Anticipation

Snow is predicted.

If you’re from around these Ohio Valley parts, you already know that it probably isn’t much.  It seems it never is. But, I still let a winter weather advisory stir up an immediate anticipation of possible accumulation.  They say anticipation can be the best part.  I suppose that’s good because anticipation is usually all we get.

I mean, in February, a forecast like that doesn’t surprise me.  But, we get teased so much with spring-tide shenanigans in north-central Kentucky that I’m a hold out until we get a proper winter forecast.  I’ve usually waited for a winter that should have happened in December.  Then.  A winter that should have happened in January.  And, even though we’re known for having all four seasons, including this one, it’s ever so slowly turning into this confused murky-muddled clouded coolness that’s never any winter season at all.

Just the same, my hopes get ramped up with commanding and promising forecasts.  But, February is likely it. The last hopeful chance of a winter for the season. I always anticipate with glee the highest predictable possibility of accumulation.  I desperately hope not to be disheartened by a follow-up forecast that snow isn’t developing at all.  I know ground warmth will likely limit its greatest chance, but it’s February - there’s still a chance.  I know there is a band of pressure that will or won’t come together, but it’s February - there’s still a band. I want snow to hurry and materialize before March hurries to slip in all sly-like.

These are my winter emotions and they get wrapped up in every winter forecast. I get giddy.  I can’t help it. But truth is, nobody seems to know how to predict a forecast. I’m waiting with just as much anticipation for a forecast to be prefaced with, “If the Lord so chooses.”

“To the snow He says, ‘Fall on the earth.’

He loads thick clouds with moisture.

They turn around and around by His guidance.

to accomplish all that He commands them

on the face of this habitable world.”

With so much anticipation,

I’m waiting on the Lord.

Job 37: 5-13

Adore

Do you choose a word for the year?

I am not dismissive of this New Year challenge the way I grew up to be.  I have found that it can re-center my tendency to be all over the place.  Although, I have to have a physical act like deliberately writing it out first thing each morning.

My morning journaling is a natural place for this to begin. 

I also have found it most helpful to attach scripture to my ONE WORD to help frame a position for my heart.

“Yours, O Lord is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty.  Everything in the heavens and on earth is Yours, O Lord, and this is Your kingdom. We adore you as the One who is over all things.”

I have discovered that if you commit such a task to the Lord, He will respond.  He says He does.

I mean, He says to commit everything you do to the Lord.  He also says to trust Him and He’ll help you.“The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.”  So I commit.

If it’s inconceivable to think His eyes search the whole earth to strengthen your heart, it occurred to my husband one day when coming up on a red traffic jam on his GPS that surely if a computer made by man can speak back and forth to millions of phones individually and can know their location, make them aware of upcoming trouble and suggest reroutes - surely, the God of the universe who created humans has a greater global navigating system to find and direct you.

That’s not hard to see.

Truth is, God positions Himself in our lives whether we see it or not. Just because he seems hidden, doesn’t mean he is.

When this seems difficult to comprehend, I like viewing one image from an artist who uses it to form another image with positive and negative space. This purposeful design shifts our perspective. It’s an image often difficult to find, but one that has been there all along.

My own ONE WORD was a challenge to discover this year.  I prayed the Lord would shine light on one.

You know how it’s said that God can open a window when you pray?

I did.

This year it’s adore.

1 Chronicles 29:11

Psalm 37:15

2 Chron 16:9

Christmas Cards

I am so very thankful for Christmas cards.

I haven’t sent any cards out from our own family for years and years.  I hate that I never do this.  I am so thankful to those who send one year after year even when we don’t reciprocate.  I simply love and anticipate each and every one.

As a former teacher, I remember years of making a bulletin board out of my collection by lining each one up side by side in a collage that displayed the creative artistry and message.  Those were days before family postcards.  But, what a beautiful assortment of family photos we’re now collecting, too.

It’s also been fun to cut some of them up in shapes and place each one in their own envelope for individual puzzle games. We race to put together the beautiful message of one friend for peace in our world.  We hurry to put together one family’s tidings of comfort and joy.  Wishes for miracles of Christmas joy comes from another.

For 200 years we have been sending and receiving traditional messages by mail during this holy season with snow covered churches, angels perched atop twinkling Christmas trees, a star illuminating the nativity and Jesus laying in a manger.

What a beautiful tradition.

What often comes through these cards is the light of hope and the sentiments of faith.

In fact, “There is a light of heaven that has broken upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and guide us to the the path of peace”.

Sometimes this light comes in the mailbox.

Luke 1:78-79

Calendar

My mom is keeping record of the number of months Dad has been gone on her calendar.

It’s been 10.  Ten months without seeing Dad.

It’s hard for me to want to recall that every month.

I’ve never gone this long without seeing my dad.  I can’t recall the longest I ever went without seeing him.  He tried to break this dependence early on when I was going off to college.  He told me to stay until Thanksgiving.  That’s only three months and I couldn’t do it.

Only 90 miles away and he’d send sweet Ziggy cards to ease his daughter’s pain.

It was an experience for my greater good.  That’s what discipline is, right?  The training effect of experience in an unfavorable circumstance.

Jesus says, “I’m the One who corrects and disciplines everyone I love.”  That’s what fathers do.

There seems no fun in the midst of all that, but there’s more delight in warmth after being cold. There’s more satisfaction in fullness after the pangs of emptiness.  It’s this joy that comes in the morning after the sufferable mourning.  But, there’s joy in the morning!  That’s all I need to know.

I don’t know how many more months Mom will mark her calendar.   There is no permanent calendar on this side of heaven.  We know there was an appointment on God’s calendar, though.  We’re all immortal until the day, month, and year that He records.

“This world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.”

We can be dependent on that.

Revelation 3:19

Hebrews 13:14

Psalm 30:5