Oh deck those Advent halls

First of all...thank you to the scholars of Pinterest.  I applaud your creativity and bravery this Christmas season.  I award you the most resourceful and economic idea-generator of all things Christmas this year.  With glad tidings you proclaim your wares, causing me to stare in amazement of how many times you can use a empty toilet paper roll.

I see plenty of those waiting for me around my halls.

Second, I applaud the rest of you for following the Pinterest march to own your decorated halls, and bringing out the best in your yards and corners of your living spaces with those perfect Christmas decorations.  The ones that will make it's mark on your family legacy.  The decorations that you will want to hand down from generation to generation.

The decorations that you will write home about, tell your future kids about, those grand kids, the one true focused decoration that stirs a deep comforting Christmas memory.  The Christmas milestone moment that bookmarks time to signal the Christmas season and tick off these Advent days.

It's not Christmas until we decorate our spaces.  Until we adorn our hallways and mall-ways with the glitters and sounds of Christmas.  We can't have elusive seasonal joy until we unfurl the best gift ever.  It's how we usher in the Christmas celebration into our homes.

Take a look around and see how you have decorated your own halls for this Christmas season.  You probably have pulled out all your favorite pieces, the ones that just say "Let's be jolly, have some holly!"  Or have hung that mistletoe in it's appointed place for just the right seasonal exchange of a Christmas kiss.  (I have never understood Santa's role in this whole kissing thing...UGH!)

I caved to the conformity and pressure of putting up a Christmas tree this year.  It was at the polite request or what I like to call a simple Christmas demand,  issued by my adult daughter (deadline was Dec. 7th and side note, I did indeed meet her deadline).  Putting up a tree reminds her it's Christmas.  It's a season of celebration for her as this month includes her birthday.  It's a tradition within her thinking that sets off an alarm to think about Christmas, to bring in the sounds of celebration, the joys of celebrating.  

In putting up the tree I couldn't help but think about how we bring in all these extra decorations to enhance our celebrations but in reality they distract our celebrations.  Isn't it interesting that Christmas is synonymous with the lights, the bows, the ribbons, and the snow? 

When we really look at the pretty sights of Christmas, shouldn't we focus on the One, simple and authentic Beauty?  Could our celebrations follow our hearts longing to satisfy our deepest need these Advent days, in taking away any fake beauty, to unwrap the real Beauty of Salvation? 

God came to us.  In the first Advent, Jesus set aside glory for humility. We didn’t tidy up our earth or our lives for him before he came. There was no level of decoration that could have been appropriate anyway. This is about His Love plan for us, that was set in motion from the Perfect Garden, before our lives became decorated with all kinds of sin.  

A well adorned Christmas tree certainly wasn't at the stable where Mary and Joseph welcomed our Savior.  There was no brilliant lights except for the angels gleaming in worship around them.  The stars beamed, shining heavenly light, in the silence of the night.  No tinsel among the hay, dirt, the mess of a stable.  

Why do we bow to the latest craze of Christmas?  

I admit I have missed the message of Christmas for many years.  

But....with an intentional focus on the reason these advent days are made for, let's pause our decorating.  Let's stop the busyness and blurry days and let our hearts trip over the manger child.  

How ever you choose to adorn your hallways, byways, your choruses, your stories, and your family photo albums with memories, remember to pause for the Christ-child.  The awe and wonder of a Holy God coming near and letting His Presence, Peace, and Joy decorate your Christmas Advent days.

My Prayer:  Dear Jesus, forgive us when we try to add to your story of Christmas.  Forgive us in our empty hearts longing that we look to tinsel and shiny things to fill our deep need for your Presence.  Forgive us Lord, when we don't shout your birth from the mountain tops.  Forgive us Lord when we bow to the latest decoration craze or light show.  Forgive us in the ways we are easily distracted.  God make our hearts stop with your message to see the beauty of Christmas.  May we take in your breathe of Heaven during these Advent days.  Make we all make more room for you, Jesus.  

Luke 2:6-7  "While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."

He is waiting to be asked

Photo credit:  Peter Cook

God wants to help you.  Yes, with everything.

Did you know that He even cares about the little things that are going on in your life?  In your messy life of yesterday, or today?

There is no problem to small for God to handle.

It reminds me of the time when I attempted to clean my writing corner.  There were notes everywhere.  Post-it's loaded with half-thoughts, sentences scribbled on scraps and little slips.   They were everywhere littering my work space.  I had let it go a little too long, the stack was piled high.

Honestly I thought it would have been easier to slide them all into the trash can.  I guess I am a little OCD when it comes to saving every scrap, even napkins with thoughts.  I might use it sometime ya know?  The corner was a little like the leftovers that reside in my refrigerator.  There's a little bit of this and a little bit of that, with verses written quickly.

I could have used some help but didn't ask for any.  It would have taken me half as long to clean it up and organize, sort through and pitch the thoughts that I had no intention of using or didn't make sense.  I could have asked for help and then I could have gotten done quicker.

But I didn't.  I quit half-way through because it was too much.  It was more than I wanted to deal with at the moment.  It was way too time consuming.

How many times do we approach God with those kinds of prayers?  We think he doesn't have time for us or that it would take to long to tell Him how we really feel or that we assume He is too busy to help us?

Have you told him lately what's on your heart?  Why do we struggle with the telling part of prayer?
Why do we think we need to wax poetic or say some eloquent prayer on our knees in some kind of worshipful pose?  Why do we think that God doesn't care?

