The First Day of Advent - The Gift of Hope

Today was the first Sunday of Advent, and the first day of the 24 Days of Advent in the month of December leading up to Christmas.  "Advent" means "coming."  In the days before Christ came to earth, the Jewish people waited for a Messiah to come, a Savior.  Now, we still celebrate Advent because we await the Second Coming of Christ.

Isaiah the Prophet penned the words in which the Israelite people placed their hope more than 700 years before Christ was born:  

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
(Isaiah 9:6 NIV)

For many people, the days leading up to Christmas are full of joy, music, and Christmas lights.  It is the time of year we forget about our troubles and spend time making memories with friends and family.  For others, however, it is difficult to forget the troubles.  Every Christmas card from a friend, every decoration, every well-wisher is a reminder that things seem to be going great for other people, but I cannot find my Joy.  Some people just want the season to hurry up and get over with.

Here's the thing.  If you are one of those people, one who is stuck in a dark place and is having a hard time enjoying the parties and the festivities, Isaiah was in your boat, too.  He didn't live in happy times.  He didn't bake cookies and string Christmas lights and hand goodies out to the people while he prophesied.  He was prophesying in dark days.  Israel had turned away from God.  The Northern Kingdom, Israel, fell to Assyria in 722-721 BC.  Things were bleak in the Southern Kingdom, Judah. Isaiah pleaded with the people to turn back to God, lest they be sent into Exile as well.  In the midst of the darkness, however, of the immorality, the famine, the despair, Isaiah gives Hope.  It won't come right away.  It will be a little while.  But Hope is there.  A Savior will come from God.  He will deliver the people.  The darkness and despair will end.  God himself will be with the people.

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
    and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
    as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
    when dividing the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
    you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
    the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor.
Every warrior’s boot used in battle
    and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
    will be fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
    will accomplish this.
(Isaiah 9:2-7 NIV)

Isaiah wasn't throwing a party for people who were already happy and were having a great time.  He was offering Hope to people who were walking in darkness.

If you are walking in darkness this Christmas season, reach out for the Hope that God is offering now. Christ has come.  The prophecies were fulfilled.  He is coming back.  He wants to take us to heaven with Him to have eternal life.  "Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end."  You don't have to dress like an elf and put on a fake smile and sing at the top of your lungs.  Just open yourself up to Christ this season.  Dare to Hope.

Come, O Come, Emmanuel, God With Us!

Our Advent Wreath and our 24-Day Advent Calendar,
featuring a Bethlehem scene by Fontanini.

Merry Christmas!

Journey to Hope

In light of recent events, I am sharing these well-written thoughts from guest writer Gordon Williams.

Shocking!! Anthony Bourdain, less than a week after Kate Spade, has died, both the result of suicide. Both rich and famous!! Both with awards and the accolades of admirers!! Both able to reach out and explore the world!! Both wizards in their respective fields!!

I well remember when I heard the announcement of Robin Williams’ death in August, 2014. Driving back from a camping trip in the Adirondacks, I was dumb-founded when I heard of his death in a news clip. That funny, zany, suspender-wearing alien from the planet Ork was no more. In his wake, people were scrambling to patch together the final days and hours of his life. Absolute sadness, that Williams passed most likely feeling very alone and with no hope.

People who bring such laughter, innovation, insight, and challenge to the status quo ending their lives at the bottom of a vortex shocks us. In our culture, we are increasingly the worshippers of a philosophy that says you can have it all. You can buy your way, laugh your way, create your way, love your way, discover your way to someplace, to someplace, to someplace where…? You fill in the blank!! You get to define what makes your life worth living!! 

How incredible is that? You get to define, demarcate, describe, and demand what will make your life worth living!! No religion, No philosophy, No person, and absolutely No God has the right to tell you what makes life worth living.

We mourn their passing because we will miss their contributions to society, but we shouldn’t linger too long, or we may, unnecessarily, ponder our own fate.

