Advent - Love and Christmas Eve

Lamentations 3:24

I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

Christmas this year is unlike any that most of us have faced in our lifetime. We go forward with our celebration knowing that many in our country face this holiday with the still fresh loss of a loved one. Presents and celebrations are great but they will not bring back what we have lost this year. So on this day – Christmas Eve. . . I'd like to focus on what we do have. I love this verse in Lamentations and use it often. Today I'd like to substitute a word. The LORD is my present. The most important gift that any of us can receive is the gift of Jesus Christ. As He came into the world over 2000 years ago, He still comes into hearts and lives today. Make this Christmas special by letting Him into your heart and your family celebrations this year. You'll never regret it. I love you all.

Merry Christmas.

LOVE - Advent Day 25 - Week 4

Lamentations 3:31-33

For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

Tonight, is really just a prayer. Because my heart is heavy for so many. Coming into the holidays surrounded by so much grief... God be near.

Great is Your faithfulness, God my Father. 

It is new each morning, refreshing me, filling me. Father you see the pain and hurt of your children. But you are not an unfeeling witness. You are the Father who sobs when we sob. Your heart aches with us. You love us. Great, Oh great is Your faithfulness. When we cannot see, you guide us. And when we cannot find the strength to carry on one more day. . . You carry us. Father under your wings we find protection and peace. When we cannot even find the words to request what we need... You see that need and meet it. Great, Oh great is Your faithfulness. And I love You Father. No matter what
-Amen

LOVE - Advent Day 23 - Week 4

Psalm 6:2-4

Be merciful to me, LORD , for I am faint; O LORD , heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD , how long? Turn, O LORD , and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.

Once again I feel like I am playing a little bit on the expected subject matter. But it seems to fit really well with what I needed to hear going into 2021. If I do, I'm guessing maybe at least one other does as well.

Alrighty. We're going full speed towards a new year here folks. I see a lot of people ready to let their hair down like the calendar changing is a magic solution. Guess what friends? The problems of Dec. 31, 2020 are riding shotgun with you into 2021.
I guess there is no expiration date that we can see on our troubles, but there is an end. The Psalmist hits something here that I tend to keep coming back to with God. How long, O Lord, How long? When God? When does this finish? Sometimes I feel ungrateful, even hateful just asking the question.

So why am I all bubble-busting tonight? Because of another lesson I'm re-learning. God can handle my questions. Why else would he have put all these instances in the Bible of Godly Christians questioning his timing and methods? They are there to take us from question to answers. Like Job and David there will be an end to our trouble. Like Job and David only God knows what it is and when it will be here. So like them feel free to question. But know that God is still working. God is still in control. God has not forgotten you. He will not forget you. He will someday deliver you because of His unfailing love.

And that was exactly what I needed as we wrap all this mess up.  <3

Father,
Because of your love, we are not consumed. But as we learned last week, sometimes your deliverance and ours don't quite look the same. Help us to take comfort that whatever happens as we roll over to 2021, You are there before us. Please take away the crippling fear cloud that so many are living under right now. Every day we have is numbered by You. We live not one without your grace and mercy.
Help my friend reading this to be comforted by that same thought.
- Amen

-Gina

LOVE - Advent - Day 22 - Week 4

1 Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love seems like such a simple thing.  After all, we talk about falling in love on such a whim. It seem weightless and ethereal.  It seems so easy... and yet so difficult to really grasp on to at times.
The only way love makes sense to me these days is as a conscious choice.  Why?  Because the world around us, even here in the week before Christmas, seems to be drowning in hate instead.

Things I do know:
    I cannot change the world.
    I have zero platform to speak from as I sit here and write.
    I am a flawed human being... prone to do some really unloving things at times.    
    If I live my life and only accomplish really, deeply helping someone to see love, it is a life well lived.

Hate is easy. But hate is a heavy burden to carry. Spite is handy.  But spite will fester in your soul like acid. Arguing is simple and not hard to find someone to participate with you. But an argumentative spirit leads to bitterness in deep places of your being.

If I have not love...I am nothing. If I give everything I have, but miss out on love, this life was wasted.

For my single friends, I'm not talking about married love at ALL in this moment. I am talking about the type of love that this world is gasping for today.  Friendship... Compassion... Caring.
Right at this moment people in your city are preparing themselves to not wake up again.  Right at this moment someone is so desperate for love that they aren't sure they can go on another second.

Maybe that's you... If it is my friend, please please reach out to someone. You are valuable. You are loved. Please give us a chance to show you that.

If it's not you, I'll bet that someone's face popped into your head a few minutes ago. Reach out to them. Do it this very second.

Love.  It is the choice that can help to start turning this tide. Find the things that bind us.  Focus there.

Love.  This week... may we love boldly.

