In Another Bleak Midwinter

Is it truly mid-winter? I thought the 21st marked the beginning of winter, but it's lovely to think that we're almost halfway through the cold, dark tunnel. The holiday season is rarely one of natural joy for me, because the absence of warmth and sun usually bring fatigue and illness to our little family, and I struggle with the winter blues in real earnest. All the talk of hustle and bustle seem like a joke - I mean, we're just trying to stay alive here. I got my little coughing, fever patient to drink some water. I got the supper dishes washed, mostly, before crashing into bed and trying to nurse the baby to sleep. And somehow in the coming weeks we are supposed to visit all sorts of family with feasting and jollification.

I wonder if little Mary felt frustrated at the holiday travel required of her. I imagine her being a much more godly, submissive, patient person than I am, rather than putting up her feet and saying "Go to Bethlehem? On a donkey? Now? Um, no. I'm pregnant. I'm staying right here. Caesar is greedy and power hungry, but even he couldn't expect people like *me* to take part in the census." But she did the right thing and took her baby bump to the right place, and Jesus was born in the eternally destined location. God always knows what He's doing.

All this is just a bit of what I've been thinking about the things we don't like about Christmas being the things that are most nourishing to our faith and our vision of the Savior. I remember one Christmas season a couple years ago when I had the flu and was lying on the couch feeling crushed in pain and I looked over at the Nativity display we had set up, and whispered "Why, why did you come here? This miserable, broken place of pain. You didn't have to come. Oh, how you must love us." And another time as I looked at our Christmas gathering schedule that I was jotting into a notebook, and thought, "All this to do, to be with people, and I am too tired for any of it." That itself is a vivid picture of the first Christmas. Travel, people, bustle, exhaustion, and God getting his work done through ordinary people.

I saw this beautiful old quote from Ambleside Schools on Instagram that said it so well:

"The grass withers, the flower falls away, but the Word of our God endures for ever." As if Peter had said, 'All that has grown out of this root shall drop off in order that it may be seen how deeply the root itself is fixed in the soil.' We do not keep Christmas in the bright, sunny time of the year, but now in the heart of winter, when everything is bare and dry. And our Lord himself is said to be "a root out of a dry ground," from which all the blossoms of hope and joy are to come, but which must first be owned in its own nakedness before they shall appear. If then, men have begun to fancy that their gladness has another root than this, it is meet that for a time they should be left to try whether they can keep it alive by any efforts and skill of theirs. If Christmas joy has been separated from Christ, it is no wonder and no dishonor to Christ that it should grow feeble and hollow. But Christmas is not dead, because the mirth of those who have forgotten its meaning is dead. It is not dead for you, it is not dead for people who lie upon beds tormented with fevers, and dropsies, and cancers. It is not dead for the children in factories, and for the men who are working in mines, and for prisoners who never see the light of the sun. To all these the news, "The Word who was in the beginning with God and was God, in whom is life, and whose life is the light of men, by whom all things were made, and without whom was not anything made that was made, became flesh and dwelt among us, entered into our poverty, and suffering, and death," is just as mighty and cheering news now as it was when St. Peter first declared it to his countrymen at Pentecost. You want this truth, you cannot live or die without it. You have a right to it. By your baptism God hath given you a portion in him who was made flesh; by your suffering he is inviting you to claim that portion, to understand that it is indeed for you Christ lived and died."
from "Christmas Day" sermon, Frederick Maurice, M.A.

Let us embrace an ideal of the perfect Christmas as the one that makes us fall more in love with the incarnate Christ, whether it is in jollification or in quiet pain or grief. He has come for us. By faith He is ours to possess forever. Here is joy unceasing, consolation without end.

