One of my favorite blogs to read is The View From Her which offers both godly advice and practical advice for women. Last week she posted a blog entitled “Holiday Survival Tips for Singles” that I really loved. While her ideas are certainly helpful, I was most encouraged by the spirit behind them. You can see for yourself:

“The holidays can be a difficult time for singles. We feel awkward at parties full of couples. We get lonely. Our families continually ask when we’re going to bring a nice guy (or girl) home for Christmas. We find ourselves innocently lingering in the general beneath-area of the mistletoe. (…Maybe that’s just me.) Anyway, here are a few positive ways for singles to deal with the holidays.

You know what I’m saying. Don’t wait. Live your life now. Celebrate Christmas in every way you can.”

For more great posts on a View From Her, click here.

I LOVE that story about the cross necklace! Hilarious. But Jan’s (the author) point is also true. A lot of single women put off big purchases and life changes (like buying a house) until they’re married, which makes the living in waiting feel much more acute. I appreciate her acknowledgement of the fact that God has special treasures for single women too. You do not get His table scraps! God wants much more for you than you even want for yourself, so make sure you’re not missing out on it. Special thanks to Jan for grabbing hold of that truth and living it out!

Now that Thanksgiving is over the Christmas season has officially begun! I’m proud to say that this year I managed to hold off listening to any and all Christmas music until now, and I successfully avoided the Black Friday madness once again. Although I admit that the latter didn’t take much convincing. On Thanksgiving Day Ike and I were driving to my grandmother’s when we heard a commercial belittling other store sales that waited “as long as 7am to open.” This particular store, on the other hand, proudly opened at 4am! Seriously?!? This has gotten out of control!

The Christmas season has also launched me and Ike into a debate about whether or not to tell our future kids that there’s a Santa Claus. When I was little and discovered that my parents had been lying to me my ENTIRE LIFE about Santa Claus, I felt very much betrayed, so I’m having some serious misgivings about doing the same to my kids. Not to mention the fact that Christmas is about Jesus, not Santa. Ike, on the other hand, doesn’t feel so strongly about Santa, and wonders how it will work out practically speaking when other kids are talking about Santa and our kids are the party poopers who burst their bubble. I guess we’ve got time to figure this stuff out, but let me know if you have any insights.

There is a lot of craziness that surrounds Christmas and it’s largely a distraction, but I wanted to share with you one thought as we enter into this season. Since I lost my grandfather 2 weeks ago, I’ve found it really difficult to listen to Christmas music. He loved Christmas music more than anyone I know, so it’s been hard for me to listen to it without crying. My heart aches inside every time, which makes me even more sad because I love Christmas music so much myself.

I imagine Christmas is like that for a lot of people. While it’s a time to rejoice, we’re also reminded of loved ones who are no longer celebrating with us. It can be very bittersweet.

The one thing that has comforted me during this time is to focus on why it is we observe Christmas; just what it is we’re anticipating. Hope. While I miss my grandfather so much and our traditions will now be tinged with sadness as he is no longer with us, I’m simultaneously reminded that the reason we celebrate Christmas at all is because of the hope we have in God’s redeeming work through Christ. This little baby would one day die and rise again so that we no longer have to despair or mourn. And this little baby also reminds us that those who have gone before us are singing songs to their Savior which make Handel’s Messiah pale in comparison.

So if you’re like me and you’re missing someone right now during this joyful season, I want you to know that you’re not alone, but I also encourage you to take heart. The reason we celebrate is because we have hope. God has come near, and death is not the end of the story. That is why we sing!

May we celebrate our freedom to express faith in Christ, but may we never cling to that freedom more than Christ.

Today I am celebrating the freedom bought for us on American battlefields, and the freedom bought for us on the cross. Happy Independence Day!

Several years ago I developed a really bad habit as a coping mechanism during a very dark time in my life–I watched t.v.

Now before you think I’m getting all Amish on you, let me explain what I mean. I had been watching t.v. before this all happened. Watching t.v., in and of itself, was not the problem. The problem was that my reason for watching t.v. had changed.

Rather than watching t.v. on occasion, taking in a show or two each week that I enjoyed, I had the t.v. on ALL THE TIME. I was going through a really dark season in my life and I was fairly depressed, so rather than face times of silence alone with my thoughts, I flipped on the t.v. It was a way of escaping my problems, fears, and insecurities. It distracted me from the things I didn’t want to think about, and it became a kind of refuge.

Although I don’t use t.v. for that reason anymore, my habit has essentially remained the same. Whenever I’m alone in my room or the house, I have the t.v. blaring. Even if I’m not watching it–maybe I’m cleaning my room or doing laundry–I’ll still have it on in the background. Every morning while I get ready for the day I listen to Good Morning America and Regis and Kelly chatting it up, almost as a kind of ambient noise.

Now in light of this behavior, I have come to a very important decision– it’s time for me to break the addiction! No more t.v. for me, and I can’t think of a better time to start than this Wednesday.

“Why this Wednesday?” you ask. “Isn’t that a little random?” Well that’s a great question! The reason I chose this Wednesday is because it’s the beginning of Lent.

Now for a lot of you reading this right now, you don’t really know what Lent is. I wrote a blog about it last year that you can check out here, but in short, it’s the 40 days leading up to Easter. For a significant part of my life I thought it was some weird tradition that only Catholics celebrated by giving up chocolate, but ever since college I’ve started observing it myself, and it’s been awesome. Which is why I’m inviting you to try it this year if you haven’t before.

