Haven

I've been thinking a lot about this upcoming year - what I want to accomplish, who I want to become, and where I want to allocate my time. I know I'm not alone: the new year seems to push a reset button in our souls, though we're often quick to dismiss or trivialize a fresh start.
I've devoted more attention to this goal-setting inclination than in the past, largely because of the Storyline conference I attended this fall. There was a lot of discussion about dreaming BIG for the Kingdom, and then breaking those dreams down into more tangible month-to-month, day-to-day, and moment-to-moment goals.

My list of 2015 goals is still a work in progress. Actually, that makes me sound much more put-together than I am. I have a jumbled mess of priorities, dreams, timelines and minutia in my head that will hopefully morph into a list at some point.

During small group yesterday, my friend Rachel was telling us how her mother prompted her to choose one word as a goal for 2015.
Rachel didn't overtly prompt us to do the same, but I immediately knew what my overarching word for this year will be.

Haven.

Two of my more tangible dreams for this year (buying a house and getting trained as foster parents) have my thought-life already gravitating towards this word. I want to really craft a home, where people (friends, family, foster children, etc) feel safe, warm, loved, cared for, nurtured and valued. And the more I've thought about this word, the more God seems to suggest that in order to make my home a haven, I need to have a haven-heart. I want my soul, my spirit, my personhood to give that same feeling of safety and value.

So while I've started to notice spaces that feel like a haven, I'm also noticing the haven-hearted people in my world. And I'm going to start taking notes, asking for help, praying desperately for the intervention of the Holy Spirit. More often than I would like, I find my soul-ground to be either very desolate or very tumultuous. I'm praying that changes this year.

So while I have yet to hash-out some of the details of my 2015 goals, I know what direction I'm headed ... towards a haven.

My Christmas Babies

December 24, 2010 - I took a pregnancy test that turned out positive
December 23, 2013 - We got the call that Jordan had chosen us as adoptive parents

If you think you are sentitmental about your kids at Christmastime, you have no idea.
I very much believe that God was intentional in timing the news of my coming children - their hearts were gifted to me in the same season that God gifted Jesus to the world.

When I was pregnant with Phoenix, I needed to know that God was orchestrating something larger in my life, and Mary's story rung hope-bells in my heart. I wrote this a couple years ago about the night we found out:

During the Christmas Eve service, I was (understandly) a litte absentminded. The weightiness of my pregnancy hadn't hit, but I knew on some basic level that my whole life has just changed. I was already starting to worry about what this meant for my life, and was desperate for a word from God. And then, during one song, it occurred to me: my Christmas gift was not unlike Mary's. Granted, there were some significant differences - I was married, I wasn't especially saintly or surrenderd in obedience, there was no immaculate conception, and my baby was certainly not divine. But the unplanned, life-altering pregnancies? Mary and I most certainly had that in common.

That night, during that service, I distinctly felt myself a part of God's metanarrative. The story that began with Genesis included me and my unborn child. The character of God, as revealed in scripture, was being disclosed to me, and God's working in the world felt remarkably consistent. I felt an incredible kinship with Mary, and it was strangely comforting to know that the whole unplanned-pregnancy-thing had worked out well for her. Not that it was easy, but she was a part of God's redemptive plan.

When we were waiting for Jericho, I needed a very different word. Instead of being desperately afraid of having a child, my whole personhood ached to welcome another baby to the world. And, as I wrote last year, God used the Christmas season to re-fix my eyes on Christ, and to remind me that God does not withhold the greatest gifts from his children.

I read this (written by William Willimon) in my advent book a couple of weeks ago, and it seems an appropriate expression of how those two pajama-clad babies have wrecked and made my world.

"This is often the way God loves us: with gifts we thought we didn't need, which transform us into people we don't necessarily want to be. With our advanced degrees, armies, government programs, material comforts,  and self-fulfillment techniques, we assume that religion is about giving a little of our power in order to confirm to ourselves that we are indeed as self-sufficient as we claim.

