Amen and Amen!
Merry Christmas, Indeed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFWyiYDWPm4
In the silent of the night, He crept not into our homes through the chimney, but into a lost and dying world through a humble manger. And in an instance the hopeless and spiraling destruction in our hearts caught its first glimpse of God’s amazing plan of grace, to draw us back to Himself. It isn’t something we deserve and there is nothing we can give Him in return, but our utter thankfulness in a lifestyle of kneeling worship and obedience. Let us celebrate indeed… in our hearts, and aloud for our children… Christ our Savior has come.
– Emmanuel, God with us.
Crank up your speakers and sing along in exaltation of the Savior of the world coming to us through the manger.
Merry Christmas, Indeed!
Here’s an opportunity for you to give or give in someone’s honor to “the least of these” this Christmas.
– to God be the glory.
Opportunity
Waiting
This Christmas I am overwhelmed as usual by my gratefulness for our little family. I am so blessed to delight in our three little girls and this holiday season has given me extra time to say extra thank you’s to God for His gracious gift of our children.
And as I have said my thank you’s and continue to do likewise, there is a small flicker of yearning that draws me to tears as I write this. A flicker of desire… for the little one or little ones God will bring into our family in the future that are currently enduring the hardships that will bring them into the system. They could already be in the system, trying to reunite with a family that cannot keep them for whatever reason. Or worse yet, my precious little one(s) could be enduring the very thing that will bring them to our home. My babies… my babies…
It’s the heart that God has been stitching in us all. It’s the heart of God that presses Rachael to say with full confidence, “we have empty beds, so let’s have kids come stay with us. And if they have Mommies and Daddies to go home to then they can go home later, but if not, we’ll ‘dopt them and they can have us for their family.”
It’s the heart of God that brings tears to my eyes and breaks my heart in the beauty of adoption and the process that’s on the horizon.
It’s not with naivety… it’s going to be really hard. It’s going to have unknown challenges and hurts and loss. It’s going to have unimaginable frustrations with the system and if we see them go home, while we’ll be advocating for their best, it’ll break our hearts to say goodbye. And it’s going to be amazing, delighting in the little steps forward and wrapping a little one in the love of Jesus that they never thought imaginable. It’s going to be like nothing we’ve ever done. Thankless and rewarding all in one. And everything about it will be right for us… because it’ll push us to see this world through God’s eyes as we walk beside the American orphan, even if just for a season.
So, sweet little one(s) out there this Christmas, know that you are on my mind. And amidst the excitement, picture-taking and delight of centering our day around acknowledging the coming of our Savior to this earth, know that my heart yearns for you.
We are waiting, sweet little one(s), and praying for you.
Paper Plates
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lBTVd6FOJ0
I love the desperation in the heart of these guys. There is no question of their yearning, even with every word sung.
Oh how many times we exchange the real depth of the Lord’s offer of His Authentic whole self for a paper-plate whim of sin…
Openness
As Christmas time has drawn near, I found it fitting that our next Adventure Missions novel be “Lottie Moon” from the Christian Heroes: Then and Now series by Janet and Geoff Benge.
I have heard the name Lottie Moon passed around the Baptist church and even stamped on their Christmas offering, but had never personally read an account of the missionary’s life. Most are familiar with Lottie’s bold letters detailing the realities of the conditions faced in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s of Chinese missionary work. Lottie’s frank depictions of the disease and hardships mixed with her perseverance for Christ inspired many Christians into the mission field during her forty-one years of work in China. I wanted to share an excerpt with you from one of the last chapters of the book.
Where we pick up in the chapter, the Baptist Foreign Missions Board’s budget fell short of $56,000 in 1912 and therefore they were unable to send more funds and missionaries to aid in the work in China.
“The needs of the local people, however, were great because of the continuing famine, and Lottie was unsure what to do… Given the crisis, Lottie decided that every penny not spent on her was a penny she could give to help someone in need. Her old cook still made meals, but Lottie preferred to go out into the yard and give her portion of food to some passing emaciated child rather than eat it herself. Slowly, and without anyone realizing it, Lottie Moon was beginning to starve herself so that she could feed others.
By the time one of her fellow missionaries noticed what she was doing, Lottie weighed only fifty pounds. “
She was immediately sent off to a fellow missionary Dr. who decided that the best thing for Lottie was to return to the US to receive proper care for her 73 year old frail body.
“On December 13, 1912, Lottie was carried aboard the Manchuria, which was bound for San Francisco via Japan… Once Lottie was safely in bed in her cabin (on the ship), Lottie’s trunk, which had accompanied her on earlier journeys home, was placed at the foot of the bed. In fact, the trunk was empty. Lottie had given away everything she owned to needy Chinese people and had brought the trunk along only for appearances when she arrived in America.”
So why do we take a Lottie Moon offering at Christmas time?
Lottie Moon died on her return voyage to the US… she died on Christmas Eve, 1912. The annual Christmas Offering for Foreign Missions was titled in Lottie’s honor during the year of 1913 and later in 1918 it was permanently renamed in tribute of Lottie Moon’s devotion. The missionary who was to accompany Lottie Moon to America and witnessed her last breath, Cynthia Miller, penned in the final sentence of her account of Lottie’s final journey,
“It is infinitely touching that those who work hardest and make the most sacrifices for the Master should suffer because those in the homeland fail to give what is needed.”
Her trunk and her frail body spoke and speak volumes of her heart for the lost and dying world.
May we have such an open heart in us.
– Praying we meet our goal for Missions giving this year… that more would be called brothers and sisters in the Kingdom.
*** Quotations from “Lottie Moon: Giving Her All for China” by Janet and Geoff Benge pages 194, 197, 200. Copyright 2001 by YWAM Publishing.