To ponder might be dangerous because at the pinnacle of success and power many people find that they lack one of the very ingredients that makes life meaningful: hope.

Romans 5:1-8 has an amazing discussion of hope. Read it, if you are so inclined. In the middle verses of that passage there is a fascinating progression: suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And this progression sits in the middle of bold statements that it is only through the amazing sacrifice of Jesus and gifts of God that we can have hope at all.

Wow!! Our culture says something like creativity/education/hard-work produce opportunity, opportunity produces success/money, and success/money produce power/influence. 

Not much room for Hope!! Or Peace for that matter!!

But how can suffering produce hope? Maybe perseverance or endurance but ultimately Hope? 

Too long a discussion for an already too long Facebook post but consider the juxtaposition of the progression from Romans and the progression from our culture.

Our culture’s progression is self-defined/self-focused and often self-absorbed. It purports to be for the good of others and the good of humanity but at its root it is the celebration and exaltation of ME!!

In that progression, you will not find Hope!! You will constantly be filling in the blank in your life with something else and having to add more stuff, relationships, ideas, people, causes, etc. searching for Hope.

In Romans the journey to Hope begins with the seeming paradox of suffering. Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, and Robin Williams ended their lives with and because of incredible suffering. At the top of their fields and with influence/power, they actually found suffering and not Hope. Suffering was the end of their journey and not the beginning. 

Hope is not the result of the path of success but begins with suffering. Strange but true.

Only when we begin to learn that answers lie outside of ourselves and that suffering is an integral part of our existence here can we begin the path to Hope. Attempting to avoid pain/suffering by accessing the self-defined culture, we are bathed in, only leads to despair or the never-ceasing activity of acquiring more stuff or accolades.

So one path ends where the other begins. And one path is focused on self and the other outside of self.

A good place to end this post. Life is precious. All Life. My prayer is that all of us will seek enduring things and not the incredibly intoxicating but temporary things which surround us.

Flyby Review: Mandisa's Out of the Dark and a GIVEAWAY!

I so appreciate all of you, my loyal readers!  Even though I haven't been posting much lately, my stats show that people are still reading, so I will try to step up my game over the summer.  Tonight I have a great CD to review and a GIVEAWAY for you!

Mandisa's new album Out of the Dark was just released last week.  If you listen to Christian radio at all, you've probably been hearing the lead single, "Unfinished," for the last couple of months, as it was released on March 10 in anticipation of the full album release.  This album spoke to me in a powerful way.  I'm going to just let you read Mandisa's press release here for the story behind the album:

Mandisa wrote her song “Overcomer” in 2013 to encourage her close friend Kisha, who was battling breast cancer. Mandisa really believed and prayed that God was going to heal her, but when Kisha went to be with Jesus in 2014, Mandisa’s foundation was shaken in a way she never expected. She fell into a deep pit of depression for close to 3 years, shutting out her friends, family and the rest of the world. Mandisa believes if she had kept going down that road she was on, she would not be here today… but God stepped in and lifted her out of that pit by using her close friends to communicate their love for her and God’s love for her. This album is Mandisa’s way of letting her fans into her story – it’s called 'Out Of The Dark' because that is exactly where God lifted her out of!  

You can watch her talk openly about this on Good Morning America a few weeks ago here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/mandisa-opens-overcoming-depression-47020463

That is such a dark place from which to emerge.  How many of us have lost family members, friends, or even children to cancer or other tragedies?  Some people will tell us, with all good intentions, that God will heal our loved one if we just have faith.  We know that God can heal them.  But sometimes He doesn't.  And why not?  Is it because we didn't have enough faith?  That is the question with which many people find themselves struggling.  And unfortunately, many of us end up angry with God, because we do not understand.

Evil is in the world.  It is here because of our sin.  Every bad thing that happens to you is not a direct punishment for a specific sin, but since we have all sinned, none of us can claim that we do not belong in a sinful world.  This world is ruled by the Prince of Darkness, and he would like to keep us in darkness.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  Because we all live in this world, and evil does not discriminate.

