Advent Begins!

Tonight my family lit our first Advent candle of 2014. I don't know if you follow the tradition, but in our household we only loosely follow the usual "model." I don't stick with the candles' meanings of hope, joy, etc. I instead choose four topics to lead us up to Christmas. In the past I've focused on prophecies of the Messiah for example.

This year I wanted to tell the whole story. After all, how can we expect our children to feel "a thrill of joy" about Christ's birth if they don't have an existing understanding of our desperate need for a Savior? So my plan is as follows.

Week 1: Creation and the Fall
Week 2: The Effects of Sin
Week 3: Signs of His Coming
Week 4: Birth of the Savior

I intend to make these very very simple so my five year old can understand. But I think in so doing, the rest of us are blessed as well. Below is the message I prepared and read at our candle lighting tonight and I thought I'd share. I hope it blesses you.

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When God made the world, a long time ago, He made everything very GOOD. There was nothing to complain about or be afraid of. People could hang out with wild animals without danger. [What’s a wild animal you’d like to play with if it wasn’t dangerous? A lion? A crocodile?] And growing food was easy because there were NO WEEDS. The Bible says there were no thorns even! So the rose bushes would never be sharp. Also, nobody got stomach aches or sore throats because there were NO SICK GERMS.

It was wonderful. Totally amazing. Perfect. And it would have stayed that way forever if the first people had trusted God when He told them that one single tree in all the huge garden they lived in would ruin everything if they ate from it. In fact, if they ate from that tree, it would make them start to die. So God told them about that dangerous tree and not to eat it. But all the other trees were healthy and yummy and they could eat anything else they wanted.

But they didn’t believe God about the bad tree. Eve and Adam hung around that tree looking at it, wondering what it tasted like. Satan hung out there too, in the form of a serpent, and he convinced them God was lying. That the tree’s fruit would make THEM like God too. And instead of believing what God said about the tree, they believed Satan and so they ate the fruit. And from then on, everything changed.

Sickness, thorns, pain, embarrassment, and death entered the world. Wild animals became dangerous and might bite. Adam and Eve could no longer live in the perfect garden (of Eden), they had to leave that place. And in fact, they began to grow old and eventually die. Their children were born this way as well. Every baby ever born from then on—all the way down to you and me—would have the same problem. Things were not perfect any more.

God punished the serpent making him slither on his belly, and He also gave a prophecy for the future. God told Satan that one day a child would be born who would “stomp his head” and undo the damage caused by Satan’s trickery. That child would be the one to save the world from the death that came because of SIN.

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Next week when we talk about the effects of sin, I plan to share some easy illustrations to help explain how we've ALL sinned and have no hope of saving ourselves. See you then--and have a wonderful first week of December!

November's Newest! Last Clash of 2012

Clash of the Titles makes things easy for book lovers everywhere--including Christmas shopping! This week, they present five of Christian fiction's hottest new titles. Surely, one of them will be the perfect gift for Grandma or Auntie Martha. Or maybe even... for yourself!

Introducing, November's New Releases clashing novels...

Don't forget to vote for the one that most catches your interest!

Former army communications specialist Maddie Jerrard may not remember the details of the deadly mission on the Texas-Mexico border, but she knows she's not the one responsible for betraying her unit to the massive ambush that left only her and investigative journalist Chris Mason alive. Logic says the culprit must be the only other survivor—Chris—but with a killer targeting them both, taking a chance on trusting each other may be the only way to make it through alive.

The Colorado Rockies have always been home to journalist Kelly Shepherd, but after the death of her father, and facing her first Christmas alone, she accepts an assignment that leads her deep into Louisiana’s Cajun country.

Since his wife’s death, Denny Labouve has focused his attention on his ten-year-old daughter and the family business, but Kelly sparks the dying embers of his heart even as a Christmas cold front moves through his beloved Cajun country.

Every year Amber Weathersby loans the Bloomfield Garden Club her garden gnome to display their prized trophy in the contest winner's garden. When Gnorman is gnomenapped, Amber chases the gnome around town trying to win the trophy, while Stan chases Amber, trying to win her heart.

The world plunges into chaos when an ancient manuscript is discovered that reveals the Gospels were an orchestrated fiction. When a retired Dead Sea Scrolls expert gets in over his head investigating the scroll, his agnostic son continues the quest for the truth and uncovers evidence of a grand plot that will tip the balance of world power.

As Harvey Girl Meghan Thorson waits on doughboys at the El Garces Hotel in Needles, California, she meets Caleb McBride, a local horse breeder whom the townsfolk have branded a coward and profiteer. Will threads of love unite this couple, or will pride keep them forever apart?

