Advent Day 12 - A Candle in the Darkness - Isaiah 9:2,6-7

Today has been one of those days. ..

Where world closes in and shrinks to size of tiny rooms lived in. 
Where Littles lie, push, shriek, cry, whine, disobey and say "Mama?" a billion times.
Where Lil' Peach is fed entree after entree and nothing satisfies and the tantrum continues until I fantasize throwing food in her face and growling like a not-so-cartoonish beast "...then go ahead and STAAAAARVE!"
Where pain is physical, mental, emotional and spiritual - all rolled into one giant snowball gaining soul-momentum...blowing everything in its way out of proportion, leaving chaos, destruction and heart-break in its unforgiving wake. 

Today was a land of deep darkness.

And the thing about these days? Everyone has them, and they can come out of nowhere. One minute you're blissfully happy in your perfect life with your healthy family and cozy home anticipating all the joy and celebration of the season... and next you're wondering how you got there and can you ever escape?

I've always loved a quote by Helen Keller: "Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow." But what do you do when the fog is thick and soupy and heavy, hiding any trace of light?

Just because you cannot see the sun, does not mean it is not there. 

Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his servant? If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord, and rely on your God.  Isaiah 50:10 (NLT) emphasis mine

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  John 8:12 (ESV) emphasis mine

He is the sun - The Son - our source of light. Just as we never doubt the sun's presence - even when we cannot see it. The Light of the world is always there...

Our God who breathed stars into the dark - He breathed Bethlehem's Star, then He became a Baby with lungs and breathed in stable air. We are all saved and rescued from the hopeless dark because God came with infant fists and opened wide His hands to hold yours...

And it doesn't matter how dark the dark is - Jesus comes to the darkest places so you can see His light the brightest.  (Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, pg. 87)

Like the flaming of a candle in utter darkness, Isaiah's words pierce my soul-shadow with hope:

For me this Child, this Gift was born! For me!
He is ruling this crazy chaotic world...
He is Wisdom, and Strength, and Eternity
The Prince of Wholeness...

Ever reminding me that
All is grace,
(Especially when it doesn't feel like it)

Carie

Isaiah 9:2

The Message (MSG)

2-7 The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light.
For those who lived in a land of deep shadows—
    light! sunbursts of light!
You repopulated the nation,
    you expanded its joy.
Oh, they’re so glad in your presence!
    Festival joy!
The joy of a great celebration,
    sharing rich gifts and warm greetings.
The abuse of oppressors and cruelty of tyrants—
    all their whips and cudgels and curses—
Is gone, done away with, a deliverance
    as surprising and sudden as Gideon’s old victory over Midian.
The boots of all those invading troops,
    along with their shirts soaked with innocent blood,
Will be piled in a heap and burned,
    a fire that will burn for days!
For a child has been born—for us!
    the gift of a son—for us!
He’ll take over
    the running of the world.
His names will be: Amazing Counselor,
    Strong God,
Eternal Father,
    Prince of Wholeness.
His ruling authority will grow,
    and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.
He’ll rule from the historic David throne
    over that promised kingdom.
He’ll put that kingdom on a firm footing
    and keep it going
With fair dealing and right living,
    beginning now and lasting always.
The zeal of God-of-the-Angel-Armies
    will do all this.

Advent Day 9 - Rahab - Joshua 2:1-21

The story of Rahab is such a beautiful one to me... She is one of two women mentioned in the long line of heroes of the faith in Hebrews, she is also mentioned in the genealogy of Christ. 

I think what is so beautiful is that she was so not what you would picture the perfect great-great-great-etc-grandmother of the Savior to be. 

She was a prostitute.
Her people were enemies of the Israelites.
She was a pagan.

And yet.

She stepped out in such great faith, to help men she didn't even know.
She married into the Jewish royal family.
God used her to carry on the lineage of Christ.

How marvelous, how wonderful that there is nothing we can do, no wrong we can commit, no place we can go that God's love cannot rescue us from. All the dirt and hurt and shame and guilt are like chalk letters on the blackboard of life...With one step of faith, his wrist flicks them away and they are gone...And in their place? Written in permanent Sharpie-red, are the covenant words:

I will never leave you nor forsake you.   (Hebrews 13:5)

 So when life seems dark, or you seem too dirty, take those words and tie them around the window of your heart and hold on tight. He is coming to rescue you.

All is grace,
Carie

Joshua 2:1-21

The Message (MSG)

Rahab

2 Joshua son of Nun secretly sent out from Shittim two men as spies: “Go. Look over the land. Check out Jericho.” They left and arrived at the house of a harlot named Rahab and stayed there.