Carl Blechen - Landschaft im Winter bei Mondschein (1836)

A Vision of Christmas from Elizabeth Goudge

I've been trying to speed read a most delicious book - speed read because I bought it for a Christmas gift and I want to finish reading it first myself. (Books are the gift that keeps on giving!). The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge, is, like all of Goudge's wonderful books that I've read, full of entrancing beauty and profound reflections on the human soul. This particular book deals with a unique aspect of humanity in the history and journals of Mary Lindsay, a woman who struggled with mental illness. I didn't expect this book to prepare me for Christmas (in anything except the hope of getting it read before Christmas comes) but I found this gem of a Christmas dream in the story's excerpt from Mary Lindsay's diary:

I heard the clock strike five and I thought, Soon it will be Christmas and I shan't be able to enjoy my first Christmas in my own home. I was very sorry for myself. I thought, I can't bear it. I was lying on stones and the walls were moving in...The walls moved in nearer and as they closed right around, trapping me, I screamed.

I don't suppose I really screamed. What had happened was that I had fallen asleep at last and drifted into nightmare. I was imprisoned in stone. I knew then what men suffered who are walled up alive. But I was able to think, and I thought, Shall I scream and beat against the wall or shall I keep my mouth shut and be still? I wanted to scream because it would have been the easier thing. But I didn't. And when I had been still for a little while I found myself slowly edging forward. There was a crack in the stone. The hardness pressed against me upon each side in a horrible way, as though trying to crush me, but I could edge forward through the crack. I went on scraping through and at last there was a glimmer of light. It came to my feet like a sword and I knew it had made the crack, a sword of fire, splitting the stone. And then the walls drew back slightly on either side of me, as though the light pushed them. I had a sense of conflict, as though the darkness reeled and staggered, resisting the light in an anguish of evil strength. It had a fearful power. But the light, that seemed such a small beam in comparison with that infinity of blackness, kept the channel open and I fled down it. There was room now to run. I ran and ran and came out into the light.

One Stranger

On our way home from church today, we picked up a stranger holding a cardboard sign by the road "No Gas, No Food, No Money".  It's a common sight when you live near a state line truck stop, but since we were all together heading home for Sunday dinner, I asked Caleb if we could take the man home with us, and he being more than willing to do that sort of thing, readily pulled over and picked the man up.

His story was sad - he was traveling to Maine for a new job when his wife, who was suffering from bipolar disorder and postpartum depression had left him in the hotel, taking their five sons and all his things and money.  She had run away before, but usually ended up with family. This time she couldn't be found anywhere. He had a job waiting in Maine, but just needed to get there. It sounded almost too much of a tearjerker to be true, but we figured we could give him dinner and some gas.

This Too Will Be For Good

When I was a freshman in college, I experienced the typical reaction to the first week of classes - often called "syllabus shock" - how would I ever be able to muster the time and mental resources to complete this enormous load of assignments just presented to me? Stressed and anxious, I took the matter to the Lord, praying for help. The truth that he opened to my fretful heart in those first weeks was that though I had trusted him for my financial needs, I had not learned to trust him for those less tangible matters of energy and time, yet these were just as much in his power to provide as the other. I was enabled to begin trusting that these too would be given to me for the asking - and they were.

This lesson often pictures to me what it is like to face a new lesson of faith. I must learn to trust my God in all things, and not just in the places where I have grown familiar with seeing His hand. I think this is a lesson that I and many of my fellow believers will have to learn as we look at our nation and are tempted to despair. 

I wonder how many of us are thinking something like, "Well, I know God is in charge, but this is going to be terrible"? Having a bad president may be terrible, but a dozen other things one may meet in this fallen world may terrible, while "through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" This ugly scary state of things is the very place for us to firmly believe that God is good to His people. Do I believe that "In all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose" is more deep and solid than our nation's foundations? Do I believe that if the nation falls into the hands of unprincipled tyrants, despite all we can do as faithful citizens, it is just a new step in the lessons of faith our Father has for us between here and Heaven? 

There is a pervasive sense that we are entering bad times in our country. Maybe this is true. But I think there is a place for a bolder faith that can look straight in the face of the dreadful political reports and sing - 

"Ye fearful saints fresh courage take

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessing on your head!"

Yes, our God is "He who disciplines the nations" (Psalm 94:10 ESV), which is a fearful thing for America. But God has also promised His children regarding the painful discipline they undergo (surely even if they must pass through the discipline of their nation at large) - "later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." (Heb 12:11 ESV). For a nation it may be judgment, but for the believers in it, it may be a wholesome training with sweet fruit. This is a good thing.