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Strength For Today

Can you believe it's almost December? I love the holidays, but I always struggle this time of year. My heart aches for the Thomas Kinkade paintings, for smiles and laughter and goodwill toward man (especially between siblings in the house!), for snuggling by the fire, kisses under the mistletoe, all that good stuff.

Real life is not a painting. Or an old black-and-white movie. (That's often why we love escaping into our novels.)

Nope. Real life finds too many dust bunnies when it's time to move furniture to make room for the tree. Real life has pouting kids who don't want to help lug in the decoration box or be pulled away from their video games in order to just sit by the fire with mom. Husbands who tolerate, but don't enjoy, watching White Christmas, and who grimace and sweat--and possibly even swear--while wrestling with the Christmas lights.

Add to that the fact that I never got around to shedding that extra five pounds--and now feel it's too late to try--the constant pain in my neck, the myriad bills we aren't sure how to pay, a toddler in the throes of the "terrible two's" (to be fair, he's the sweetest boy in the world, just extremely rambunctious), and homeschool pressures...and each day starts to feel overwhelming. Beyond my ability. Sucking me under. Life does not meet my expectations. I'm failing.

And sometimes "failing" at something as simple and earthly as creating the "right" home atmosphere can lead to a depression that slips into spiritual darkness. Lies. All lies. But too often, I believe them.

Maybe you can relate. Or maybe your set of challenges lies elsewhere. Regardless, we all have seasons, or areas of our life, where we don't feel up to the task. And we grieve that ineptitude.

A dear friend recently gave me a gift--a daily devotional--and the first day's reading hit its mark in my heart. In essence, it reminded me that the measure of God's strength given to me on a daily basis is determined by two things:

The difficulty of my circumstances, and my willingness to depend on Him for help.

WOW.

This concept completely changed my thinking when it came to facing challenges. Demons. I don't need to assess the situation and measure it against my usual ability and strength. I need to depend on Him and believe that He can and will empower me that much more in order to handle the task. And tomorrow, when the challenge is not so great, He will give me just the strength I need for that day.

Today it might be preparing the house, encouraging generousity in my kids, and finding ways to trim the grocery budget so that we can get that tail light replaced.  Tomorrow it could be the death of a loved one, a falling away of a brother or sister, or the loss of a job. But the degree of His power available to me will match whatever circumstance comes my way.

And the same goes for you, too. So if there's any chance that one of you share this struggle of mine at this time of year, I pray this truth shines like a beacon in your heart and gives you hope. It did for me.

If you're interested in the devotional I mentioned, it's called Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. The entry I referenced was November 11th. :-) And if you want some great Christian novels to dive into or pick up as gifts, you always know where to find some winners. (There's always a contest going on at COTT, so I hope you'll join us this week for a look at a couple great cover images.)

Have a blessed week!

The Cardboard Box

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Guest Post By Beth Webb Hart

Every December 31st after the gloomy task of taking the ornaments and lights off of the tree, we pack them away in a large, tattered cardboard box. What leavens the moment is a simple tradition we’ve practiced for the last eight years: writing down the prayer requests for the coming year on the outside of the box.

I pull out a Sharpy pen, find a spot on the cardboard surface, write the new year down and everyone in our family of four discusses our hopes, needs and desires for the coming twelve months. We each get a turn to write something, and we all must agree on each of the requests. We usually come up with five or six, and they range from the specific (May Daddy make tenure – 2003 or May God give us a new child this year – 2007) to the grandiose (May we have a new house AND a puppy dog – 2010) to the general (May we remain in good health – 2009).

Then we lift each request up in prayer, ask God’s will to be done and finally hand the box over to my husband who carts it up the rickety attic ladder, folds the ladder up and snaps the ceiling door closed. We all take a deep breath as we walk back down the hallway and into our home which doesn’t seem quite so magical without the tree and the twinkling lights and the expectations of the Christmas season.

However, as we beat back the January blues we remind ourselves that Christ has been born, that He has put both evil and its most wicked sidekick- death – in their place and that He has redeemed us and promised us new life which we have stepped into and will remain in for eternity.

This becomes all the more clear when, eleven months later, giddy with bellies full of hot chocolate and a new tree in the stand, we cart the old cardboard box back down the rickety ladder and before tearing it open, read over the prayer requests of the last year, circling those he answered and starring those He either said “no” or “not yet” to.

It is a moment of pure joy and our Lord’s sovereignty over all the little details of our lives becomes abundantly clear. No, we didn’t get the new house and the new puppy this year, but we did get a new baby, we did become tenured and we remained in good health. More often than not, the answer is “yes”, and it has come about in a way far beyond our wildest imaginings or our feeble attempts at orchestrating the direction of our lives. Thanks be to God for His Almighty provision and, more importantly, for His love for all of mankind!
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This article first appeared on She Reads and is reprinted here by permission.