2 The king of Jericho was told, “We’ve just learned that men arrived tonight to spy out the land. They’re from the People of Israel.”

3 The king of Jericho sent word to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you to stay the night in your house. They’re spies; they’ve come to spy out the whole country.”

4-7 The woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, two men did come to me, but I didn’t know where they’d come from. At dark, when the gate was about to be shut, the men left. But I have no idea where they went. Hurry up! Chase them—you can still catch them!” (She had actually taken them up on the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax that were spread out for her on the roof.) So the men set chase down the Jordan road toward the fords. As soon as they were gone, the gate was shut.

8-11 Before the spies were down for the night, the woman came up to them on the roof and said, “I know that God has given you the land. We’re all afraid. Everyone in the country feels hopeless. We heard how God dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you left Egypt, and what he did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you put under a holy curse and destroyed. We heard it and our hearts sank. We all had the wind knocked out of us. And all because of you, you and God, your God, God of the heavens above and God of the earth below.

12-13 “Now promise me by God. I showed you mercy; now show my family mercy. And give me some tangible proof, a guarantee of life for my father and mother, my brothers and sisters—everyone connected with my family. Save our souls from death!”

14 “Our lives for yours!” said the men. “But don’t tell anyone our business. When God turns this land over to us, we’ll do right by you in loyal mercy.”

15-16 She lowered them down out a window with a rope because her house was on the city wall to the outside. She told them, “Run for the hills so your pursuers won’t find you. Hide out for three days and give your pursuers time to return. Then get on your way.”

17-20 The men told her, “In order to keep this oath you made us swear, here is what you must do: Hang this red rope out the window through which you let us down and gather your entire family with you in your house—father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Anyone who goes out the doors of your house into the street and is killed, it’s his own fault—we aren’t responsible. But for everyone within the house we take full responsibility. If anyone lays a hand on one of them, it’s our fault. But if you tell anyone of our business here, the oath you made us swear is canceled—we’re no longer responsible.”

21 She said, “If that’s what you say, that’s the way it is,” and sent them off. They left and she hung the red rope out the window.

The Christmas Cookie Conundrum...........AKA: Advent Day 7 - Joseph

A good rule of thumb: Don't make promises you don't intend to keep.
A second rule: And definitely make sure you don't speak those promises aloud.
Where little ears will hear.
And remember like it's carved into stone.
(Now why oh why can't it be carved into stone that I asked them to clean their room?)

I had mentioned this morning - off hand - that I might *might* make Christmas cookies later, you know, if the day went well and all...

Fast forward to 4:30 and I had completely forgot. So, knowing full well what I was getting myself into, I began making the cookies.

Now for some background before we get into the nitty-gritty:
1. My kitchen is the size of a postage stamp. It's a 1.5 butt kitchen. (Don't tell the kids I used the "b" word) And all three - yes three! - were in there and wanting to "help".
2. I am not a baker. There has to be a full moon, all stars in alignment (or a really big kitchen with lots of legit help) for me to want to make any recipe that requires rolling out.
3. Once I say I'm going to do something, I will get it done, come hell or high water. At times this is a strength.

This was not one of those times.

You know that little voice inside? The one that whispers - or if you're lucky - screams that "This is a baaaad idea! Rethink! Regroup! Run AWAY!

Well apparently, he had the night off.

Just about everything that could go wrong, did.
- Added flour to the brown sugar, instead of creaming butter and sugar. (In my defense, recipe clearly stated "Mix dry ingredients together." Since when is brown sugar a wet ingredient?!
- Hand sifted the brown sugar out since it was still in a measuring-cup-shaped lump. (And because that's all the brown sugar I had)
- Proceeded to add baking powder to the brown sugar instead of the flour.
- Re-hand sifted the brown sugar by hand.

If you ever make cut-out cookies, the Number One tip I can give you?
MORE FLOUR.
Always use more flour. If you think you have enough and your finger doesn't stick to the dough?
ADD MORE FLOUR.

I must have scooped the dough out of the bowl like four times only to realize it was too sticky, then had to scrape it off the counter and back into the bowl for more flour.

At this point I was ready to chuck the whole bowl out the window.

Well...I finally got the right consistency and was in cookie making business. Until the baked cookies stuck to the sheet and snowflake arms started flying off left and right. Too bad I'm not Canadian, cuz they sure look a lot more like maple leaves than they do snowflakes.

Tip Number Two: NON-STICK SPRAY IS YOUR BFF.

