Filling your life with Fragrance

The black velvet box sits beneath the branches of our Christmas tree in its grandeur, inviting me.

Expensive oil that will for the next era grace my wrists and ankle nooks.  Its sweetness reminding me of beauty.  Of sacredness. Of significance. Alluring. Captivating. In my blue jeans. Summer dress. On my tanned skin.  On my beach days.  My high-heeled shoes, my sandaled feet. The fragrance, a reminder of my presence. Of the moment. Of the memories.

Tucked away. Glass bottled on my bathroom shelf.

My new perfume.

This Christmas has been good to our family.  We are peace-filled. Contented and thankful. Joyous. Present. At least for a moment.  We are not without our hardships. We have our brokenness and pain.  The year behind has been wonderful, but difficult in its own way like yours.

But these past few days.  These Christmas days, we’ve put it behind us. Briefly. The hard stuff. And instead, we’ve allowed the fragrance to come off the shelf and enter in to our four walls. Throughout our family. A gentle mist of Christ’s spirit and love. His peace. Transcending all.  We can smell it.  We can experience it.  The beauty and the power of the fragrance. Can you?

As we look ahead to a new calendar year, we are filled with expectation and hope.  We will again slug away at our giants.  We will stand down patiently until walls fall.  We will hold onto our father’s cloak pleading for justice and mercy.  And after the trials we will again prepare our hearts for the birth of an-other worldly king.  And as we triumph and as we fall, my prayer for you is that you allow the fragrance to enthrall you.  Because its always there.  Around you. Inviting you.  Anointing you. Gracing you.

And nothing quite like this fragrance will ever make you feel more beautiful or loved.

Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. Song of Songs 1:3

Every. Longing. Heart.

I write to you this afternoon from the comfort of my couch.  Presents sit finally wrapped.  Waiting for little fingers and giggled hearts. The multi-colored lights hang lit on their boughs. Twinkling. Anticipating.  Cards written carefully, draped over strings of ribbon. Offering glimmers of hearts that too sit, waiting.

This the Christmas eve.

This advent season has passed quickly.  Our preparations to spread love and joy while fulfilling, have also been taxing. They come at a price in our time, and our money. Our offerings, imperfect. And while beautiful, somehow, still are just not quite enough.

Hands are tired from

Shopping. 

  Wrapping.

       Baking.

           Decorating.

But all is restful now as the long wait is nearly over. For we celebrate the baby that comes this night. The one the shepherds followed.  The baby born to love. The love we’ve all been waiting for. The maker and sustainer of our souls. The redeemer of our hearts.

The one who knows your name.

In our advent season we long.  And yearn.  And we weep, in our journey to find the manger.  The magic and the mystery still lay hidden in the stars that point us to our holy night. Like the wise men, we come with gifts and offerings, sure:  Our desire.  Our questions.  Our hope.  Our doubt. Our blessings.  Our praise.

Our wonder.

But we also come with prayers, our needs, and sufferings.  We lay them in the hay beside Him.  As we whisper, “Amen”.

This and every Christmas we journey to this baby.  This baby given as a gift to us.  Who comes to fulfill our longing heart.  Our aching need. 

To live in us.

Through us.

With us. To redeem a broken world.  Our Immanuel.

~Merry Christmas

The Character who did not land a part in the Christmas Story

Someone once said that society’s barrier to spirituality, and in this story’s case, Christ in particular, is its unfamiliarity with the supernatural.  Postmodernism, with all of its advancements and evolutions brings with it good things, but a steadfast reliance on left brain thinking, i.e. logic and scientific means, leaves out a whole chasm of our creation, including an entire hemisphere of our brain-one that brings beauty and art and music and romantic love.  And I don’t know about you, but a world without the latter feels colorless and a whole lot Brave New World’ish. 

