One of my favorite advent/Christmas hymns.

Delete, delete, ye my blog post.

I was going to be starting a dietetic internship at the end of the summer. The closer it got, the more it loomed ominously over my head. Nervous? Yes. Shortly before leaving home, I had an unusual experience that was probably about as close to a “vision” of Christ as I ever had or would have. I was praying, “If I am lost, and you are truly looking for me, what is missing?” I wrote down the strong impression I had that “He picked me up and held me as a child and my cheek felt the roughness of his robe and I could smell the earth in those folds. All of my doubts and fears lifted…” There were very strong sensory aspects to this impression that stayed with me for a long time; if I think back, I can still feel that sensation of being held by Him, cherished and safe in those arms. Was it all in my imagination? Perhaps. Was I in Christ at this time? Again, perhaps, but I had made no public proclamation and would not have called myself a Christian.

I prayed that the Lord would give me a committed knowledgeable Christian friend among the interns, someone from whom I could learn. I discovered early on that one of the interns, Tamie, was the answer to this prayer. I had been thinking about what church I should go to. There was a large United Methodist Church just up the street, but I knew instinctively that this would be a church in which I could easily be anonymous and unchallenged. Tamie invited me to the church she’d started going to, an Evangelical Free Church. I accepted the invitation, but told her I wasn’t yet a Christian, thinking it would be best to put all the cards out on the table. She seemed to take that in stride and decided to give me some Last Days Newsletters (written by Keith Green before he died) as some edifying reading material. Unfortunately, she had given me an issue all about modesty. I was still very much in feminist mode (hear me roar!) and was thoroughly enraged by the thoughts expressed in that newsletter and fumed privately about how much I did NOT want to be a Christian -what a bunch of busy-bodies they were! Tamie took me to church the next day and as we sat in a pew waiting for Sunday school to start, she asked innocently, “So, did you get a chance to look over any of those newsletters?” “Yes,” I said, working up a good self-righteous lather, “and I was really offended by the one about modesty! Women ought to be able to come to church STARK NAKED if they want to!” At this, poor Tamie looked around nervously to see if anyone else was close enough to hear my outburst. We didn’t get a chance to continue this interesting discussion since Sunday school started, no doubt much to Tamie’s relief.

I struggled with what it meant to be saved. I didn’t like the humility of needing to be saved, or of acknowledging that there was no hope without Christ. I didn’t understand what the point was of becoming aware of my sins, knowing that my sinful nature wouldn’t change by claiming salvation in Christ. I read through Ephesians and copied many verses in my journal that answered a lot of my questions. I was becoming increasingly aware that I didn’t fit in anywhere – I was straddling two worlds.

On Labor Day I went to a church picnic with Tamie and others. We ate good food, played outside games and eventually sang some praise songs together. I didn’t know any of them, but these were the types of songs that after the first pass through, you got the general idea. “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” “It only takes a spark,” “Our God reigns,” and so forth. The Holy Spirit was calling, that sweet irresistible call – I was feeling a stirring of conviction in my heart that I could no longer deny. I went back to my dorm room that night, laid down on the bed and said, “Okay, Lord, I am all yours from this moment on. I know I’m a sinner, I know I need a Savior. Lord Jesus, thank you for saving me, for loving me and for making a way for me to be forgiven. I give myself to you.” I felt absolutely giddy with relief. I felt joyful, peaceful, happy, excited and just HAD to tell someone, even though it was after 10:30 p.m. I called my friend Sara, woke her up out of a sound sleep and told her the good news. “That’s great, Lynnie – wow!” Wow, indeed.

It seemed appropriate to have my spiritual birth happen on Labor Day. What a long and torturous labor and delivery that was! As a newborn Christian, I still had a lot to learn and twice as many things to unlearn, but oh, what a difference it made being on the other side.

Is the Hound of Heaven pursuing you? I rejoice to hear it! He will by no means give up, even when you believe you have closed the door on Him. Does it frighten you to think that He will not hesitate to do surgery on your soul and remove your cherished idols? I can think of nothing that He took from me that I would want back at the expense of knowing Him. The horror story of being chased by a hound becomes the love story of being ardently pursued by the One who knows every bit of the blackness in your soul and still wants you to be His. Do you look around at the messy group of people in His family and recoil at being related by faith to them? The joke is on you, my friend. Look in the mirror – you’re no great prize either.