God is waiting to be asked and invited into your problems, fears and hangups.  He is waiting for us to invite Him in.

When you don't want to ask God first, it means you probably should.  The fact that God doesn't care couldn't be further from the truth.  We should invite into every part of our lives, our day, our hearts.

How else are we going to gain the strength to get to where we are going?
How else are we reminded that we are not alone in this world?
How else can we set hearts on eternity?
How else are can we tap into our Powerful Source?
How else can we experience His beauty in worship?
How else would can feel the love he has for us each and every day?
How else unless He is invited?

I haven't found a better plan than to make God the center of the big things, the small things, the this and that, the scraps of thought, half-sentences and the overwhelming circumstances that plague our days.  I haven't found an refuge in my messy writing corner with notes so jumbled up there, but when I come to God with my little ideas about my life, He straightens everything out.  Especially my perspective, my heart.

He knows that I need to ask Him first, I know that He is waiting to be asked.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, 
the door will be opened."  Matthew 7:7-8  
"Yes, Lord, each and every time like it's a big deal.  I hear You...and I hear your knocking...I invite You in."  

Oh the price of prayerlessness!  

If my rose bushes could talk

I am giggling on the inside about the title of this blog.  Of course, rose bushes can't talk.  But if they could, I wonder what they would have said the other day when I was pruning my two Knockout rose bushes.  You may remember the day beauty came back into my life in the midst of a mess.  

I was trimming some dead buds off of the tips of the rose bush branches.  I was hoping that I didn't leave it empty of red roses once I was done.  I kept pruning and cutting.   When I stepped back to take in the view of the two bushes, I noticed something.  

The rose bushes were ablaze of red color.  

There were so many new buds and blooming roses dotting the green lush branches, it was as if 100 roses had instantly appeared.  I didn't even know where I had cut any of the dead tips off.  My kitchen shears had not made a dent in their beauty.  There were so many roses waving at me for my attention.

The dead buds that I had cut had fallen to the base of the bush and disappeared.  The blooming and budding roses that still remained on the bush seemed to have multiplied.  Sitting pretty atop their branches...they were shouting at me, as if to say thanks for the taking time to cut off the dead and the ugly.  

“We feel so much better now; it's as if you just gave us some deep sips of Miracle grow."   

Oh… if my roses could talk what would they say? 

The growth that I noticed from the pruning was remarkable. It was noticeable.  It was all I could look at.  And it was really there the whole time.    

And then God said..."That's what I am doing in you.  I am pruning you."  

God used my pruning time as His pruning time.

John 15:1-2:  "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

There is richness that comes from God's pruning.  Sometimes God has to cut us to the root so new things can grow.  When these verses are applied to my life I can see that God has his kitchen shears handy.  Pruning is a necessary process for faith growth.  If the dead tips or branches aren't taken off, the bush will get overgrown and unfruitful.  Without pruning there would not be new growth or new buds of beauty.

When pruning happens in your life, let me encourage you to look to what you would be gaining instead of losing.  If your Gardener appears to be cutting things away, he knows the buds of life that are about to pop out.    He knows and sees the greater abundance of fruit that you could bear.

You might shout that it's painful.  All pruning can be or is a little painful, or maybe in your garden, a lot of pain is involved.  But let me give you a little rosy hope here....the removal of those dead places is worth the new life that will bud in your heart.  There are many blessings we never experience until we are ready to let God do some removing or disciplining.  The path of suffering or pain is the only way to reach the beauty that He has planned for each one of us.

Proverbs 3:11-12 "My son, do not despise and do not resent his rebuke because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the song he delights in."

Cutting the dead away will allow the new to shout into your soul.  But you have to allow the Gardener to do his holy work on your overgrown and unkempt heart.  

Do you question the number of trials in your life? Do you look at God's discipline as a negative instead of a positive?   There are always good lessons of correction to learn in God’s garden.  The Gardener stops pruning, trimming, shaping and weeding the branches or soil only when He expects nothing more from the vine during that season.  

God wants us to bear his name; his fruit is the profit from his pruning actions.  

The Gardner of the Vine wants us to be shaped by His truth.   There are some godly fruit that still needs to be produced.  The harvest is beautifully bountiful if we let God knockout our lifeless vines and allow the Gardner’s holy handy work.   

What needs pruning in your life?

Five Minute Friday - Beauty

A Mother's Day Knockout!

I was given a great gift for Mother's Day this year.  

My kids found a list of honey-do's that I wrote several years ago.  

It was long list.  ~  It required some extra cash.  ~  It required extra time.

My kids love me so.  The gift was so simple.      

 They knew that I wouldn't make time for tasks on my honey-do list.  

They planted some flowers and made two new flower beds. 

 In this one gift.... they brought beauty back in.  

Beauty is now the first thing that greets me when I come home.    

When I look at it, beauty allows my escape from the troubles of the day and brings a smile to my heart.  God's beauty helps me to not take life so serious.  It brightens.

I am so proud of them for knowing how this gift would help and show love.  

Beauty has been unspoken for a while.  Oh how I crave more.

When God brings beauty into your life, embrace it.  

Isn't always simple and unexpected?  

It heals hurts more than you can imagine.  

Beauty revives my tired soul.  

Give beauty to someone who needs a smile.  

Their need for beauty is unspoken too.  

God's got plenty of beauty to give.