I trace my finger over the outline of her baby portrait. Dated and a bit color-bleached, I gaze at my daughter’s sweetness staring at me from behind the glassed frame. I mark her wide eyes, button nose, and tendrils of hair. I follow the curve of her smile and caress her face. A tear drops […]
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The richness of Handel’s Messiah rolled over me in crescendoes. It filled my house with its heavenly music. Christmas isn’t Christmas without it. “Mom, we lost baby Jesus again!” my frustrated daughter shouted from the living room. The words were weighty in a house decorated with glittering candles, lighted tree and music in the background. […]
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“Who is this King of glory?” David asks in Palm 24:10. “The LORD…” YAHWEH. The Existing One. Yahweh is the proper name of the one true God in the Old Testament. Without vowels in its original Hebrew, the word was so sacred it was unpronounced, too holy, too fearful to communicate justly. Self-existent and eternal […]
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A dirt road led to the house I grew up in. I loved that road. Impassible in winter, a mud pit in spring, and like the dust bowl in summer. No other house sat on that road. It was the way to our house. When Jesus came, people wanted to see Him. “You shall find […]
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I used to stuff little arms into sleeves like a turkey at Thanksgiving. But somewhere between the years of babies and grand babies, the art went south. I’m all thumbs, trying to capture stiff limbs without breaking them, and pinpointing them into a tiny coat sleeve. It’s like threading an eye of a needle or […]
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My Christmas list looks like a paper war zone. I have crossed off, scribbled over and shifted names and gifts until there isn’t much space left to write, and no I am not done yet. I am not a good shopper. I am swayed by what I see, completely unstable in my decisions. But God […]
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There is a whole lot of happenings that go before the birth of a baby. My soon-to-be-born grandson’s nursery took shape with a coat of paint, a baby bed, changing table, and rocking chair. His drawers were full of soft clothes, diapers, and ointments. It was a room needing a baby. Before Jesus’ death, He […]
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No one is higher. “He will be great, and will be called Son of the Highest” Luke 1:32; NKJV, the angel told Mary. He is as high as high gets. Son of the Highest is like the title God Most High. The wonder of such an announcement must have seized Mary’s heart like the breath […]
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“For out of you (Bethlehem) shall come a Ruler who will shepherd My people Israel.” Matt. 2:6; NKJV. I love the idea of ruler-shepherd. It’s almost an oxymoron, two impossibles joined together. The Christmas story is full unnatural events, because the story is after all, supernatural. “For with God,” the angel told Mary, “nothing will […]
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