Then this stranger comes to us, blesses us with a gift, and calls us to see ourselves as we are -- empty-handed recipients of a gracious God, who, rather that leave us to our own devices, gave us a baby."

Merry Christmas, friends.

Still Sanctuary

"What if on Christmas Eve people came and sat in the dim pews, and someone stood up and said, "Something happened here while we were all out at the malls, while we were baking cookies and fretting about whether we bought our brother-in-law the right gift: Christ was born. God is here."? We wouldn't need the glorious choruses and the harp and the bell choir and the organ. We wouldn't need the tree strung with lights. We wouldn't have to deny that painful dissonance between the promise and hope of Christmas and a world wracked with sin and evil. ... And no one would have to preach sermons to work up our belief.

All of that would seem gaudy and shallow in comparison to the sanctity of that still sanctuary. And we, hushed and awed by something greater and wiser and kinder than we, would kneel of one accord in the stillness." - Loretta Ross-Gotta 

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I read this passage in my advent book a few days ago, and its been haunting me ever since. For the last few months I've been musing about how to create a magical Christmas season for my children, and all that mental energy afforded some carefully laid plans. Work, miscommunications, circumstances and forgetfulness have already laid waste to several of those well-intentioned plans. I want this time of year to be a treasure for my children - not because of treasures they accumulate, but because of the treasured Christ-child given to them and for them. And because the Incarnation declared with finality that families are a preferred weapon of God in the war for this world, I want our little family to function out of that love and power.

But the advent candles still haven't been lit. We didn't go on the hayride at Santa's Wonderland. St. Nicholas' Feast Day went totally uncelebrated. I still haven't gotten a picture of them in their matching Christmas pajamas. The gingerbread house remains a daunting project. I know we still have a couple weeks, and I still want to prioritize the fun and the traditions and the togetherness and the plans.

But the passage above really right-sized my heart. My expectations shouldn't settle on experiences that I can craft, because Christ was born. God is here. If that old-and-deep magic fills my soul during Advent, it will naturally overflow into the hearts of my children. A heart in awe of holiness brings deeper and fuller joy to that table than a calendar full of activities. 

As always, I'm thankful that God shuts down everything I muster up. May you also be "hushed and awed by something greater and kinder and wiser" in the remaining Advent days.

Thanksgiving

A couple days ago, while I was working to finalize my Christmas shopping list, I turned to Phoenix and asked her, "Hey baby ... are there any new toys that you would like for presents?"
"I just already have toys in my room," she responded.
"I know, Boo, but are there any other toys that you want?"
"No."

What? Is this real life? I had wrongly projected my assumptions about children at Christmas time on to my girl, and then was blown away by her contentedness. I wasn't in town for Halloween, but apparently, at some point during trick-or-treating, she declared she had enough candy in her pumpkin.

Again, and always, she teaches me. Where it is often my impulse to accumulate (books, clothes, things for the kids, make-up, kitchen tools, whatever), she gave me a profound lesson in temperance inspired by gratitude. She has toys to play with, she enjoys them, and is therefore unconcerned with the next thing.

I love that just before the Christmas season begins, we take an intentional day to reflect and be grateful. How appropriate to stop from the barrage of emails, sale ads and gift lists to take stock of our abundance, both material and intangible.

There is a song by Audrey Assad called "I Shall Not Want" that speaks multitudes about gratitude.
Here are some of the lyrics:

From the love of my own comfort

From the fear of having nothing

From a life of worldly passions

Deliver me, O God

From the need to be understood

From the need to be accepted

From the fear of being lonely

Deliver me, O God

Deliver me, O God

And I shall not want, I shall not want

when I taste Your goodness I shall not want

when I taste Your goodness I shall not want

 This is my prayer for myself and for you this holiday season: that we would taste of the goodness of God, and be left wanting for nothing. Not things, not people, not acceptance, not success ... just basking in the fresh mercy and kindness of God. I recognize that the holidays are hard for many people -  missing home, missing family, mourning loss or estrangement. Even in that hardship, which we have a small taste of this year, may God deliver you from anything and everything that clouds the Presence.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.