By this time I was pretty sure God had performed a miracle and was reenacting the story where the widow's oil and flour never ran out...because I didn't feel like I was making a dent in that bowl of dough.

By now the kids were running like hellions around the house playing "Jedi and Darth Vader" - a result of another promise I had kept by letting them watch Star Wars earlier in the day - and Lil' Peach was sitting on my feet, crying rivers because I wouldn't let her have another cookie and "are you going to starve me forever Mama?!"

And somewhere in the midst of this chaos I thought: Where is the peace? This is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to look like those gosh darn Hallmark commercials. I'm supposed to feel blissful and full of holiday JOY for goodness sakes! When all I really wanted to be full of was a glass of wine and about half a tray of cookies.

But the thing about those holiday commercials?
They're not real.

This. THIS is real. The sifting through mistakes only to make the same mistake a few minutes later. The broken pieces of dreams and the big 'ol crocodile tears streaming down our faces wondering when we'll get our just desserts and "are you going to starve us forever God?!"

Joseph's holiday card would not have looked picture perfect. His memories weren't filled with glittering smile-filled get togethers. His brothers hated him. They tried to kill him. He was spoiled, prideful, spited, hated, kidnapped, sold, exiled, bought, framed, imprisoned and forgotten. 

Yet each painful unfathomable mysterious step was orchestrated by God and used to save an entire nation. God was in each moment, holding Joseph, whispering hope. All the tough stuff he had to go through made him the perfect man to lead Egypt through an unbelievable crisis.

And the God that held Joseph is the same God who holds you. Who can take the cookie-crumble pieces of your life and turn them into something beautiful and full of hope.

Embrace the darkness...he has you hidden in the shadow of his wings, the enfold of his strong arms.

Keep seeking for Hope...he knows what he is doing, and is doing it.

All is grace,
Carie

Day 7  -  Joseph  -  Genesis 37:3-4, 12-24, 28

The Message (MSG)

37 Meanwhile Jacob had settled down where his father had lived, the land of Canaan.

Joseph and His Brothers

2 This is the story of Jacob. The story continues with Joseph, seventeen years old at the time, helping out his brothers in herding the flocks. These were his half brothers actually, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought his father bad reports on them.

3-4 Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was the child of his old age. And he made him an elaborately embroidered coat. When his brothers realized that their father loved him more than them, they grew to hate him—they wouldn’t even speak to him.

5-7 Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said, “Listen to this dream I had. We were all out in the field gathering bundles of wheat. All of a sudden my bundle stood straight up and your bundles circled around it and bowed down to mine.”

8 His brothers said, “So! You’re going to rule us? You’re going to boss us around?” And they hated him more than ever because of his dreams and the way he talked.

9 He had another dream and told this one also to his brothers: “I dreamed another dream—the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me!”

10-11 When he told it to his father and brothers, his father reprimanded him: “What’s with all this dreaming? Am I and your mother and your brothers all supposed to bow down to you?” Now his brothers were really jealous; but his father brooded over the whole business.

12-13 His brothers had gone off to Shechem where they were pasturing their father’s flocks. Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are with flocks in Shechem. Come, I want to send you to them.”

Joseph said, “I’m ready.”

14 He said, “Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are doing and bring me back a report.” He sent him off from the valley of Hebron to Shechem.

15 A man met him as he was wandering through the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

16 “I’m trying to find my brothers. Do you have any idea where they are grazing their flocks?”

17 The man said, “They’ve left here, but I overheard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph took off, tracked his brothers down, and found them in Dothan.

18-20 They spotted him off in the distance. By the time he got to them they had cooked up a plot to kill him. The brothers were saying, “Here comes that dreamer. Let’s kill him and throw him into one of these old cisterns; we can say that a vicious animal ate him up. We’ll see what his dreams amount to.”

21-22 Reuben heard the brothers talking and intervened to save him, “We’re not going to kill him. No murder. Go ahead and throw him in this cistern out here in the wild, but don’t hurt him.” Reuben planned to go back later and get him out and take him back to his father.

23-24 When Joseph reached his brothers, they ripped off the fancy coat he was wearing, grabbed him, and threw him into a cistern. The cistern was dry; there wasn’t any water in it.

25-27 Then they sat down to eat their supper. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites on their way from Gilead, their camels loaded with spices, ointments, and perfumes to sell in Egypt. Judah said, “Brothers, what are we going to get out of killing our brother and concealing the evidence? Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let’s not kill him—he is, after all, our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.

28 By that time the Midianite traders were passing by. His brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites who took Joseph with them down to Egypt.