So here's to faith in 2016 - faith that God's promises are better than the U. S. Constitution, and more sure and everlasting - faith that loving and obeying God will still be the path of ultimate blessing for His children, whether or not God blesses America nationally. Faith is God's great gift to us on the way to Heaven - and that is our better country.

To Stand Before the Son of Man

Yesterday I was gripped by these words of Jesus in the gospel of Luke:

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." 

(Luk 21:34-36, ESV)

This morning, I could hardly go on to other study without returning to the chapter again and writing out my thoughts on it:

Have I been watching myself with a view to staying awake spiritually? If I am consumed with the cares of this life - however pressing the duties of wife and mother may be - and am not mindful of the coming of the Son of Man, I am living as one asleep. Times of upheaval, trial and persecution have come upon God's people often and again since the last days began, and they may come upon us again, even soon without warning, and perhaps many times, before His return.

Whether it be the last day of all, or only one of the birth pangs preceding it, I know that in myself I have not the strength to face it. In my human nature, I want to live on in comfort, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage our children, our grandchildren, nestled in comfortable homes, friends with all and enjoying business and leisure from day to day. If this should be interrupted by an evil day, and I must follow Christ into the fire of men's hatred and the destruction of my comforts, how will I stand? Here is Christ's command: Watch and pray that you may have strength to escape all these things and stand before the Son of Man. Surely He would not direct us to such a prayer unless He intended to answer it. He does not call me to worry that something bad might happen, only to watch my soul and pray for strength to endure and escape all that may come to me before I enter His presence.

Today is a day of home and shelter, food and family. Tomorrow may be fire and sword, the hatred of all mankind and exclusion from society. Let my goal be not to have the blessings of today at any cost, but to escape with my faith intact, to endure to the end, to realize the salvation of my soul and stand before the Son of Man at the end. Then let me ask Him for this - not only for myself but for the next generation, upon whom the evil day may come more strongly than my mother's heart could ever believe. Let me be instructing my children not only in eating and working, in speech and play, but in the teaching of Jesus Christ and their need to know and be found in Him before that great day. May they together with us have strength to escape and to stand before the Son of Man at last.

Out of The Mouths of Babes

Husband gone all week and then all weekend;
driving husbandless and distracted to church with baby and receiving my first traffic ticket;
roughly four hours of sleep last night;
persistent health difficulties;
surprisingly large doctor bill's in the mail;
and...a fussy baby...who came onto the kitchen rug to spit up at my feet a piece of paper that had gotten into his tummy.

I found in the next room remains of the paper he had ingested. It was a quotation from Jeremiah Burroughs: "Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, gracious frame of spirit that freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition."

Out of the mouths of babes.

The Best Lesson I'll Learn

"We cry, 'Abba, Father!'" - Romans 8:15

Several months ago, I read a sermon by Hugh Binning on this text, and found in it a truth that profoundly strengthened my soul to face adversity with gladness and comfort. Recently, I have had to begin practicing in earnest what I learned on that day. Before describing the circumstances that prompted such practice, here is the section of Binning's sermon that instructed me:

"It would not appear by the mean, low and indigent state we are now in that we have so great and glorious a Father, How many infirmities we are compassed about with! How many wants are we pressed with! Our necessities are infinite, and our enjoyments in no way proportioned to our necessities. Notwithstanding even this, the love and wisdom of our heavenly Father shows itself, and oftentimes more gloriously in the theatre of men's weakness, infirmities and wants, than they could appear in the absolute and and total exemption of his children from necessities.  Strength perfected in weakness, grace sufficient in infirmities, has some greater glory than strength and grace alone.  Therefore he hath chosen this way as most fit for the advancing of his glory, and most suitable for our comfort and edification, to give us but little in hand, and environ us with a crowd of continued necessities and wants within and without, that we may learn to cry to him as our Father, and seek our supplies from him.

