Love, Family, and an On-time Christmas Wish

 

The day after Christmas still holds a little magic of the season for me. I try to let it linger and speak. Days leading up to Christmas Eve and Christmas day are always busy, but the unique quiet of the 26th holds a peace that we are not yet so far removed that we can't just be HERE to soak it in for a few moments longer. Last week, my oldest daughter was telling me how she shared Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors" with her little boy and how much he enjoyed the story. She wanted him to tell me how much it impacted him from his four-year-old perspective. He proceeded to explain how Dolly's mother was given a box of rags and she made a coat from it for her little girl because she didn't have one. My daughter asked him in his re-telling to me, "Don't you just LOVE Dolly?" He paused. As serious as he could be, "But she's not family. She's  a stranger." I was stunned. My four-year-old grandson was onto something. This season, I have been teaching him John 3:16. He has not questioned God's love one single time, and every morning he is here with me we pray together, "Thank you for loving us, Jesus. We love YOU, Jesus." My sweet little guy here knows Jesus is not a stranger. He came, so that every single one of us would have someone to belong TO... to be known, to be LOVED. We are His. We have a place. We have a FAMILY. His love, in ways we have no idea in a glass-darkly kind of way, has done it ALL, and someday we will REALLY know everything that that means. For now, I linger and let the truth that I do know sink down into my soul-bones... in a quiet house with second-day Christmas brunch, Starbucks Christmas blend in my cup, by candlelight and firelight... and with that I will still say (on the 26th) Merry Christmas. It's not a Christmas wish that is late to me, rather right on time. ❤️

Always grace,

Shanda

Run to Joy

These days, I'm really trying to seek, pray, LISTEN, surrender, and follow... in my broken-best, of course. 🙏 I started sharing a couple of humble Advent posts this season and I've been writing off and on about "joy" for over a week, which has turned into a "gloves off" post about tragic death that doesn't really seem all that joyful or all that Christmas-y. Even if we are still in the thick of it (yes, you still can be in the thick of traumatic grief decades later), I think what I have written isn't for right now. Our grief is so much deeper and so much more complicated. A fatal December car accident was the catalyst for a sea of things to follow, and different kinds of deep loss continue to find us. It's the truth. BUT... this is also the truth. JOY and SORROW can be held at the same time. It's life. It's both. 🙏 So for today, I am sharing some of the joy that permeates my mostly ordinary days. ❤️😊 I am enjoying the slow intentionality of listening to childhood records with my grandson and playing games with him that we've had since our own kids were his kind of young. This week, I am also teaching him about the ragamuffin shepherds that were dumbstruck by an angel-filled sky that looked more breathtaking than literally anything ever seen by human eyes. Those grubby old shepherds were also surrounded by singing that would blow away anything the engineers at Bose could ever come up with . It was a sound that only Heaven and those lucky old shepherds have ever heard. Their response? Drop it all. RUN. Recklessly run and get to that smelly stable as fast as possible. Who would even believe what the angels told them they would find? They would, because it's not every day that your eyes and ears have been blasted and disrupted by an other-worldy message directly from God. They didn't have time to doubt, be anxious, feel insecure, or debate about what had just happened. They ran, and under that spectacular star in the home prepared for livestock to reside, they found a brand-spanking-new baby king and they fell to their faces and worshiped with all their hearts. There is no greater JOY than that and they ran right to it and right into it, and they would never be the same. Us, either. ❤️

Always grace,

Shanda

Peace, Motorcycles, and No Vacancy

Have you ever planned a trip or vacation without securing your lodging? Aside from planning where, how, and when you would be going, I think reserving the place you would lay your head at night might rank right up there with the most important things to secure for your journey. Making all of your preparations ahead of time gives you a sense of security and peace that your basic needs will be cared for while you are away from home. 

