t about presents.

Christmas is about presence.

His presence in my life has filled the longing in my heart.

And now I can freely be the hand of love. I can give the gift of my time, energy and attention because I have received love that overflows its boundaries, a love that seeks to give, and give, and give again.

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. Ephesians 5:1 (The Message)

How was your Christmas?

Reflections on Mary’s Song

Last week in Lavish Gift-giving, I shared about the miracle child we received. During Advent that year, awed by what God was doing, I identified with Mary in a new and intimate way.

I wondered how much Mary understood of her child’s future, how much any mother could bear knowing.

pregnant with miracle son
Miracle pregnancy

Urging you to approach the manger this year with an open mind and ready heart, I would like to share the poem I wrote that year.

Reflections on Mary's Song
My poem

Dear reader, and it is for you He came as a baby, to die and set you free.

This season, may God truly bless you, beyond anything you could ask for, or imagine!

What are you seeking?

Lavish gift-giving

manger scene
I had a dream, so real that it felt something like what I imagine Joseph experienced when the angel told him about the baby Mary was carrying. In the dream, God said we would have a son, and we were to name him Jeremiah.

Not long after the dream, I began having serious “female problems.” My gynecologist ordered an ultrasound, which revealed massive ovarian cysts and endometrial tumors. He said there was no way I could get pregnant. So certain the dream was real, I went for a second opinion. That doctor said not only could I not get pregnant, but if, somehow, I should conceive, with the pregnancy hormones the tumors would grow faster than the child, causing his death, or severe deformities. I rushed out of his office in tears, and cried for hours.

Finally I surrendered and scheduled the hysterectomy.

The day before surgery, I went in for routine pre-surgical blood work. The next morning, the nurse called.

“Don’t come to the hospital. You’re not having a hysterectomy. You’re having a baby.”

I was ecstatic, but, recalling the doctor’s warnings, fearful at the same time. At the end of the first month I began to cramp and spot. The doc said I was probably losing the baby, to just go to bed. A crowd from church arrived and prayed. Within two days I was fine, and back on my feet.

At twenty-two weeks I went for my first in-office ultrasound, a brand new gadget at that time.

Instead of all my fears, there was a beautifully formed little boy with ten fingers and ten toes, all a-wiggle, and a four-chambered heart, beating regularly. No cysts! No tumors!

The rest of the pregnancy was normal. When our boy was born, I couldn’t stand to name him after Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. (Silly me, as if a name could change God’s design for him. You’d think after those miracles I would be obedient!)

More than twenty years later, my youngest daughter (YD) and her family decided to adopt, to do their part in saving one child from a life of poverty, neglect and/or abuse. When the call came that a five-week-old boy needed a home in two days, they had to make a quick decision and arrange work schedules. YD was still recovering from hospitalization with a serious kidney infection, and their lives were already stretched to the limit with work schedules and their two children. I admired their hearts, but didn’t think it was the right time.

Nevertheless, when they left for another state to get him, I went to the library and checked out every book I could find on adoption, cross-cultural adoption and bonding issues. I read about the children who refused to allow their adoptive parents to give them the love they yearned for, how they would back into a hug, never trust, never let go of some little rag they had brought with them, rather than receive from the parents trying so hard to give them what they really needed.

While I read, I felt God whispering to my heart.

“This is how you’ve been. All the years of struggle, wondering why you haven’t made progress, or why I haven’t changed your circumstances, you’ve been trying to do it yourself. And the times you have come to me, you’ve only backed into my arms.”

I learned that adoption is expensive, and marveled at their faith to borrow money to pay the fees, facing sacrifice for a year or two to pay it back.

God whispered, “I counted the cost, and paid with the life of my Son, so that I could make you my child. Will you let me love you?”

When I considered the choice my daughter and her family were making, purely out of the love of their hearts, with absolutely nothing to do with what the child would bring, I again felt God speaking.

“That is a small glimpse of my love. I love you because I AM LOVE. You cannot earn it, and you cannot lose it.”

Early in the afternoon, YD called to tell me the birth mother was on her way with the baby. “She only asked for one thing.” I waited. “That we keep his first name.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Jeremiah.”

We had our Jeremiah, after all.

Now certain that God was in this, tears coursed down my checks. My heart swelled with love for the child I’d have to wait several more weeks to meet.

When they came home, as my daughter put him in my arms he began to fuss. “Jeremiah,” I whispered.

He turned and looked in my eyes, drew in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. He snuggled against me with a look that said, “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you?”
Grammi and Jeremiah

Talk about love at first sight!

Jeremiah is three now, with dimples that could charm the spots off a leopard and a smile that lights up a room.

And when I hug him, I am reminded of the God who loves me, just because it’s His nature to love. Who had been trying to love on me for years, and I wouldn’t really let him. Who paid a high price to adopt me into His family, even when I was pushing Him away.

So I light the candles on our Advent wreath and move the statues of Mary and Joseph and the donkey closer to our little manger. The child whose birth we are preparing to celebrate made it possible for his Father to adopt me into his family.

I sigh and snuggle into my Lord, so glad I’ve finally run, arms wide open, into His warm embrace.

Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. Ephesians 1: 4-6 (MSG)

Won’t you come?