I started this story in January of this year, not realizing that it would take me the whole year to finish it up. I’m a wordy person – perhaps you noticed that. And I took some lengthy breaks. But here we are in Advent season, on the cusp of celebrating the birth of our Lord. What better time to finish the best and truest story I have to tell! Thank you for joining me.

P.S. If you are interested in what happened next, start here:
Adventures of a Young Christian

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 7
My Story Part 8
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 10

I’ll probably delete this in the morning and start all over again. NOT.

I saw this bent-over wreath at the cemetery today and it made me think of a verse from “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.”

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,
Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.

I always liked that verse and its acknowledgement that sometimes people enter the Christmas season carrying a crushing load. How wonderful to think of resting beside the weary road where you can hear the angels singing “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Rest beside the weary road, friend. Let the Savior carry that burden for you.

I’ll probably delete this in the glad and golden hours of morning.

He called me from across the back yard
As I stood staring up into the snow-laden sky
Snow everywhere from secret vaults
Spilling, shaking, falling, spinning.

But as I said, he called me,
Not so much called, as barked
And jolted me out of my snowy reverie.

The little trespasser gave his challenge…
I answered with a friendly hello.
Hello! said I, and went to shake his hand.
Never! said he (Bark! Bark! Bark!)
And ran across the street
Where he turned to face me, boldly
Before disappearing into the falling snow.

I hope he comes again.

I’ll probably send this post into the snowy mist in the morning.

It’s a legitimate question.

I’ll probably be detoxing this post in the morning.

Journal entry: “Today I realized something really important. I do not want to serve God, I want Him to serve me. Somehow that makes a big difference. …One of my biggest problems with faith is that I find it so hard to believe certain things that are the very premise of Christianity, such as the immaculate conception and the resurrection of Christ. Wow- 2 biggies. My scientific mind wants a scientific explanation for these things, which is impossible. I cannot have both the explanation and Christianity at the same time. If I believe in one, then I cannot believe in the other. So here I am, a pitiful creature, begging for some help from God with my hopeless obsession and yet I don’t even believe the most primary of His miracles. If I have no faith in those, how can I possibly have faith that He can accomplish the miraculous in me? Ah…you see, that is the only conclusion that I can come to. He can’t. I have stalemated Him with my disbelief. How can I conquer this? It isn’t as easy as just telling myself that I have to accept the beauty and the truth of God’s miracles. Or is it? …I have learned things that haunt me with their persistent reminders of physiological necessity. Like how could there ever be a conception without both egg and sperm? And if God wanted Mary’s child to be the Messiah, the Christ, why couldn’t He have just put that in Jesus’s heart after he’d been normally conceived by 2 human parents? And when a body has ceased to function for 3 days, how could it have started working again? A brain would be mush by that time!

“I can see for myself how futile all these questions are. I am trying so hard to make human sense of non-human phenomenon. If I believe that God exists, then I have to believe that there are no scientific explanations for His existence, and I also have to believe that He created science, and that He created human beings to study and comprehend science. But I also then have to believe that the boundaries of science as we know them do not hold God in abeyance, since science is His creation. The final question that I have to ask myself to set this whole chain of ideas in motion is simple: Do I believe that God exists? The answer, as much as I’ve tried to ignore and avoid it, is YES, I do believe that God exists.”

Things were coming to a head, but I wasn’t quite ready to make it official yet. Just one week later I was writing questions like:

What’s all this talk about “fear” of the Lord?

What does it mean to be lost?

What does the Bible say about me, the uncertain, searching, possible Christian?

Christ died for my sins – I suppose that’s a good reason to love Him, so why does it stick in my throat?

I wondered why it was taking me so long to come to faith in Christ and derived comfort from some insight found in a fortune cookie: He who is most slow in making a promise is the most faithful in the performance of it. I really wasn’t sure yet about being identified as a Christian. It came with some bad PR in my book. I was concerned about becoming judgmental and self-righteous and did not want to make the same mistake as those who called themselves Christians but also dared to call themselves the Moral Majority (ha ha – I was pretty hard on that group!). But then I had to admit that I couldn’t stand in judgment of the Moral Majority either or I’d be a hypocrite. I wrote, “It is certainly true that Jesus’ most difficult command is that we love our enemies as we love ourselves. In theory it is glorious. In practice it is a herculean task.”

Take heart, we are nearing the end of my long journey. Unbelief had a few dying gasps left, but dying, it was. And resurrection was following close behind.

He who is most slow in the deleting of a blog post is most faithful in the performance of it.