Don’t get me wrong, logic and rationality are essential.  And, I would argue, essential in faith as well.  But, to throw something out there, when it comes to faith, and well, matters of the heart, like falling in love, there comes a point where left brain thinking is maxed out, and without the integration of our more “feeling” side we are never able to fully experience the fruit and joy of the mystery of falling in love.  Be it with Mr. X, Buddha, or Jesus.

I hope you’re still with me.

But for a minute I want you to imagine the Christmas story from both your “logic” and your “feeling” side. I’m not asking you to buy it, but I am asking you to for a moment, enter into the Story.

I don’t know where you are at in your life. I don’t know the heart dreams you hold near and dear, the battles you’ve fought and lost. The battles you’ve won. The ones you may be in right now.  I do know we all have them and we either have them tucked away in some far corner of a dusty old drawer, or we are wearing them tattooed on our sleeve.  Some of us have them like a marquee flashing over our shadows.

But imagine. For a moment.  In 2011. That someone comes to tell you, in your house, in your apartment that a baby has been born.  A very important one.  A special one.  One that has been talked about for hundreds, for thousands, of years.  One who has come to bring back the world.  To love on the world. To love on you and your marquee flashing existence.  No self help book needed, no medical specialist, no debt consolidator, no divorce lawyer, no academic degree required.  Just a baby. 

I suspect most of us would shut the door on the crazy invitation.  The invitation to meet the baby.  To bring him gifts.  To hold his soft skin and kiss his warm cheek.  To rock him.  To love on him.  His birth announcement would read, “Savior of the World”.  Would we post this on our refrigerator? 

Some days I’m the girl that would travel great distances to visit and meet the baby.  This baby.  Other days I’m the girl that would close the door on the messenger. Some seasons, I keep it closed for a long time.  But, inevitably, in the end, I always. Always. Come back to the mystery of the baby.  For the journey to him, has proved wondrous, challenging, real, logical, and supernatural. Some days, I am not the person who landed a part in the Christmas story. But I think he came especially for characters like you and me.  ~Christy

Unwrapping Jesus

“Mommy, you be the mommy, dolly will be the baby, Molly will be Molly, and I’ll be the big sister”, enthusiasm gleams from her lips.

My four year old wants to play.

I sip my Irish Crème coffee on my tattered couch. Morning hasn’t quite set in yet.

It’s December, and our stockings hang awaiting anticipated pleasure. Excitement is building in her young heart and I want badly, so badly, for things to be perfect for her.

But they’re not. And not the love that I have for her, or my strength, or conviction, can cover all the cracks and crevices that she has to step over, and sometimes into.  It breaks my heart. This not being able to fix it business.

“Mommy, you clap when I come in the room”. She’s putting on a dance recital.   She enters, black tutu and leotards. I applaud, I cheer.

She leaves again. Then returns.  “Mommy, now clap when baby and I come in”.  She has fairy wings now and hands me a crown.  “You wear this”. Her small hands entrust me with a yellow crown made of construction paper, smeared with feathers, glue, and buttons. “There, you are beautiful”, as she places it carefully on my unbrushed head. She begins her dance.

I look around. Laundry sits folded, not put away from the night before. The coffee table littered with things.  So many things.  Behind us the Christmas tree sits half decorated and leaning.  For the night before it fell. The carpet still wet.  Needles. Haphazard needles. A weary mother who could not make it stand just so.

And then I see her, really see her dance.  Her arms point straight.  Fingers, each one of them positioned carefully, stretched wide.  Open.  She spins and twirls and watches her reflection in the tv.  Christmas carols surround us. Something about shepherds. Holy nights. Stars. And a Savior. She sings and dances and twirls unabashedly .  Joy-filled.  Amidst our less than perfect Christmas.

My daughter teaches me everyday about love. About how it covers all.  Messy living rooms, broken Christmas trees, broken lives and all.  About my imperfect self, my imperfect life, but the very perfect love I have in the gift of the giver of love. And I begin to experience and know, just a little more, Christmas as it was intended to be, as it needed to be, when I unwrap Jesus.

~Christy