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Staying Green In A Season Of Drought

God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better. ~Elisabeth Elliot

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The photograph was taken this month at Folsom Lake, our reservoir, source of vital water supplies. What should be dancing waves of blue is a moonscape. Refills of melting snow have been scarce of late in Northern California.

We are in drought.

Drought comes in many forms, not only meteorological. Maybe you are there in the barren stretches of unanswered prayer, of unresolved issues. Maybe  heart-held dreams haunt you like the distant mountains, unreachable but real.

When everything seems dry and barren how do you stay green and growing?

The biblical writers lived in a similar climate to mine, and drought was a recurring concern. Throughout the scriptures, their ancient words remind us what to do when life-giving rains refuse to fall, when we watch the forecast with spirits already parched.

This is what the Lord says:
Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord.
They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future.
They will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land.
But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water.
Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought.
Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. 

Jeremiah 17:5-8

Questions To Ask In Seasons Of Drought

In your thirst for resolution of unfulfilled longings, are you looking to other humans to be the answer? Is your fierce desire focused on anything smaller than God? Our hearts are like balloons–they grow only as big as what fills them. Maybe your dreams are too small and the bar of your love set too low, and God waits to enlarge your heart with himself. Who knows what he could do through a bigger-hearted you?

Have you planted yourself by the water of God’s nourishing presence? Do you send your roots down deep each day by spending time with him in listening prayer and attentive Bible reading,  allowing him to shape your hopes to align with his?

We can’t make it rain, we can’t force our dreams to come true, we can’t schedule the answers to long-stretched prayer. But we can drink deeply of God’s presence and love, and stay green and fruitful in seasons of drought.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change…” (Psalm 46:1-2 NRSV)

Are you experiencing a time of drought? How do Jeremiah’s words speak to you today?

 

 

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Faith Life

Christmas Is A Puzzle, Not A Pageant

This is often the way God loves us: with gifts we thought we didn’t need, which transform us into people we don’t necessarily want to be. ~William Willimon

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Christmas is a puzzle, not a pageant.

Christmas is a mystery, not a platform or position, a posture of defiance against an unbelieving world.

Christmas is a paradox, meant to leave us dumb-struck by a gift we didn’t ask for, the gift we needed most of all.

Christmas isn’t for the smug, the satisfied, the sure. So stop humming the melody and listen to the words instead. Let your certainty be rattled. Let your heart find a humbler place.

O holy Child of Bethlehem descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.

Something has to die before Jesus can be born in us. For we have remade God in our image. It’s time to let him out of the box, to empty him of our narrow assumptions. Let God be God, not a bigger version of us.

Don’t be so sure he is offended by what offends you.

Don’t be so sure he is impressed by what makes you wildly cheer.

Don’t be so sure you know how you would have responded to his coming. That you would have kneeled and not jeered. That you would have wept with joy, not crossed to the other side of the street.

Not sure is the best place to be at Christmas.

Because then we will kneel before the manger and really look. What will we see?

A Puzzle

A baby. An infant, needy and weak. God come down in tears, in hunger, in restless nights, a mother’s soft arms his only dwelling. This prince of heaven watched over by livestock. This brilliant rabbi sharing meals with the despised. This miracle-worker avoiding the applause of the crowd. This eloquent preacher refusing the perks of the popular. This most powerful of all humans allowing human arrogance to do its worst, for our sake.

Every year we forget. We slather our presents, programs and pageants on ourselves when God preferred to present to us a puzzle.

Embrace The Puzzle

Do you long to savor a moment of the true Christmas?

Sit in quiet and remember the infant you still are. Be hungry. Be needy. Be weak and helpless to be anyone important. Recognize your poverty, your limited understanding, the many ways you have yet to grow. Be small, curious, easily delighted and honest in your dismay. Turn your face to love and refuse to look away.

Is it hard? Do you feel more comfortable in the box seats of  the pageant?  If God stooped to  become a child, he can empower you to do the same.

Merry Christmas, my treasured friends. Thank you for joining me as we question and chew on the things that really matter. May you be blessed as you have so blessed me. When life calms down here, we will return to our Alphabet Adagio. Meanwhile, may your Christmas and New Year be puzzling in the best of all ways. Love, Janet.

 

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Faith Life

Why Am I Such A Misfit?

We’re all a little weird. ~Dr. Seuss

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER

Why am I such a misfit, I am not just a nitwit….why don’t I fit in?

