The Ugly Side of Christmas Lights

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morguefile.com

As my friends are hanging their lights and wrapping gifts for under the tree, I'm usually sitting at the piano, clunking out the notes of accompaniments I'm learning for my violin students. I get well acquainted with Christmas songs this way. My students choose their favorite pieces for recital, and I'm obligated to learn the piano parts.

One of the projects this year was to master "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." I worked through the jazz chords, which don't exactly fit in this classical musician's brain, but my heart kept whispering, "It's not. It's not the most wonderful time of the year." Everything hurts more at Christmastime, maybe because Christmas reminds us of what life ought to be.

I'm tempted to shut my eyes to the problems and build a wall around my heart so I don't feel the pain. Can't I pretend for one day that the world is white and filled with love, joy, and peace?

But Christmas won't let me do that because Christmas is about Jesus, the Light of the World. Jesus didn't enter the world as a pretty strand of colored lights hung on a tree. He entered as a floodlight that shows us everything we ought to be. He is the perfect picture of love, joy, and peace, even greater than the Christmas movies we watch and the songs we sing of perfect Christmases long ago. He sheds light on all the ugliness around us.

So I prayed the strangest Christmas prayer last night. I prayed that God would open my eyes to see evil for what it is and feel the pain it brings. I choose courage this Christmas, the courage it takes to keep my eyes open, to keep the light on. Only then can I be the heart and hands of God reaching out to my hurting world.

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life." John 8:12 (NKJV)

Cream for My Coffee

Photo by Larisa Koshkina

I sipped my coffee as I relished a little time in my Bible this morning. Actually, I was doing last-minute prep for our ladies Bible study, and I was puzzled by 2 Corinthians 1:17-20. All the yeses and nos in this passage made my head spin.

Besides, if "all the promises of God in [Christ] are Yes," why does it seem like God says no to me? What about the great dreams I had for my life, dreams that fizzled as life fell into a rut? Is God really a God of yes to me? I'm aware that God sometimes says no to my request in order to say yes to something better, but that something better isn't always apparent. The rut is too deep, and I can't see over it.

With no great answers in sight, I headed to the kitchen for more coffee. "Sorry we ran out of half and half," Mom apologized.

"No problem," I replied. "This gives me an excuse to use whipping cream." I poured a nice dose of the thick whiteness into my mug and filled it up with coffee.

My thoughts turned back to prayer. In Matthew 7:9-10 Jesus asked, "Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?"

In a Jennifer paraphrase, the question might be, "Which one of you, if his daughter asks for half and half, will give her milk?" No, my heavenly Father has filled the refrigerator with cartons of heavy whipping cream.

I finished my devotions with no new insight on prayer, but the picture helps. I may not understand the mind of God, but I choose again to trust His heart and enjoy the cream.

Sprinting Through a Marathon

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at morguefile.com

Click-click-click-delete. I dumped the junk emails that had accumulated overnight. But then a subject line caught my eye, "When John Piper was a teenager..."

It was a short message from Brett Harris at The Rebelution, sharing his favorite episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast. "Every young person in the world needs to hear this," Brett declared. My curiosity piqued, I hit play.

John Piper was preaching on Hebrews 12:1, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (ESV).

"Don't just lay aside sins to run this race," Pastor John challenged. "Don't just ask, 'What is wrong with it in life?' Don't just say about your music, about your movies, about your parties, about your habits, about your computer games, don't just say, 'Well, what is wrong with it?'...What question should I ask if it is not, 'Is it a sin?' And the answer is, 'Does it help me run?'"

As Pastor John expounded on how we should lay aside everything that is holding us back from reaching our goal, part of me wanted to cheer. What music teacher wouldn't cheer at the idea of teens laying aside video games to focus on more important things in life?

But part of me said, "You're missing something." This wasn't the message I needed as a teen or even now. My personality tends too much toward laying aside weights. I watch the minutes of my life slip away, and I grasp at each, trying to make the most of it as I reach for the goal.

I sensed God whispering in my heart, "Jen, you're trying to sprint through a marathon." Now I'm not much of a runner. I've never run a marathon or the 100-meter dash or anything in between, but I know one thing. In the 100-meter dash, you won't reach for a cup of water. In a marathon, you drink.

