Tag Archive for: advent

All Saints Day is about a perfect God

Fighting for joy in our imperfections

 

It’s All Saints Day. I’ve always felt a little under-educated about what this day means and its origins within the Christian tradition. I know there is a somewhat complicated history between the Jewish festivals featured in the Bible and the holidays that came along thereafter, which are still celebrated around much of the modern world today. All Saints Day falls the day after Halloween. It’s a day when many are turning their interests from a holiday that focuses on the human experience of fear to a season that celebrates the One who came to rescue us from all fear.

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Hope Was Born…For you. For 2020.

City Christmas light display

December reflections for a holiday like no other

 

“Every perfect gift is from God.” -James 1:17

 

If ever there was a time that our Christmas lists would look a little different, it seems this would be the year. When so much has been stripped away—the security of jobs, the simple pleasantries of dinners out, the elusive guarantee of good health, uncomplicated holiday plans—we are all reevaluating what matters to us. Not what matters most, just what matters at all.

 

It’s a family joke that my Dad is admittedly never short on gift ideas for his own big day or for Christmas (really, it’s helpful!), but he recently reposted the below tear-jerker, with a simple resounding “yea”: Read more

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A Prayer at Christmastime

FOR ALL THE WOMEN IN MY LIFE

If anyone were able to relate to Christmastime stress, it was Mary. Though the weight of the world wasn’t actually on her shoulders, the one who holds the world in His hands dwelt in her belly! I venture to say the list of things that could have had her in a tizzy on that holy night and in the weeks and months leading up to it would have Read more

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When Jesus Comes

“To Seek and To Save”

Advent 2019

 

As one of the fullest and most complete encounters of Jesus’s life, my good friend Jenni challenged me to read the entire Book of Luke this Advent season. This particular Gospel also includes the most commonly recited version of Jesus’s birth story. I thought, why not and began by reading the brief description given in my childhood Bible preceding the opening paragraphs of Luke. What I found there were eight little words that cut right to my core and are becoming my theme for the entire Advent season. These eight words are emboldening me to come off survival mode, turn off auto-pilot that becomes “just getting through the season,” and embrace the choice to cherish an ever-deepening understanding of what the Christmas and Advent season is all about.

 

I’ll get to what those eight powerful words were here in a moment, but let me start with this: How many of you feel like you already messed up Advent season?! I mean come on, I left Thanksgiving early to participate in the Black Friday (ahem, Thursday) shenanigans at Target. Along with my brother and some of my cousins, we giddily walked out of the housewares haven with a red cartful of shopping bags and a 55-inch flat-screen lodged diagonally like a Keep Reading

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