Of all the soaring music of the season, this song keeps looping through my brain and I’m not sure why.

In a recent holiday gathering, surrounded by merry-makers, it hit me again. Why do I so often feel out-of-place? A modest Charley Brown pine amidst flashy aluminum glamour. A reindeer born with a peculiar gift. An elf with strange career goals. A misfit toy, banished for my quirks.

To be different is to wear the dreaded cone of shame, and even made-up characters know it. Ask a teenager who dares to wear last year’s fashion, or takes the less-worn path–bullies circle at the first sign of original thought. But most of us are our own bully, pecking like angry hens at our misfitness.

We assume everyone else fits in just fine.

Misfit Embrace

Good news! Tis the season for those who misfit. God has sent his beloved Son, but not to the popular crowd. Born of dubious parentage, in a backwater village, his admirers, smelly, socially awkward shepherds. The important people partied in palaces, while the Who’s Who-less knelt by a manger, warmed by the breath of watchful beasts in a homely barn. Perhaps an angel or two hummed a doxology, hovering just out of sight.

This baby, so special and wise, would gather the misfits to him, an insult to the fabulous and famous. Jesus never taught people to conform, to acquire a team spirit, to try to be like anyone else…except Him. And somehow, in fitting with Him, they become even more radiantly different than before.

In the end we will all look like Jesus, but none of us will look like each other. Why not practice what will be someday, now?

Christmas is about a misfit community you are invited to join. Come as you are, not as you aren’t–it’s the only way to get in.

 

 

 

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Faith Life

Advent Angst

My Angst

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I’m in a panic, it’s the season of guilt; all the “should’s” and the “ought-to’s,” even Martha must wilt!

It seems I am clueless, I admit with chagrin–what’s most important? What matters to Him?

His Answer

My child, 

I watch you scowl as you check off your list, as you hustle and hurry, get your brain in a twist, thinking more makes it better and much makes you right—this long sprint of madness toward Christmas Eve night.

I don’t really notice the height of your spruce, how cozy your candles, how tasty your goose, whether yours took the prize at the cookie exchange, the silver you’ve polished, the hors d’oeuvres you arrange, 

what traditions you follow–I won’t find it shocking to see carrots for reindeer or coal in your stocking. I won’t be counting the plays you attend, which presents you purchase or how much you spend.

Serve a roast, or just pizza, I really don’t mind! If you escape to Hawaii or stay here resigned to the hustle, the bustle, the crowds and the noise, and come through it frazzled, or with Hallmark-like poise.

Either way, it won’t matter from my, point of view. There’s something quite different that I ask of you.

Stop for a moment, just put it on pause, that letter you’re writing to dear Santa Claus.

 The Gift

What gift could you give me to fill me with joy, better than any decoration or elaborate toy? Even more than my pleasure at each generous act of kindness to grinches, or unselfish tact?

Yes, I will notice the weak you are strong for, but before everything else, one thing I long for. There’s one special package under your tree, the first you must open—the present of ME.

Will you believe me, my desire is for you? My best gift this Christmas, the one that rings true? Just the pleasure of seeing your childlike grin when it finally hits you—you’re already in!

You’re locked in my heart, my valuable prize, forgiven and treasured, delight of my eyes. That you’d accept without argument the gift of my grace means more than all riches or works you embrace.

What means more than the caroling, the cider, the snow, is a heart that responds, your love that will grow as MY preparations are given free rein—then my coming, then Christmas, will not be in vain.

My Response

Jesus, forgive me, for I see it is true I’ve got it all backwards, I’ve tried to BE you, to make Christmas happen, (in me I will trust), as the best of intentions all crumble to dust.

So, YOUR gift I will open, each day, a new start—unwrap your goodness, and gaze at your heart, delight in fresh wonders, still warm from your touch, and believe the inscription,

“Child, I love you so much.”

By Janet Hanson, 2005

It’s not great poetry. I wrote it on a sugar cookie high, in the throes of teeth-gritting, jingle bell jarring angst.

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The rhyme records a moment when it finally hit me. And every year I have to let it hit me again–I’m already loved.

And so are you, much more than you can imagine. 

“And our eyes at last shall see him,
Through his own redeeming love;
For that child so dear and gentle
Is our Lord in heaven above, and he leads his children on. to the place where he is gone.”

~Cecil Frances Alexander

Photograph of Christmas lights by Melanie Hunt
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