There was nothing wrong with Pastor John's sermon. To run well we must lay aside the unnecessary weights, but running isn't all about laying things aside. It's also about adding things, the healthy refreshments that restore our souls.

In the days to come, I'm determined to run better, not by eliminating things from my life but by adding activities of pure enjoyment. So if you find me cooking more, reading more, or enjoying a cup of tea in the middle of the day, don't be puzzled. I'm running a race.

When the Colors Don't Match

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Shirt ironed, hair fixed, just about ready for church. Now for the finishing touch. I wrapped my new scarf around my neck and went upstairs to ask my family one more time if the colors really matched.

"It's perfect," they said as if they couldn't understand why I'd worry.

"I know what florescent lights do to colors," I countered, but I wore the scarf anyway. It was a special gift from a friend, and I figured the match was good enough.

As I sat in church, though, I couldn't forget the effect of those lights. Something that seemed perfect in my dimly lit bedroom (yes, one of my light bulbs burned out again) wasn't so perfect in church.

My mind wandered to Isaiah's vision of God in the throne room of heaven. When faced with the absolute holiness of God, the radiance that exposes everything, Isaiah blurted out the only possible response, "Woe is me!"

Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of Hosts.

There are times when I can convince myself I'm a pretty good person until I gaze on the perfection of my God and I let Him search my heart. Then I know with Isaiah that I am undone. I have no hope apart from the cross where the Light of the world was crucified for me.

Living in the Paradox

Photo by CarraB at pixabay.com

I jotted a couple notes in my student's assignment book as he wandered through my studio room. Picking up a little cross I had on the file cabinet, he exclaimed, "A mini graveyard!"

"Which way is it supposed to go?" he asked, flipping it over to see the word Hope on one side and Believe on the other.

"It could go either way," I answered, and he wandered on. But his words continued to ring in my mind. It has been a week touched by death, not in my immediate family, but in the lives of my students and friends. Is that what the cross says to me? The ultimate symbol of death, the most cruel death mankind can impose on one of its own?

Maybe. But the cross also whispers something else because Jesus's tomb was found empty on the third day. So I hear a murmur, a murmur of life in Christ. Jesus entered death to conquer it for all of us. The grave is not the end. There is hope when we believe.

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10 (NKJV)

Urinals, Dustpans, and Worship

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Those who know me well might have figured out I have some germophobe tendencies. Needless to say, one part of self-employment I don't relish is scrubbing the urinal. But someone has to do it. So I pulled on my gloves, grabbed the spray bottle of disinfectant, and attacked the restrooms yesterday.

For the most part, I enjoyed myself. I had tucked my MP3 player into my pocket, and the soothing melodies of hymns filled my heart with peace, as I offered up a quick little prayer, "God, help me find the dustpan." What germophobe would want to pick up dirt from a public restroom without a dustpan?

I wonder if that's how Jesus felt when He left His holy abode in heaven for this sin-cursed world. But He didn't don gloves or spray disinfectant from a safe distance. He deliberately took my germs on Himself. He became sick for me so that I could be made whole.

Why the almighty God would do such a thing for me, I will never be able to tell. Words fail me, but my heart whispers, "Thank You, Jesus. Thank You."

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21

When God Played Oboe

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Gentle applause greeted our concertmaster as he walked on stage and signaled for three As. The piercing tone of an oboe filled the hall for the brass to tune. Sitting a few chairs away in the second violin section, I waited for the final A when we string players would tune.

This preconcert ritual is such an ordinary part of my life that I often forget its significance. To play together we must agree. But who gets to choose the pitch of an A?

I knew Steven was playing a true A on his oboe. A simple tuning app can confirm that an A is exactly 440 Hz, the standard set by an international convention in 1939. But who gave them the authority to define what an A ought to be? Can I be confident this standard is truth?

Later as my family and I celebrated the successful concert with crème brûlée, I pondered the relationship between our orchestral tuning note and truth in general. I’ve been thinking about truth a lot lately because RZIM’s writing competition this month is to answer the question, “In today’s culture of alternative facts and fake news, how do you define truth?” To be honest (a good thing to be when defining truth), my first thought about the contest was “Boring! How can I be creative with that topic?”