This way of narrow and hard dispensations, that at first seems contrary to the love and bounty and riches of our Father, in the perfect view of it appears to be the only way to perpetuate our communion with him, and often to renew the sense of his love and grace that would grow slack in our hearts if our needs did not every day stir up fresh longing."

Oh, how we want to be settled in life. Our spirits yearn for security, and a knowledge that everything is in place for our comfort and necessities. But our Father's aim is not to have us settled. He often purposes to have us unsettled continually, that we may cry to Him continually.
Don't we all know the tendency in our hearts? We begin to get our lives in order and to feel satisfied that all is taken care of for the present, and our prayers become cool and tidy. We don't stop praying completely, but that desperate, "Lord, I NEED you right now! Oh help!" is far from us. Our Father loves to hear those words. He loves to be our hero and show us how well His love can sustain and rescue us in the midst of difficulty. So he will not leave His beloved children to be like the rich fool who said, "Soul, you have much good laid up for many years. Take life easy." Our Lord loves us too much for that.

So here is my opportunity. My husband has been away for 8 1/2 months, and hoping that the Army will bring him home at the stated time in two months so college can proceed as planned. We have no certainty that the timing will not change completely and send us back to the drawing board, with a faint "What now?" The least we can do is try to plan, and find an apartment to rent in time for his expected return. So we emailed, searched, discussed, and I finally went to Virginia to look at the few apartment options we had found. The first apartment didn't have a kitchen. The second one I looked at I fell in love with. It was just what we wanted -  affordable, new, beautifully situated - and after brief discussion, we emailed the owner our 'yes'. I came home. We waited for two days. At last we received a reply. The apartment would be rented to someone else. I said cheerfully, "God will provide something else" and then I broke down and cried.

But I am not writing all that for you to pity me. It's to illustrate Binning's text. See, after that news, we didn't know what to do, where to look - and still don't - and in my heart there begins to be a cry, "Oh Father, provide for us! Provide for us! Provide for us! Open a door for us!...Lord, what are going to do? Oh, provide for us!"  And there is the cry of the needy child to the Father, that would not have been there in the same way if the reply had been, "We'll send you a copy of the lease to look at as soon as possible." Whatever makes us say, "We'll just have to keep praying" is a direct dispensation of love from the Father who loves to hear His children pray. That helps me. That comforts me - because our Father is not cruel, loving only to hear us cry. He loves to answer our cries. "Ask, and it shall be given to you."

A Prayer for the 6th of November

I was reviewing the prayer in Isaiah 26 today, and found in it a prayer deeply relevant for the church awaiting the fate of their nation and feeling how little they can do.

            In the path of your judgments,

                        O LORD, we wait for you;

            your name and remembrance

                        are the desire of our soul.

          My soul yearns for you in the night;

                        my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

            For when your judgments are in the earth,

                        the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

            If favor is shown to the wicked,

                        he does not learn righteousness;

            in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly

                        and does not see the majesty of the LORD.

O Lord, we long, day and night, to see Your glory,
though we must stand amid Your judgments on our world..
How will the wicked know Your majesty if you allow them to prosper?
Come, and teach us Your righteousness.

            O LORD, your hand is lifted up,

                        but they do not see it.

            Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

                        Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

We want the world to see Your faithfulness to us,
for we are Your people.
Oh that  all people would see Your glory.
Lord, open the blind eyes!

            O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,

                        for you have indeed done for us all our works.

            O LORD our God,

                        other lords besides you have ruled over us,

                        but your name alone we bring to remembrance.

You are our hope, sovereign Lord.
Our hope for peace
for righteousness
for salvation
Though men may rule over us
we look not to them, but to You.

            They are dead, they will not live;

                        they are shades, they will not arise;

            to that end you have visited them with destruction

                        and wiped out all remembrance of them.

We do not fear the wicked,
though they be the great rulers of earth.
They are shadows in your light,
passing breaths
When you arise to judge, they will be as nothing.
Oh forbid that we should fear the dust!

            But you have increased the nation, O LORD,

                        you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

                        you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

We are confident
Though the nations, even our nation and rulers, should perish
You will build your church, Your holy nation
As you have promised
The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.
You will make her whole
You will make her holy
And You will be glorified

            O LORD, in distress they sought you;

                        they poured out a whispered prayer

                        when your discipline was upon them.

