Traditions

We have this tradition right about now.  We’re mere days from Christmas.  And this year,  just like the host of years before, we are preparing our home for this annual family celebration.  More than 50 will be represented.  It’s the extended-family version.  This is a preparatory process that takes weeks not days.  But, we know who’s coming and it brings great joy.

The spirit of this tradition is not burdensome.  It is a delight.  It brings us life as we work to make this home stand up straight.  Inside and outside.  Planning.  Arranging.  Preparing.  All sentimental tasks to welcome in those we so dearly love.

This undertaking helps to remind us of our long-established and inherited ways.   This didn’t start with us. The generations before ours began this time-honored festivity. It’s how traditions work. Somebody before us and then someone before them found it important enough to schedule this moment and extend the invitation. Over the years, calendars came in sync. The generations came.

On this day, the oldest to the youngest will be represented. It’s our gathering that is less about individual people but a treasured occasion that embodies the whole. There is a sameness amid the differences.  There is an ease, a comfort, a familiarity that gladdens familial souls. Sadly, there are those who reigned in this family, yet now long gone, but it is by their legacy that this tradition still stands at all.

I hope you have such an event.  A celebratory occasion.  It’s not too late. Small or big is not the distinction. Nor is what you have or what you have not.

With those you love,

and all that brings,

find reason for hope

in which to cling.

With one or more

let those hearts sing

the tradition to this season.

Behold,

Our coming King.

Luke 2

Daughters

Daughters of mine.

These two are so much alike in myriad ways.

This was Halloween and they did not even plan this ahead of time.

Oh, sisters, sisters.

I look at these two girls and for all that appears alike, I know something so different.

It’s an eleven-week-old difference.  There are delicate inner parts being made in one momma’s womb.  It’s the size difference of a fig. But, in the darkness fingers and toes are separating out.  Tiny fingernails, miniature ears, and organs are maturing until birth.  Hair follicles and nail beds are even forming.  It’s called first trimester and baby is moving fluidly and gracefully.

It’s wonderfully complex.

We’ll watch baby bump on the outside for the next 29 weeks, while evidence of God’s workmanship is being formed in utter seclusion on the inside. It’s in the dark of this womb where baby is being woven together.  Every day of this life is already recorded.  Every moment is already laid out.  Precious thoughts are already innumerable. They can’t even be counted.  They outnumber grains of sand.

It is by a God that both precedes and follows us.

So, in the world we live today,

Can all we do and all we say

By the grace of God,

not lead others astray

and just leave us bold enough to pray,

“Search me O God and know my heart.

Test me and know my thoughts.

Point out something in me that offends You.”

May this lead to a life, that leads another life to another life that is everlasting.

Psalm 139

Death Gives

Fall.

The autumnal season.

Red River Gorge is on display.

Hues of magnificence, tones of brilliance, and shades of splendor.

I marvel at October’s leaf color palette.

I’m sure you do, too.

People from all over come to witness the end of their season.

Some things can be so beautiful when they are dying.

Like leaves.

Visible images are on display from an invisible God.

The season of their glory is all around for us to see.

My own tree-line has each one losing their grip.

A blanket of ground-cover they become before I gather.

They will amend my garden to generate anew.

Some things can be so generous when they are dying.

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

Death gives.

1 Corinthians 15:55

God Loves Me

She curled up on momma’s bed.  She situated herself in the comfort of a pillow, put a journal in her lap with a pencil in hand and while unprovoked, she wrote.

“God loves me.”

I submit that there is no innocence more beautiful.

You can also overhear this preschooler repeat from memory,  “The Father is God.  The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God.  They are not 3 Gods, but one God and we worship God in all of this mystery.”  It was recited to me in such a way that I had to ask her momma for a translation.

I can tell this four-year-old nugget is developmentally learning the difference between real and pretend.  Her halo has yet to be tilted.  Adversity has not advanced her years.  Misfortune has not outnumbered her tippy-taps.  But, day by day the Lord takes care of the innocent. And, this same mysterious God can extend innocence to spread like the light in the sky. It’s not imaginary or fiction to extend this conviction that, four or not, it’s biblically not pretend.

Who is God?

He is the Father.  He is the Son.  He is the Holy Spirit.

How can that be?

It’s a mystery.

What does that mean?

It can be difficult, beyond our understanding, even impossible to comprehend.   

That doesn’t make it pretend.

It’s why we worship, glorify and honor Him.

Until you can say and wholeheartedly believe,

like a child,

God loves me.

2 Samuel 22

Matthew 18:3

Psalm 37:18