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 7
My Story Part 8
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 11

Our fair little town hosts a “Winterfest” parade that my husband and I went to a couple nights ago. We walked up and down the downtown area looking at all the decorated windows, but looked in vain for any mention of the Christ of Christmas. Slowly but surely, nativity scenes have been replaced with snowmen, the word Christmas has been replaced with “Winter,” and Christmas hymns have been replaced by “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” The library still has a large crèche scene out front. I wonder how long before someone raises a stink about it. After a very nice fireworks display, the parade finally started. There must have been 30 or so floats, more than I expected. I was definitely feeling the cold in my fingers and toes by the time the last one rolled by. All the lights and colors and the excitement of children make it a very festive affair. There were lots of snowmen, a Grinch or two, a Star Wars themed float (complete with a live Wookie and an inflatable Baby Yoda) and three Santa Clauses. But the spirit of Christmas was a ghost at this parade with the exception of the men’s barbershop group that went by singing an actual Christmas hymn. Kudos, men! I definitely don’t want to see an inflatable baby Jesus floating around, but a manger scene or two would have been well received.

We went home and watched the 1999 version of “A Christmas Carol” with Patrick Stewart. There are a couple improvements I would make on it if I could (the Ghost of Christmas Future looks silly), but in general, this has been our favorite version. It’s not only faithful to the book, but also it creates an ambiance that honors the Biblical Christmas story, using Christmas hymns, a church visit on Christmas Day, and references to the One who made lame men walk. I used to read A Christmas Carol to our children in the evenings before Christmas. It only has five chapters, cleverly called “staves” by Mr. Dickens. For those of you who haven’t a musical background, staves is the plural of staff. It’s only right that book which purports to be a musical “carol,” is comprised of musical staves instead of chapters. It’s hard to find any sort of Christmas special that honors Christ, isn’t it? We usually watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special just to hear and see Linus reciting from Luke chapter 2.

What are your favorite Christmas specials?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning while admiring the Christmas tree.

Ben picked up a small piece of parchment paper off the floor at the library and wondered who may have dropped it. Some words were written on it in beautiful, precise script. “Look for the gilded geese at the close of the day.” He looked around. Was this a joke? He wasn’t in the mood for jokes. Life had taken a very hard turn for Ben and though he continued to walk, breathe and eat, his heart was heavy with loss and dread. He looked at the note again and as he was walking by the wastebasket, he threw it away. At least that’s what he intended to do. His mind had clearly issued the command to his fingers, but his fingers were taking their orders elsewhere, apparently. He folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket.

He went mechanically through the rest of his day, marveling that he could so efficiently work and interact with people where he was visible, and yet be so despondent in the hidden parts where he couldn’t be seen. Every once in a while, his fingers would find the note, unfold it, and he’d read it again. “Look for the gilded geese at the close of the day.” The more Ben read it, the more he needed to know what it meant. It wasn’t just idle curiosity anymore. “What does it mean?” he asked aloud. But no one heard him and no one answered.

He left the library late in the afternoon, shivering on his way to the car. December had arrived with snow and cold, and darkness was encroaching more and more on the day. Even now, the sun was low in the sky and that peculiar molten light of winter with no warmth in it was infiltrating the horizon. Walking with his head down, lost in thought, Ben didn’t hear it right away. As the sound drew nearer, though, it caught his attention. Geese. Lots of geese, flying overhead, heading south. He stood still, hands in his pockets, gazing upward, realizing that it had been a long time since he had looked up to the heavens. He watched as the geese moved in beautiful, precise script, writing across the sky. Four stragglers broke formation, the setting sun reflecting gold from the underside of their wings.

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Ah, so the question had been heard, Ben thought. Heard and answered. And as the geese continued on the path laid out for them from the beginning of time, Ben heard something else, words that he’d always known but had forgotten. “Be of good cheer. I will never fail you, nor forsake you.” He stood watching the sky for a long time, until stars began their nightly dance. The healing had begun.

Watch for the gilded blog post, flying south for the winter in the morning.

Dear red, red poinsettia
I don’t mean to upsettia,
But folks have been messing around
With the colors your flowers expound
It might make you put up a stink
To know someone has made you pink
You could feel a little spite
To see yourself all dressed in white
And it’s shocking, but it’s true
That in some cases, you’ve become blue!
I see that you’re shaking your head,
For you really should always be red.

This blog post should always be read.