I have found myself quiet around these parts during Advent.

It’s not holy, really. It’s more about the fact that the work required for a mom at Christmas times increases expontially, the math equation of which would look something like this:

Free Time / (12 dozen cookies + three classroom parties + one ornament exchange +one first grade play + hosting twenty-five for dinner + stacks of Christmas cards + stocking stuffers + teacher gifts + coach gifts + Santa) EQUALS recipe for disaster.

And I don’t want to hate Christmas. I don’t want to be stressed by it, I don’t want to complain about it or stay up too late every darn night. I don’t want to be the mom hustling around the kitchen and ignoring the fact that this moment and this month is about Jesus.

I want to sit in the waiting. I want to look at my Christmas tree and remember every story behind every homemade preschool ornament. I want to eat too many cookies and laugh too loud and hug my friends and family tightly. I want to spend more time–yes more time!–reading the Bible so I can be reminded every day that it’s all about Jesus.

And somehow, in the midst of that, God’s Word brings me back to the magnitude and glory of Jesus’ birth. Because without his birth, we wouldn’t have the cross. Without his birth we wouldn’t have promises like these:

He set us free through the Son and forgave our sins. (Col 1:14)

God made you alive in Christ (Col 2:13)

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1)

Christ is our peace. (Ephesians 2:14)

Without his birth I wouldn’t have access to his peace.

I would hate Christmas without Christ.

Without Christ, Christmas would be a massive list of obligations and to-dos. It would be a little goodwill and a whole lot of greed. It would be transitory peace found in a sugar coma or a pretty light display or a brief moment of entertainment.

But with Christ, it is everything.

and so, I hear in the inner parts of my heart, the place where Christ dwells, these reminders:

That’s enough. I am God. (Psalm 37:1)

The Lord will fight for you. You just keep still. (Exodus 14:14)

So I embrace the stillness even in the hustle. I thank the “I AM” that He is always enough, that he’s fought for me (and WON). And I keep rest, knowing that “to us” God sent his Son.

And that makes all the difference.

O Come, O Come Immanuel. Because you yourself are my peace.

Throughout this post, I’ve used verses from the Common English Bible, a new translation that aims to appeal to a broad variety of readers and cultures. I’ll be giving away a bible this week. Just leave a comment naming one of your favorite verses at Christmas time, and I’ll enter you to win!

Puttin' a little creativity in the Nativity!

There’s so much to say.

I wanted to upload a picture from our recent family  photo session with Kate–because the picture is so precious to me in the way it captures my kid’s personalities, and because Kate has become a dear friend and a young woman who makes me want to scream like a cheerleader at a pep rally, watching her go and be exactly who God’s made her to be. (can you hear those poms shaking?!?)

…But I guess that picture is for my eyes only because it won’t upload.

I wanted to throw a few pictures in from my talk I gave five times over this week…

first in Georgia, then at my home church to both women and high schoolers–but I’m too lazy to get up and find my iphone cord. And the pictures and my words won’t do justice to the joy I’ve felt at getting to share my best/worst Christmas story ever with so many people.

..so I’m working on uploading a video clip at least.

I wanted to tell you about some of my favorite places for gifts this Christmas…

and paint you some pretty word pictures about how cool these companies and these diligent founders are–but there are little people in my home who don’t care where the gifts come from, and who, oh by the way, still have basketball and cheerleading and gymnastics and playdates and homework and posterboard projects that CANNOT be completed without a parent’s help, no matter how many times the teacher tells me they can.

…so I only tell you one: go check out I Won’t Watch. $16 watches. good cause. Bam.

Then I wanted to enlighten you with some great words about something…

some leadership or mothering or a little insight I had with the Lord…but honestly, I’m thinking, like you, about Christmas Cards and Candy Cane Sugar Cookies and Stocking Stuffers and Parties and the Best White Elephant Gift Ever (I can’t wait to tell you what I came up with!)

…so for today, and maybe even for this month, I’ll leave you with a few other posts I’ve written around the web, about hating women and brash leadership. I want to write about my One Word 2011 , like I did gangbusters here and here and here and then died out…but it didn’t die out in my heart. So hopefully I will, but if i do it, (not when, see that little bit of grace I’m trying to give myself?) it will be between bites of homemade cookies and laughter and love among my family, as it should be.

Here’s a writing roundup:

“How Did Jesus Teach” over at Gifted for Leadership: “Ambition isn’t unique to women. Men strive to get ahead just like we do. But within women’s leadership circles, I’m noticing a troubling trend: In our rally cry to gain a place in the pulpit, we may be losing something else—our heart for servanthood.”

