You CAN Go Home Again...

but you'll be changed.

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I anticipated this. I knew it may happen. It does not make me sad. It makes life real.

I joyfully picked up our oldest Friday afternoon from Indianapolis International Airport, hugged and kissed her sweet little ginger head, had lunch with my parents, sister-in-law and niece and nephews, and started the long drive home.

It's not lengthy...but it was quiet.

My introvert who has had her comfortable, suburban world jolted by the reality of a broken and often hopeless one, needed time to decompress. My usual tactic of pummelling my children with questions until they open up was not appropriate, I had perceived as much.

At some point in the journey I must have asked the right question and the conversation flowed more easily. It has increasingly done so over the last two days...yet, there's one significant change that I have noticed: 

She's no longer set off by the small things that used to light her fuse.

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While I knew maturity would arrive swiftly for an 18 year old (now 19 year old) who's sacrificing comfort and the "norm" for a woman of her tender age, I wasn't prepared for the "untroubledness" of her maturity.

I was fully prepared to avoid her triggers. We all have them. In families we learn to step around them to keep the peace. When I've asked about laundry, food choices, and plans for each day, I think I'm no longer perceived as a nag...but she understands that my genuine concern for her is manifested in the little things.

What I've been asking myself for the last 48+ hours though are questions of myself that I think each Christian should delve into and accompanied by the Holy Spirit, grapple with and mold into our being and modus operandi for daily life:

What can cause us to abandon our priorities?

What can help us not to sweat the "small stuff"?

What must happen for me to put into perspective the minutiae of life?

What changes inside a perfectionist to bring them more calm, peace and joy?

The answer is simple...yet profound...

Love!

It may have been long-distance, but I have seen this beauty fall in love with a city, a neighborhood, a school and the children inside of it. She has talked with prostitutes, shared meals with feeble grandmothers in her new home, made pies and candy for her neighbors, taught children to sing and draw and enjoyed a birthday "cake" made from playground mulch accompanied by a preschool-pitched chorus of "Happy Birthday Miss Abbey".

She has also learned the humility of poverty and dependence upon others. She has found pleasure in the simple things like a free, reconditioned bike, local taco stands and new friends that quickly become family.

She has found new outrage inside of herself. While others her age are frustrated with the latest iPhone update or that their favorite cafe' no longer carries their preferred mocha, she has discovered fury over racism, injustice, deep poverty, and the desperation that drives people to merely survive instead of thrive.

She has found her Voice...and it is a melody of grace.

He'll Wreck Your Life!

I'm beginning to think that every potential Christian should receive this word of caution: Watch Out! He'll wreck your life!

I have been deeply reminded of this in the last few days. This morning the Holy Spirit drove it home with a line from a book I began reading, Kisses From Katie. In the introduction she writes these few small words that are jam-packed with a lifetime of adventure: "You see, Jesus wrecked my life."

Not 20 minutes later I stood in my kitchen preparing my morning juice and the quiet in our place was too much for the spinning wheels of my mind. I turned on a Christmas CD from a group that my now-grown Abbey listened to in her pre-adolescent years...Jump 5. Their rendition of "Joy to the World" has always hit me in the right place, but today...it flat-out made me cry.

Why?

Because Jesus doesn't just want to "wreck your life"...He came, lived and died so that He could wreck the whole world!

He brought His Kingdom come on "Earth and it is in Heaven." And He has never looked back. 

He wrecked the places where we find our security. He wrecked the notion of who is strong and who is weak. He wrecked the attitudes toward "the least of these". He wrecked deeply-ingrained notions of gender importance. He wrecked who is embraced by the King. He wrecked our hope in the world systems that keep us enslaved. He wrecked the perceptions of why people are poor and just exactly who is poor. And He called His followers to voluntarily let Him wreck their lives...sometimes to the point of death.

So this year, amidst the gifts, the lights, the music, the laughter, the contentment of having our oldest home, and the beauty of a world that at least seems peaceful for a brief season, I will be looking for the Savior that came to wreck my world...my life...what I actually find contentment in...and in where I place my hope.

My Christmas prayer for you is that His Presence, His Emmanuel (God with us!) will wreck your world too!

Old Kentucky Christmas: First Church of Christ, Burlington, KY

Our church has given the gift of this event to our community for the last few years. Each year, Old Kentucky Christmas grows and grows. This year's crowd is expected to reach around 10,000 between the four night and one day event.

Today, my kids and I volunteered for the field trip shift. We worked in the school house, teaching children how to write with a feather quill and ink.

There is something fun for everyone. You can make a candle...

pet real animals, like llamas, a donkey, burro, cow or angora rabbits...

take a carriage ride, play pioneer games, make your own Christmas ornament, go on a hayride and there is food too.

Decorate your own Christmas cookie, drink hot cocoa, or dip a pretzel in chocolate at the candy shop.

Inside our main building there will also be a quilting display, a dulcimer ensemble and several opportunities to participate in our church's candlelight service. Thursday night, Cooper High School performed their Christmas concert in lieu of a candlelight service.

There are also several photo opportunities outside and a more formal family photo opportunity inside.

Did I mention that this entire event is free?

My only caution is that with local road and community building construction this year, parking is more restricted. If you're heading out, there is the option to park at Camp Ernst Middle School and catch the free shuttle over to the First Church campus.

Trust me..your family will love this and it might become a favorite tradition in your home.

Visit the website for more time, location and map details. There are also lots of photos on the Facebook page.

And this...

this is what happens when you teach several hundred students how to write with a feather quill and ink. Oh well...back in the day, I would have just looked the part of a serious author.

Parental Guidance Suggested

I am finally falling in love with I Thessalonians! I have even found the verses that best describe how I approach life, love and ministry. And when I fail to live up to the standard put forth by Paul, Silas and Timothy, they are the guiding beacon by which I can align my heart and passion for serving and living out this Journey upon which my feet have embarked.

"For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit; but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed-- God is witness-- nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us...You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory." (I Thessalonians 2:3-8, 10-12, NASB)

It's a long passage, I know. I won't belabor the points I have previously made. (see Entrusted and Smelling Like Sheep) But I had to delve into this a little further with you, because this is my heart...right there on the page. 

I am not a tender mother. My children can attest to this. But I remember the tenderness and joy of nursing my infant children. 

God help me to never run rough-shod over any believer that is new to the faith. I fed my babies on demand, and as your newborns need fed in the timing that You create for their hunger, may I help feed them with the nourishment that You have already provided. May I never demand anything more from them than You are ready to give them. I trust that they will grow in Your timing...not mine.

And yet, at the same time, may I never stop 'exhorting, encouraging, and imploring' each Jesus-follower that You place in my path that they absolutely can "walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls" us.

For Abba, Your grace is beyond measure. Why? Because You never conscript us into service. You never require that we give away all that you have blessed us with...no...but freely I surrender my time...my gifts...and my stuff...because of where you do call me: Your own Kingdom and glory.

These are gifts I cannot repay. My life remains as the only offering that I can lay on the altar of sacrifice. If by my life or my death I can help someone catch just a whisper of the precious Kingdom and glory to which you call each of us...then may it be so.

The family of God.

I remember singing about it as a child. And this week, You've begun prying open my heart to understand. As others have for me, may I nurture and feed as a mother would her own...and like a father, may I radically inspire and call out in others the beauty and grace of the Light in which You want us to sojourn together.

Amen.