What You Find When You Peel Back the Tree

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The past two Christmases I've written excitably about the season, feeling inspired and touched by the meaning, the reality of it all.

The past two Christmases are the first two that I've truly known Christ.

This Christmas? There are more unexplained tears and more family-tension. More little problems and more big crises. There is more nagging and more needing-to-go-for-a-walk to get away from it all.

My blog has been quiet, waiting patiently for my return and I begin to think: who is the author - is it me? What is this blog? Who reads it?

The normal writer-doubts fill my head and tell me that I'm not good enough, that I don't write well enough. I hear the lie that I should just return to angst-ridden poetry instead of faith-filled personal writing because that, at least, got me ....

say it. Say it.

Attention. Accolades.

Shiny ornaments on my tree of success.

Oh, but I think about what I've learned in the past 2 years about God's upside-down Kingdom and I re-read what I just wrote.

The angst-ridden poetry may have gotten published widely and a few awards here and there...but the truly fulfilling writing did not come until I started this blog, until I started writing for my church newsletter, writing more intimately in my prayer journal and my regular journal, when I began my gratitude journal.

When I began the dialogue with God I became the writer I wanted to be.

Maybe not the writer that would get me accolades and awards. But the writer I know I was meant to be.

The angsty poetry had its place back then. But I am a new creation and I cannot nor should I discount the transformation within done by God.

So who is the author of this blog?

My dear friend, Michele, says on her blog that "Life's Author is God."

And I want that desperately. I want to surrender so much - all of myself - to God so that He is truly the Author of my everything.

I want God to be the author of this blog and I the mere vehicle.

I look at the metaphorical tree I have set up in front of me. I notice the ornaments are those of ingratitude, complaint, grief, sadness, depression.

I fight all those things on a daily basis, but this season has been especially hard. I read so much inspiration on my favorite blogs and I then play the comparison game. Why can't I do that? Write that? Feel that? Be that?

I don't want to feel this much grief for my mother, six years gone. Why am I feeling it so much more now?

I don't want to get this crabby on a daily morning basis.

I come home after my 40 minute drive and I am ready to go, having put the Armor of God from Ephesians 6 on, prayed in the car, told God I was ready to face the evening. And then to walk through the door to some crisis. It feels like it's every day. It just might be every day.

And in all of it - (I took a weekend break a few weeks back and learned this -) I know to give thanks.

Practice Eucharisteo. Practice giving thanks during the hard times.

So maybe this Christmas, for me, won't have the jolliness past ones have had. It isn't seeped in my mother's apple cider. It doesn't sing with Barbra Streisand's unique rendition of "Jingle Bells." We haven't done a family picture this year and I haven't sent out Christmas cards (how strange) because we've just been trying to survive.

Maybe this Christmas is more about what I learned that weekend I went away to be with God. Maybe it is about giving the hard thanks.

Maybe this Christmas I will peel the leafy evergreen branches back and reveal the bare tree underneath. It isn't about presents for me this year. It's about His Presence.

Not the decorated evergreen tree

but the bare tree that became a cross where Jesus gave His life for me

picture from http://www.dayspring.com/tree_to_cross_3_christmas_ornament/

and through tears (maybe explained, maybe unexplained) and heart-pains I give the hard thanks. I turn my head up and, amidst the frightening teenage choices and the whiny kindergartener and the starting-to-get-moody-tween and the marriage bumps and doctors' shrugs, I give thanks.

I give thanks to You, Lord. I give thanks because You deserve it and so much more. I give thanks because I am thankful that I know how to give thanks. For that is truly what saves me every time, in my deepest and loneliest and scariest times: counting Your gifts. I lived so much of my life feeling lost, Lord. This Christmas, I thank you for leading me, stone by stone, footprint by footprint, year by year, to You. I am choked up when I think about how You have saved me. How You sent Jesus down as a baby born in a dirty, filthy feed trough instead of a regal chamber.  I am amazed at how You, this baby grown into God-Man, have pursued me - me! - all of my life, and still do! How you ask me to sit at Your feet. This girl who looked in the mirror and hated herself. Who saw dirt and filth. You ask me to see what You see, Lord. You are the Savior I always knew I wanted but never could understand until now. And not only do I want you, but I need You, Lord. Jesus, I need You.

It feels odd to be writing so nakedly about myself now - here - at Christmastime when I feel I ought to be writing about Jesus and His birth and the Gospels. I wrote my first year of blogging here about Joseph being a great example of a stepparent and I shared different music videos contemplating the amazing situation Mary found herself in. And an interesting blog entry from December, 2011, about the yoke Jesus asks us to take on and about Christmas expectations.

Is this December, almost-Christmas, blog entry appropriate reading for this season?

I can't answer that right now. Somehow, though, I know God works through my heart and into my fingertips. Somehow, He can write me out of this confusion.