            Like a pregnant woman

                        who writhes and cries out in her pangs

                        when she is near to giving birth,

            so were we because of you, O LORD;

                        we were pregnant, we writhed,

                        but we have given birth to wind.

            We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,

                        and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

O Lord, though we be under Your discipline for our sin
and share in suffering for the sins of our nation,
Yet we will cry out to You for deliverance.
For we are still Your people.
You have shown us our utter helplessness
In the face of Your judgments
We cannot save our nation, our church, or our own souls
We need You.

            Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

                        You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

            For your dew is a dew of light,

                        and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Here is our hope – that as You have promised
You will raise Your people from the dead
from spiritual death and mourning to songs of joy
from physical death to everlasting life
And we will live to praise You.

            Come, my people, enter your chambers,

                        and shut your doors behind you;

            hide yourselves for a little while

                        until the fury has passed by.

            For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place

                        to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,

            and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

                        and will no more cover its slain.

But at present, we must see sorrow and suffering
For we dwell in the midst of a vile people
Who have shed innocent blood
And we are not free from vileness or innocent ourselves
But we will hide in the wounds of our Savior, Jesus
We will take refuge in His promises of deliverance
While we wait for You.
In unshaken confidence that You alone will make all things right.

(Isaiah 26:3-21 ESV)

God is Treating You as Sons

A compilation of John Calvin's writings, gathered by Joel Beeke into a wonderful devotional, contains in today's reading Calvin's comments on Matthew 27:43, which speaks of the onlookers who mocked the crucified Lord with the cruel words, "He trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God."

Calvin writes of the falseness of these accusations and our temptation to believe such words in our own adversities:  

"It is contrary to the nature of faith that the word now should be insisted on by those whom God is training by the cross and by adversity to obedience, and whom he entreats to pray and to call on his name, for these are rather the testimonies of his fatherly love, as the apostle tells us (Heb. 12:6). But consider this peculiarity, that though Christ was the 'well-beloved Son' (Matt. 3:17; 17:5), yet he was not delivered from death until he had endured the punishment which we deserved, for that was the price by which our salvation was purchased."

May I never demand, as proof of God's love, the removal of the very thing His love has laid upon me.

"'For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.'

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons."

~ Hebrews 12:6-7a, ESV

Weak Enough to Suffer Woe

"God clothed Himself in vile man's flesh, that so

He might be weak enough to suffer woe." 

~ John Donne 

When I read these words I instantly remembered a childhood and youth shot through with growing fear of pain. I had begun quite early to realize - through reading and observation - the trials life held for every human, felt them in my own body, and wished if I could have anything in all the world it would be the power to never feel sickness or pain. I remember distinctly wishing that a fairy or genie would come and offer me 'anything you wished in the world' - and I would request this freedom. I have since learned from Christ that this wish is not the most desirable nor is it attainable in this life, but when I read these words of Donne's, I was struck by that mighty lesson of the cross which I will never be done learning. Here is a most powerful weakness, more mighty, more beautiful than the healthy, happy bodies worshiped by the people of the world. Here is one who had the power that I had desired - to never experience sickness or pain, colds or cancer, poisoning or accidents - and He gave it all up, embraced the flesh that would make Him vulnerable to every suffering, and became by this, my Savior. I cannot merely love Him for this, I must have this love. This love saves me, but goes beyond that to teach me what it is to live. All that I once esteemed, turned on its head and made foolish by the love that embraced my dread.


"This is how we know what love is - Jesus Christ laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers" - 1 John 3:16


And the upside-down, beautiful life of sacrifice is not forever. It is just for a time in this upside down world, until one day all things are made right and we will go to share, with the Lamb who was slain, the reward of His suffering. But we must suffer with Him here, "be made like Him in His death", "suffer with Him that we may be glorified with Him". It is all worth it.

I think this is the one lesson that I will have to go on learning the rest of my life. The lesson of the cross. Let me be taught.