Several years ago, IronMan and I took my grandparents on a cross-country road trip to visit my parents who were living in Colorado at the time. On the way home from Colorado to Indiana, we planned a different route home so we could stop for quick visits to Mt. Rushmore, the famous Wall Drug 😉, and the Badlands. If you can believe it, the internet wasn't a thing at the time, so there was no quick or easy way to get a hotel reservation. We weren't certain where we would be stopping, anyway, because we wanted to get as far as we could so the final travel day home was as short as possible. While we were experiencing a blissful vacation for our first time ever visiting beautiful Colorado, we apparently didn't stay connected to the news on TV or in the papers. Had we, we would have avoided South Dakota and gone home via the usual Nebraska-Iowa-Illinois trek, but... we... did... not. Our first major clue was when we stopped at Mt. Rushmore. There were no parking spaces to be had. Occupying the parking spaces? Motorcycles. Slightly perplexed after seeing the presidents, we headed towards Wall Drug. I can still see some of the charming little towns along the way, and all of the motorcycles. Motorcycle after motorcycle, on the roads, at restaurants, gas stations, and shops. There were multiple motorcycles crammed in single parking spots leaving no parking spaces for cars for miles and miles and miles. Motorcycles here, motorcyles there, motorcycles 

E V E R Y W H E R E.  I was in my early 20's at the time and the event, Sturgis Bike Week, meant nothing to me the day prior, but on this day, I knew I would never forget it for the rest of my life. I'll bet you know where this is heading. We began to get a little bit concerned at the time, too. After the stunning sunset drive through the Badlands, we had been traveling for several hours. IronMan, who did all of the driving, was getting tired, my grandparents were getting tired, and it was time for us to stop for the night. Remember, this was before internet aaaand also before cell phones! Almost all hotels used "no vacancy" lights on their signs back in the day. We stopped at every single hotel where the "no" part of "no vacancy" wasn't lit, and we stopped at every single hotel that didn't have a sign. You wouldn't believe how many places had broken signs or hotel attendants forgot to light the "no" in "no vacancy." There were no rooms available for miles and miles, city after city, hour after hour, prayer after prayer. We discussed pulling over at a rest area to sleep, but decided to try to keep going. Stop after stop. No vacancy. Weary, exhausted, and stressed, we tried one more place. We spotted a motel that was hiding behind another bigger hotel that was closer to the road. Miraculously, there was one room left. The attendant remarked that we'd found the last room available in the entire city, but I am convinced it was the last room left in three states. We found a lone parking space between the motorcycles, left everything in the car and the four of us dragged our exhausted bodies into the room and collapsed into the two double beds. 

As we think about PEACE during this Advent week before Christmas, I can assure you, once we knew the battle was on to find a place to sleep, there was nothing but stress, not peace. The unknown takes a toll, and discouragement adds to the weary exhaustion. Joseph and Mary were on the journey of ALL OF OUR LIFETIMES. I'm sure they were as prepped as they possibly could be for their trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, but lodging was not something they could secure ahead of time, either. I suspect it's possible, through personal experience, that Mary knew somewhere mid-journey that the birth of Jesus would be sooner than later. It's impossible to know if she felt anxiety or stress, but I have a hunch she did. She was a human being, after all! I've really been thinking about this over the past few days. When you are prepared ahead of time, you can relax a little and you have confidence in the fact that you've SECURED the basics. This is great if you are in a circumstance that you can control, but how much control do we really and truly have even when we think we do? I think control is a bit of an illusion at times. As Joseph and Mary plodded along, did Mary wonder where they would stay or she would give birth? When they arrived, did some panic set in as Joseph went from door to door to find a space for his mother-to-be bride? "No vacancy" didn't blink on neon signs but it had to flash across their hearts. They were as prepared as they could have been in their circumstances, but they had no control that all of the inns were full. As questions, worry, and stress attempted to creep in, Joseph and Mary TRUSTED. It wasn't their preparation that gave them peace, it was their TRUST IN GOD that everything was covered even if it didn't seem like it was. Everything leading up to this point had to feel almost surreal, but they were also in miracle territory. And lo and behold, likely concerned and about to give up, faithful Joseph knocked on one last door (possibly hidden behind a bigger inn that was closer to the dusty road 😉) and something unexpected was offered, a stable. Joseph and Mary slipped right in between the motorcycles... err... I mean sheep, and ended up in the exact place that GOD HIMSELF HAD PREPARED ahead of time for them. Salvation for the whole world arrived in the most unlikely place as the tiny king was born that night... and those touched by His love will never, ever forget. 

Always grace,

Shanda