Our limited human understanding struggles with the paradox, because God is good, and He does answer prayer.  So why doesn't He heal everyone who calls on His name?  Why does anyone have to struggle with cancer?

These are questions which may never be answered as long as we live on this earth, but even God is not immune to suffering, though He is without sin.  Even Christ suffered, although He alone could claim not to belong here, not to deserve the suffering.  He suffered, and He died, but for the past 2,000 years the Good News has been that He conquered death!  Sometimes our eternal reward seems slow in coming, but because Jesus Christ conquered death, death will not be able to hold any of His people down eternally.  Those who have gone on before us are done with this imperfect life and ready for their eternal reward.  It is we who are left behind who must deal with the grief, the questions, and the depression.

A few years ago, I went through a dark time myself.  It had nothing to do with cancer, although we did lose several family members during that time.  There were a number of other things going on as well, and by the end of it, I was begging my husband to find a job out of town so we could move.  And we did.  I have been healing for the past couple of years, but let me tell you, that was a time that I found out who my true friends were, those who would be there for me through anything, and they were few.  After going through something like that, you really know on whom you can depend when the times get rough again.  I pray that I may be such a friend.

Mandisa's album opens with voicemails of friends leaving her messages during her dark time, telling her they loved her, they missed her, that she is a child of the King.  What wonderful friends!  God lifted her out of that pit, partially by using the love of her friends, and she wrote this album about the experience.  It is not a depressing album full of slow, sad songs about the dark times.  It is an album that is full of life and full of hope.  As I've said in other reviews, I look for music with really meaningful lyrics, and this album has it.  I could think of my own "coming out of the dark" moments as I listened to it, and I felt joy that God got me through that time and brought me to where I am today.

Whether you are in a dark time right now, are coming out of one, or know someone else in a dark time for whom you need to be a friend, this album will bless you.  I am very thankful that I got to review it.

You can see more at:

Story Behind The Album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df27myDpm1c
Acoustic Video for "Unfinished”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQFpXcvFI0A
Purchase link: http://smarturl.it/OutOfTheDark.all?IQid=flyby

If you would like to win a copy of this fabulous CD, enter your name and email address below, or on my Facebook page.  (This will not put you on any newsletter or email list.  The email is just so I can contact you if you win.  If you prefer, you may also send it to me in a message to noteablescraps (at) gmail (dot) com.)

Remember you are blessed!

Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255:  “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”):  Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway.  Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation.  I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant, 1918-2013

Grandma with her great-granddaughter and namesake

Last week, we laid my grandmother to rest.  She was my last living grandparent, and she would have been 95 this Thursday.  Her lovely Christian life was darkened at the end by Alzheimer's, and she has not known us for 6 years.  This is her with my boys the last time she knew who they were.  I'm glad she had a chance to meet the baby.

The oldest is 14 now, and he was a pall bearer for the funeral, along with my first cousin who is the same age as he, two of my adult cousins, my husband, and my uncle.  I do not know if my son will know how much that meant to me until he is my age and watching children of his own grow up.  As I looked at the two 14-year-olds standing between the men and carrying her to her final resting place, I thought how proud she would be if she knew them now.  Perhaps she is able to get a glimpse of this world now and see them serving her right until the end.  Two fine boys who are growing up in the way that she taught her own children.  She was the last of her siblings and most of her friends of her own generation.  Now she joins my grandfather and the loved ones who have gone before her on the other side, but the younger generation is rising up to carry on.  Some people say our teenagers are the world/country/church of tomorrow.  But I say they are the world of today.  They are our country today.  They are the church of today.  Rest in peace, Grandma.  You've done your job.  You've raised your children well.  We will continue to raise the next generation well.  They are our hope.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

And when I come to die, give me Jesus.

And when I come to die, give me Jesus.

And when I come to die, give me Jesus.

You can have all this world, give me Jesus.