“Woman Haters” over at Fullfill, “Why would I, a woman, choose to distance myself from my own gender? Perhaps it’s because I recognize how I’m sometimes like the women I dislike. Maybe it’s because I’m ashamed of women like this and don’t want to be classified as the same. I also know that I’m resentful of women who’ve led in unhealthy ways before me, leaving a path of destruction that has made it hard for me to find my way. But maybe, more than anything, I’ve slowly allowed this crazy worldview of women to creep into my own; I’ve seen that woman equals weakness and I’d rather not be associated with thatthankyouverymuch.”

And with that, Merry Christmas. May your December be filled with bits of wonder, with glimpses of miracles that happen from the inside-out, and with sweet communion with our Father God. See you around these parts as soon as I finish planning a holiday party, ringing in some cheer and spending sweet time with the Lord on just what 2012 will bring.

I wrote this post two years ago and stumbled on it again. It still rings true.

It’s a mystery how it all gets on the bottom shelf.  Behind the week-old leftovers and the month-old orphan hot dog, lurks the most mysterious of fridge-dwelling creatures.

If you hadn’t moved the fridge in yourself, you would swear the last homeowners must have left it there. When did I need hoisen sauce and red curry paste? Why did I buy a gallon-sized jar of roasted red peppers and capers? And what in the name of organic chemistry is living in that Gladware?

This was the state of my refrigerator yesterday. And after twelve years of marriage, my husband and I are beginning to communicate directly about such things:

Husband: “Hey, all the kids are in preschool now and you promised I’d be able to tell. Do you think you can clean the refrigerator?”

Now, for you lovely ladies who are bristling with righteous indignation, let me tell you a little about my husband. He cooks. He cleans. He does laundry. He never ‘babysits’ our kids, he parents them. He has joyfully paid for my graduate school, paid for my childcare while I volunteer, and generally been the husband-of-the-year for the past decade or so. So when he gives it to me straight, I generally try to take it. And he’s right. I’m the designated cleaner-outer of the fridge, cause I’m into disinfecting, and I have a strict rule about expiration dates.

So yesterday I flung open that fridge door and started cleaning out and cleaning up. I sighed deeply though. And I didn’t like it. At that very moment a week before, I was gearing up to head to Atlanta for some speaking engagements. I wondered at that time if I’d really like traveling to speak, if I’d do OK, if I would love speaking to strangers as much as I love teaching at my home church. And *SIGH* it was awesome. Better than I could have expected. So enjoyable, so fun to be with other women. *SIGH* Because I felt like I was doing what God’s really made me to do. *SSSSSIIIIGGGGHHHHHHH* And, strangely enough, cleaning out my refrigerator from disgusting items just doesn’t feel the same. I thought of a devotional I read recently, where the author quoted Brother Lawrence, about doing everything for the glory of God, “I turn my little omelet in the pan for the glory of God.” Oh, one more sigh.

It just doesn’t always feel that way, does it?

So I tried to set my mind to understanding how cleaning my fridge was for the glory of God. I stretched my brain while I scrubbed old meat juice from behind the produce drawers. I thought while I wrinkled my nose at the smell of decaying broccoli. I thought some more as I pried congealed potatoes out of the bottom of a Corningware. Hmmm. Still nowhere near as enjoyable as talking to a bunch of women, seeing them nod along with me, feeling the sense of the Spirit encouraging us along in an almost palpable sense.

And then I remembered some passages from the gospels, where the disciples seem to consistently miss the point with Jesus. When they tried to send children away from him, and he corrected them, bringing the children to himself and blessing them. When they were impatient to know what Jesus’ kingdom would look like, and what big roles he would give them, and who among them would be great. And Jesus replied:

“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but so serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:42-44

I think I want Jesus’ words to make sense immediately. I want to see the results of my service. I want to feel my influence, and see how my fridge cleaning plays out into the lives of my husband or my daughter as she helped me. I want guaranteed results. I want to know that it’s worth the effort.

But that’s not what Jesus promises. That’s not what he requires. So much of my life is about reasoning it through, understanding. In the little book I’m reading now, Looking for God, author Nancy Ortberg says that our modern day mode of operating is to view things with a Hellenistic, or Greek, perspective. We tend to believe that insight promotes change. I know that’s a big ol’ lie. I can think all I want about how I should be different about X,Y, or Z, but most of the time, thinking about changing just isn’t enough. So I still can’t make the fridge cleaning more enjoyable, even if I think about it for a thousand years.

But a Hebrew way of thinking, the way Jesus would have lived and taught, says obedience first, understanding later.

Maybe I’m thinking about it too much. Just obey. Just choose to serve. And let God handle the rest. Do I think that changes my position on the joy of teaching and speaking? Not at all. But in the off days, in the in-between spaces, I will keep cleaning the fridge. And praying that God will help me find his glory, even in mystery meat.