Father,
Help us to see the hurting people around us tomorrow. Help us to seek out the lonely. Help us to reach out if we are hurting. Please help us to remember, that we should love our neighbor as ourselves 
(which also means we need to love ourselves).  God make us your hands and feet in this world of chaos and pain.
-Amen

Gina

Joy - Advent - Day 21 - Week 3

Daniel 3:16-18

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. 

I'll admit this was not where I thought my last day on the topic of joy would take us. But I couldn't get these verses and this phrase out of my head tonight.

"But if not..."

These young men were getting sentenced to death for following God instead of men. They didn't know whether God would save them or not... but they knew that He was able. These three guys in the furnace trusted God, literally, with the end of their lives. They really believed that God could rescue them from the furnace. They knew enough about God to know that what is best for us (including life itself) is not always God's best for us. They knew that no matter what they were going to obey God. It's a powerful story. So what did these three guys say as they face death? "But IF not..."
Most of us aren't facing the possibility of death. However some of us are legit walking through that valley of death with ourselves or someone we love.
Do we trust Him? Do we still trust Him if things aren't going the way we want?
God I still trust you even if this court case doesn't go my way. I still trust you if the person I love the most in this world is taken away from me. I still trust you if I get sick... if my loved one gets sick.

I know that you can bring about miracles. You can take death itself away. I believe you can do all of this . . . but if not . . . I trust You even still. What I've learned: God may act exactly as I hope in this situation... but if not... I know He is still holding me. The important thing is to not turn away from God when He doesn't follow your calendar and plan. It is my challenge for all of you whose answer is just days away... but it is not the answer you were looking for in this season. It is also my challenge for those of you whose answer is many waiting days away.

Father,
Help us to find our joy and peace in you regardless of our circumstances. Help us to trust that You are still here even in the darkest of valley's. Help us to feel with certainty that you are here with us even if we are IN the furnace/fire right now.
Amen

-Gina

Joy - Advent - Day 20 - Week 3

Isaiah 45:3 - I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

This may seem like a weird place to start one of our last studies about Joy. But sometimes the biggest blessings and joys in our lives come from the darkest times. Here in Isaiah, God calls darkness a treasure. Wrap your head around that for a minute. The total absence of light... as a treasure. If you were a disciple in the first day after the crucifixion you would have had no idea that the best thing to ever happen to you would come from the tragedy of the days before. Who could have guessed that God would send help in the form of a tiny little guy, wrapped in leftovers, in a rundown stable? We seem to live in a perpetual state of darkness. If 2020 had a motto, I think it might be "The year where joy came to die." 
The treasure of darkness... riches stored in secret places. This many days into the pandemic, I think we all are starting to have an actual list of what we've lost this year. Worse still, most of us have a list of people we love that left us too soon this year. For me, it was the biggest personality known to my life... my Daddy. How can there be joy here? How is there a treasure here?  I just don't have it yet. I want to make that maybe plainer than I have ever made anything.
I don't have joy there yet. I do say yet... because I fully believe that joy will come back fully. We grieve, but God's word reminds us that, as believers, we do not grieve without hope. If you are grieving too... that's ok.
Tonight I feel so pressed to remind my friends, especially believers, that you do a GREAT disservice to Christianity and to your friends in general if you try to tie the Joy/Happiness bow right onto the top of your mess. 

Life is messy. You are allowed to be a mess too. You are allowed to grieve.  You are allowed to not be ok. These next few sentences may not be where you are right now.

THAT IS OK!!!!!!!!!  You can be "not ok." But please, don't live there.  <3

Only God knows what will become of your biggest tragedy. Trust that He will guide you through it and to the light of the third day. Joy does come with the morning.

Father,
For the hurting tonight, I pray peace. For the grieving tonight, I pray your presence surrounds them. As we run headlong into the week of Christmas, please give us peace. Please give us JOY. Please, give us You.
-Amen.

-Gina

Joy - Advent - Day 19 - Week 3

Colossians 1:10-12

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

What a good prayer. This one hits home for me especially today. In a normal year, the lead up to Christmas can be stressful. But in a pandemic... woof. Everyone is trying to make the best decisions for their families. Everyone is hoping for better days ahead. And here in the middle, we still find normal life... whatever that is.
When my life gets too crowded sometimes the first thing that seems to get crowded out is my patience and joy. I know all those verses about giving thanks in all things and they just go right out of my head when the dude in front of me is doing 30 in a 45... hypothetically...
Today if you are feeling less than strengthened with God's power I have a suggestion. Stop whatever you are doing. Yeah I know you're busy... join the crowd. Stop for a few minutes and ask God to bring you some joy and strength. I hesitate to say pray for patience because we all know how that one ends! 

: ) 

Father,
I ask that you bring some calm into our busy days today. Where there is impatience give us patience. Where there is sorrow bring us joy. And where there is weakness strengthen us. In Jesus name,
Amen
- Gina