The dictionary defines truth. If I go beyond its definition, I might not be speaking objective truth anymore—I might have wandered into the nebulous realm of personal opinion. But who gave the authors of the dictionary the right to define truth? They didn’t create the definition; they merely described how the word was used in contemporary English. As common usage changes, the dictionary changes, just like grammar and punctuation rules change. The perfect English papers I crafted in high school are now flawed. The standard morphed, leaving me longing for something permanent in life.

The dictionary itself testifies to the changing winds of time. Merriam-Webster defines truth as “the body of real things, events, and facts,” and “a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality,” but the third definition is archaic: “fidelity and constancy.”

In my stubborn refusal to accept the inconstancy of a word that once meant constancy, I’m inclined to weave all three definitions together, for they touch the yearning of our souls. We long to know real facts about transcendence, our purpose in life and the meaning behind it all, and we want these facts to be stable, not shifting with public opinion or the fickle decisions of government officials.

We dream of a world where justice and goodness flourish. To achieve this we need a standard higher than the most powerful government, higher than all international organizations, a standard even they cannot violate. We need a tuning note that enables us to live in harmony.

Only a personal God can offer us this. If He made us for a purpose and communicated to us what is good, we can apply that to all perpetrators of evil. If He is unchanging, I can rest in a moral code that permanently protects me. If He is all-powerful, I know justice will ultimately be done.

This is the God I meet in the Bible, a God who entered the world two thousand years ago in the person of Jesus. He picked up the oboe, and He played an A.

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” John 14:6 (ESV)

An Early Valentine's Day

Recently, I posted a Facebook picture of myself wearing red. "Celebrating Valentine's Day early?" a friend asked.

No, it was National Wear Red Day to raise awareness about heart disease in women. I didn't expound for my friend that I'm a Valentine's Day dropout. I'm single and happy, so I avoid red and hearts, but I refuse to do black on February 14. Bright blue is more my color.

As I pondered my friend's question though, I realized my answer wasn't quite accurate. I'm no good at awareness days. If I really wore red to raise awareness, I would have included that in the caption on my photo. Instead, I wear red because I care. I care for my loved ones who are battling heart disease, and I want them to know I'm standing with them.

Likewise, I observed Wear It Pink for breast cancer awareness for the first time this past October. Few people saw me that day, and I'm not sure any of them knew why I wore pink, but I did it for a special friend who had just been diagnosed. I did it because I carry her in my heart.

Isn't that what love is? It's not mushy feelings or sappy songs. Often it is silent because there are no easy answers, but it is there to carry the burden you can't carry alone.

So I'm reevaluating my Valentine's Day blue. I'll go red and pink this year. Only those of you who have read this blog will know what the colors mean to me, but that's okay. I'll do it anyway because love runs deeper than chocolate and roses.

All I Have Is Yours

Last night as I made final preparations for our birthday celebration (in other words, I finally wrapped Terry's gift that had been hiding in my closet for a month), I wondered if I had gotten my twin the right thing. I purchased two books for her, but later I found another one I liked, and I bought it for myself. Would Terry have liked that one better? Too late to change my mind. My book is already sitting on the living room shelf for all to use, and Terry's is wrapped in sparkly paper waiting for the moment when she opens it.

So I brushed aside my mild worry with the words, "All I have is yours." Does it matter what I give my twin? Any book I give her, she'll share with me. Anything I keep for myself is hers to use. All I have is hers.

This is exactly how the father of the prodigal son felt as he welcomed home his wayward boy. He threw a party and gave him gifts, but the older son stood outside and pouted.

"Where's my party?" he asked.

"You are always with me," the father answered. "All I have is yours. It's only right to celebrate because your brother was lost, and now he's found."

God's gifts to me sometimes come wrapped up in pretty paper like the book I'm giving Terry. Sometimes He throws a party and presents them publicly. Other times He quietly places all His possessions on the living room shelf and says, "All I have is yours, Jen. Use it whenever you want."

As I celebrate my birthday and the beginning of a new year, I hope I don't get distracted with wrapping paper and bows. May I notice all of God's gifts and reach out in faith to use them--they come from my Father's heart.