From a bare cross, God folds out my branches until, in Him, I am a beautiful tree, ever-green with glory as I shine with all He will do through me.

I hope to write again before Christmas. I can't promise, but I will try. Until then, may you keep your eyes on Jesus this season.

And does any peeling need to happen in your life? Certainly an interesting notion...

Now, if you'd like, sit back and listen to a beautiful song I just discovered:
"Becoming" by Christine Dente

Blessings be yours...

The Yoke and the Burden

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30

I’ve been thinking about the concept of a yoke. In a literal sense, “the word ‘Yoke’ means a bar of wood, so constructed as to unite two animals (usually oxen), enabling them to work in the fields, drawing loads, pulling instruments used for farming” (Bibleseo.com).  

Figuratively, it can mean slavery (1 Tim 6:1), Servanthood (Lev 26:13 and Jer 27:8-12), Submission, Forced Subjection, Burden, Load, Oppression (Isaiah 9:4), and Bondage to Sin (Lam 1:14).

So Jesus is offering his “yoke” to us in order to learn from him. Is he offering the burden he carries? The oppression and load that our sins put upon him created? That’s what I thought at first. But Jesus wouldn’t give us a burden to carry, much less the sins he’s had to take upon himself in order to save and redeem us. He took that on for us so we would be set free. So it’s not the burden of sin that is his “yoke.” Then what is it?

I think the key to finding out what the yoke is, is in the phrase, “for I am gentle and humble in heart.”  Jesus offers us something and that is himself: gentle and humble in heart. He asks us to take upon those traits. Perhaps his offering is this (paraphrased by me): if you become gentle and humble in heart, you, too, will find peace and rest.

Another verse that baffles me is, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Do you believe what Jesus offers is easy? In some ways, I have found it to be the easiest thing in the world – to follow him, to love each other, to be honorable and genuine, to serve others as Jesus did. I try to do that in my job every day and then come home and do my best to serve my husband and family with love and appreciation and acts of service (sometimes I can improve upon that last one).

Yet in other ways I find this yoke that Jesus says is easy to be extremely hard. It has been hard to let go of my New Agey ways. To get rid of the things that weren’t “of God” and those things which drew me away from his side and path. It has also been hard to love those who “persecute me.” In other words, to love my enemy, to love those who don’t necessarily like me or are good to me…to extend grace, peace and love to them. Boy, has that been a struggle!

And understanding that the Christian walk does not mean a struggle-free walk – that has quite possibly been the most difficult realization. In fact, in some areas, I have found that being a Christian makes situations more complicated and challenging.

But I think back to Jesus saying, with arms outstretched, “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light” and I want to run into those arms and embrace him, surely do I want to take up his yoke. I want to follow him. But then there’s that word: burden. Instinctively I cringe at that word.

We carry a lot of burdens around with us, don’t we? I know, for me, I feel a great weight on my shoulders from my responsibilities of being a good stepmother, a good wife, a good worker, a good daughter, a good friend, and above all that, a good Christ-follower. When days go nicely, those things don’t feel like a burden at all, but one bad phone call or one snarky comment can make all those things tumble down upon me like a rockslide. You bet I feel burdened.

And yet… I feel a whisper…that is the burden I pick up for myself. Jesus does not place those burdens on my shoulders. He asks me to follow him. The expectations I have for myself, the things I try to do by my own strength – that is not exactly listening to Jesus’ commands, is it.  He wishes for me (us) to place my trust and faith in him, to surrender the power I think I have over to him and to let go of control. That doesn’t mean I become a powerless puppets, on the contrary. I have found that when I release my self-made burdens to God, I feel unforgettably lighter and better.

So is his yoke easy and his burden light? I’ve decided that my heavy burden is self and circumstance-made, not placed upon me by the Lord. He asks for me to let go of all that “stuff.”

Faith is trust and belief in that which we cannot see, right?

An easy yoke and a light burden is a difficult yoke and a heavy burden lifted up to God.

Won’t you follow it, too?

It is especially important during this holiday season as we get bogged down with shopping for presents and trying to make every family member from all sides happy. As we try to give the perfect Christmas to our kids and of course we must give a little bit away for the needy, right? Oh, I’m not saying those things aren’t important, but let’s have perspective. Our to-do lists create mountains of paper on our kitchen counter until Christmas Eve, the night of the birth of the babe who came to save us all, where we suddenly want to scream at all the things we have left to do and all the things we don’t think we’ve done enough of. Suddenly we are failures and we deem this holiday a failure.

Please don’t let that be your Christmas. Follow the easy yoke and the light burden that Jesus offers. Release all those stresses to him and open the eyes of your heart – look around you at the smiling children who are just thrilled to receive a tight embrace and a loving word. Look at the beautiful light displays around your neighborhood and marvel at how it illuminates the block. Thank God that we (in southern Wisconsin) haven’t had a huge snowfall yet.