Your turn:
What tasks today are difficult to find the “glory of God” in? Invite God into the task with you, and rest in the knowledge that when we serve others, we please God.

I posted this yesterday for Kate at Richmondmom.com. It’s received such an incredible response that I decided to post it here too, for my out-of-town readers. Thanks Kate for welcoming back to RichmondMom with such a warm reception! (It was because of Tough Mudder that I was in the grocery store yesterday. So it wasn’t ALL crazy to be in that race!)

Bloody Thumbs

This was not a usual morning. I don’t normally go to the grocery store on Monday morning. I don’t normally buy doughnuts and sit in the grocery cafe for a few minutes before preschool drop-off. And I certainly don’t usually notice a man like this.

He sat alone, perched on the edge of his chair, uncomfortable, perhaps. His glasses were grimy and his clothes were dirty. I glance over at him and saw a tentative blink, almost a half-sleep before he opened his eyes slowly again. His eyes looked at no one and no where; perhaps he preferred to stay dazed then to be all the way alive in his reality.

Something about his posture and position as he sat two tables away from me and my preschool son was grippingly sad to my heart. He looked like a lonely and beaten man; perhaps homeless. But more than his dirty clothes or swollen hands, what squeezed my heart was the abject facial expression. The empty gaze. The way he sat and drank his water as if he hoped no one would notice his presence. The way he appeared to want to be invisible.

On my left sat a group of retired men; busy huffing and puffing about a sports score or business deal. Never did any of those ten eyes look toward the man who sat alone. A man quickly sat down at the table next to me. Unwrapped his sandwich intensely and began to pound on his phone. For all I knew, he was playing Angry Birds, but his expression said “busy, preoccupied, don’t talk to me.” He never looked up.

I guess it was the lack-of-usual in that morning that made me notice. That made me sad. That made me wish I could do something for the maybe-homeless man sitting in front of me in the grocery cafe. I guess the lack-of-usual made me pray, too; that God would tell me what to do. That God would give me a specific instruction if He wanted. So I ate my doughnut and got my son a napkin and kept saying, “God, anything? God, anything?” And I sipped my coffee and from two tables away I noticed his thumb.

It was bloody, a little. With some black cracked skin around it. It was raised and swollen and it looked like it probably hurt at one time. It was an old wound that still bled.

My son has a bloody thumb too, the result of eczema and handwashing and the crazy weather patterns of Richmond in the fall.

Go buy him some antibiotic cream. said my head. Or God. Or the mother in me.

That’s crazy. I said back. But I finished my doughnut and got up and went to the pharmacy aisle. The closer I got, the more the I complained.

He’ll think I’m so weird.

He’ll be offended.

He’s probably not homeless, or broken or beaten and certainly doesn’t need a mom giving him cream for his thumb.

But then I had a smaller, stronger voice inside that told me that yes, he did need a mother. And that we all need a mother sometimes, and there is no shame in that.

So I picked up the cream and the liquid bandage I used on Desmond. I paid for it and walked over and I pointed at his thumb and showed him my son’s. I smelled smoke and dirt and I saw that he was missing some teeth. He told me that it was a blister but it wouldn’t heal. I showed him the cream and told him how I used it on Desmond.

And he said, God bless you. 

And I turned away, back to my normal Monday, and thought, He just did.

Current Favorite Song:
“Brokenness Aside” by All Sons and Daughters. Have a listen:

Favorite Quote from the Catalyst conference:
“Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone” (Andy Stanley)…so much more to process but this one is sticking for now…

Favorite Chance Encounter: my college friend Jen Redd (home: Orlando) passing me in the Richmond airport, where I found out that her husband is the new president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington! Go Redds’!!

Favorite Devotional Thought: “Isn’t it true that a irritable, irrational and critical person not only wears himself out but is very draining and tiring to others? When we worry and fret, we are a constant annoyance.” Streams in the Desert (laying down the law!!)

Favorite Verse: ”And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8

Favorite “Get it Girl” cause: Midwives for Haiti. The midwife who delivered my kids started this nonprofit, and I was recently reminded again at how her love and faithfulness is changing the world. Like ‘em on Facebook and check out my story about her here.

Favorite Book I’m Most Excited to Read: Ian Cron’s memoir,
Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me I’ve started it. It’s fantastic. Three Words: Poignant, Hysterical and Eye-Opening.

Favorite TV Show for the Fall: Parenthood. So glad it’s back. This show manages to portray chaos and love frolicking hand in hand. I can relate.

Your Turn: What are some of your current favorites! And don’t be afraid to tell us about something you’ve written on your blog…I’d love to come check it out.