Yes, count your blessings! Go out and get Ann Voskamp’s, “One Thousand Gifts” and start your New Year being more aware of the splendor of God and take up that dare to be more fully awake and alive.

His yoke is easy and his burden is light – if you let it be. If you let go of the trappings of the World and our culture, the trappings of what our society has made Christmas into: focused on gifts, money, the most of this, the most of that.

Mercy to you this Christmas. Peace to you this Christmas.

I invite you to take a breath. Did you do that? Okay, now stand up straight and notice your shoulders. Are they tight and heavy? Go to a window and look upward. Imagine yourself releasing all the world and you-placed burdens until you can envision them as balloons floating up to the sky. Jesus can take them. He can handle it. He wants  to handle it.

A prayer from me:

Dear Father in Heaven,

I release all the rushing around I do this season, all the frantic buying of gifts when I know we don’t have enough money nor do our kids need that many gifts. Lord, I thank you for blessing my family with good health, financial provision, enough food and shelter and love. Please bless our family with your presence and infuse our home with love. Help these kids know they are safe and loved eternally – by you, Jesus, and by us as their parents. Lord, take away the “perfect Christmas” I carry around in my head. There is no perfection that we humans can create and counting on that is asking to be let down. I rely on you, Lord, to provide for us this Christmas and forever. I want to take upon your yoke and learn from you. Oh, I so want to learn from you! I know I need rest in my heart, Lord, and I ask that for everyone in this world as they hustle and bustle around this season. I ask you to bless them with deep breaths and the ability to see the beauty and blessings around them that aren’t bought or man-made. Dear Lord, help us to focus on the “reason for the season” – your son being born – what a delight! What a thing to behold! Let us celebrate that, Lord! Let us celebrate you by shaking our self-made burdens off of us like dander, like a dog shaking the wet out of his fur. Bless all who cry out to you, O Lord, and lift up their burdens and finally, Lord, give them rest.

In your precious name,

Amen.

Enjoy this powerful song, "Rest," by Downhere at the following site:

http://youtu.be/GaxwhhNxBi8

an interesting blog I came across while searching for a "yoke" image:

http://angelaambroise.blogspot.com/2011/02/letting-go-of-my-yoke-fear-of-cancer.html

She even references my favorite author, Ann Voskamp!

Waiting on Waiting: Thoughts on Advent

photo credit: © Adam Gryko - Fotolia.com


I am now a little over a year old, in Christ-terms. Meaning I have been walking with the Lord - all-in - for a little over a year. I still consider myself a baby-Christian, but I have done a lot of growing in the past year. And besides, I know of a Christ who was a baby once.

If there is one thing I know I still have a lot to learn about and lean towards it's the idea of instant gratification. Waiting. Waiting for exciting events, waiting for doomed ones; waiting for answers, waiting for results, waiting for responses, waiting for what my ego tells me I need to know and have.

And do you know what I need to be waiting for? The only thing I need to wait for?

The will of God to be done.

And do you know when a perfect time to do that is?

Advent.

And Advent it is. Now. I don't have to wait to wait. I can start my waiting now. But I'm not waiting for prayers to be answered, events, or responses. I am waiting for the celebration of Jesus' birth. I am waiting to celebrate. And in that waiting I celebrate.

I celebrate all the things that God has given me this past year that I either prayed for and received or prayed for and did not receive. For both are blessings of one sort or another. My ego cannot tell what is best for me, only the One born in the manger knows. Such a tiny creature knows how every twist and turn in my life will turn out. What a thing to behold!

God, thy will be done! I wait for Your working in my life. I wait for You. In this, my second season of Advent, where I am truly beginning to understand what waiting on You means, I wait for You to fill me with Your Holy Spirit so that I may do Your will.

Psalm 130:5-6 calls to me at this moment:

I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,
   and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
   more than watchmen wait for the morning,
   more than watchmen wait for the morning.

More than watchmen wait for the morning, O Lord. I wait for Your Son's birth from here on out and hope for a renewed spirit within me.

And I recall the devotional song we so often sing in church with lyrics by Keith Green:

Create in me a clean heart, oh God
And renew a right spirit within me
Create in me a clean heart, oh God
And renew a right spirit within me

Cast me not away from Thy presence, oh Lord
And take not Thy holy spirit from me
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation
And renew a right spirit within me

Lord, I will wait. I will wait for the answers, promises, questions...
I will wait for when it is Your time and not my own.
I will wait in this waiting season of Advent
and rejoice
as if I have received everything I could ever want
for You give
so lovingly
so overwhelmingly
that I most certainly do receive
everything
and more...


Blessings to you during this season of Advent. Experience the experience of waiting.
And perhaps...
right in the middle...
you will realize that He has been there
all along.


This blog entry was written in correlation with Charity Singleton over at Wide Open Spaces. See the Advent Writing Project here.