The idea behind Lent is that you prepare for Easter, the time of remembering Christ’s death and resurrection, by reflecting on what Christ did for you on the cross. Throughout the history of the Church, Christians have traditionally done this by engaging in a type of fast. You identify something that you love or depend on, and abstain from it for 40 days.

For me, Lent is a time when I like to identify false saviors in my life–idols that I have come to rely on in place of Christ. Once I’ve identified them, I use Lent as a time to eliminate them. 40 days is just long enough to reverse those bad habits.

Last year I gave up gossip, which might seem sort of obvious but is actually quite hard. If you’ve never engaged in a gossip diet, check out my blog here for further details. But this year I’m giving up watching t.v. When I am alone for the next 40 days, I will be alone in silence. No more Regis and Kelly. No more Gilmore Girls re-runs.

Sometimes the prospect of this fast is daunting, but I think it will push me to pray more. It will also compel me to seek God as my refuge, rather than superficial distractions. Although a simple practice, I think it will enhance my relationship with God if I let it.

So as Wednesday approaches, I encourage you to observe Lent with me. Pray about what God might have you abstain from. Are there any false saviors in your life from which you need to fast? I also encourage you to post your ideas here, not for the sake of bragging, but giving ideas to other people. There are SO many false saviors in our lives that sometimes we don’t even see them all, so it’s helpful when others identify them for you.

I look forward to hearing your ideas, and I hope you will be blessed and transformed by it!

Forty years ago today, the Apollo 8 crew embarked on its landmark voyage to escape the earth’s gravitational field. It had never been done before, and the Americans were in a race against the Russians to do it first. 

Today, on Christmas Eve, I have posted the broadcast of these three men as they peered down at the earth for the first time. Their words are both moving and profound. They provide Christians with a great perspective on Christmas Eve as we ponder the multiple meanings of the phrase, “Let there be light.” 

I don’t care what you say, my family has THE coolest Christmas tradition ever.

It all began years ago when my brother and I came downstairs to find a ransom note hanging on the mantle in place of our stockings. Upon reading the note we learned that the Grinch had come to our house and stolen our presents. That’s right, The Grinch.

The only way to retrieve our stolen stockings was to embark on a scavenger hunt throughout the house, decoding numerous tricky clues. Only if we were clever enough to uncover the meanings of the clues would we be able to find our presents.

Over the years, this tradition has evolved. My dad burned out from coming up with so many riddles, so the scavenger hunt has now been reduced to one single puzzle. But make no mistake–these puzzles have not gotten easier as my brother and I have aged.

Two years ago we had to fill out an elaborate Christmas crossword puzzle, then we used key letters from the crossword to spell out the location of our presents. That puzzle was my dad’s finest masterpiece. The questions were all Christmas related, but they were insanely obscure–I don’t even know where he found that information! It definitely blew my seminary degree to smithereens. Nothing kicks off Christmas better than a little shame and humiliation.

Now the reason I wanted to share this tradition with you is not to brag on how cool my dad is (or to subliminally beg him to PLEASE keep on making the puzzles even though I’m 27 years old and I should have outgrown them and he’s getting tired of making them). The reason I bring it up is that there is something profoundly theological about this tradition.

I’d never noticed it before until I heard a pastor describe his own family’s practice of putting riddles on each present before they could be opened. The riddle would be a clue as to what was inside, and the pastor compared this practice to the story of Scripture.

Frequently, we tell the Christmas story as if it is a sudden break in the narrative. All the boring Old Testamenty stuff was going on, but out of nowhere Jesus bursts upon the scene and things suddenly get interesting. Because it appears at the beginning of the New Testament, we read the birth narrative as a transition point that divides the Bible in half: there’s pre-Jesus, and post-Jesus.

But in reality, the Christmas story is more like my scavenger hunt. Prior to receiving my presents there were tons of clues leading me to them. The gifts didn’t just appear out of nowhere–the puzzles were pointing me to them all along. And it is the same with the Christmas story. Jesus doesn’t just drop into the story abruptly. All over the Old Testament there are clues pointing God’s people to him. The Old Testament is just as much a part of the Christmas story as the Gospels.

From Genesis onward, we see hundreds of clues directing us to the coming of Christ. Even the title of this post comes from Isaiah 9–check it out. It is a beautiful description of Christ’s birth, only it was written hundreds of years before he was born. Indeed, the Old Testament is all building up to this moment.

And given that fact, we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas just once a year. Yes, let’s take some time to rest and celebrate, but if Scripture never stopped pointing to Christ, then neither should we. The entire story, Genesis to Revelation, is all about Jesus, and that is a model for our lives. We must celebrate Christ and point others towards him with the same consistency and fervency that we do at Christmas time.

With that in mind, I want to close with an excerpt from Isaiah 9. Read it and imagine the expectancy of the Israelites as they awaited the coming of this marvelous event:

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. –Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas!!

Every Christmas season Hollywood finds a new way to butcher the meaning of Christmas, and this year is no exception. My most current commercial nemesis is brought to us this year by the people at Macy’s. You may have seen it already, but for those of you who haven’t, it goes like this….. 

Did you catch that at the end? Did you notice when Martha Stewart said “it” instead of “he?” I watched it several times just to make sure that’s really what she’s saying, and it is. That’s right, Santa got neutered.

Now I have to admit that I sympathize with what the commercial is saying–what parent hasn’t broken the news to their kids that Santa doesn’t exist by coming up with some story about how Santa is more of a “spirit” or an “idea” that characterizes Christmas. Most people, Christians included, would confess that Santa is real in that sense.

(And for the record, that’s exactly what my parents told me when I learned the painful reality that Santa isn’t real, but it didn’t make me feel better one stinkin’ bit. All I remember is thinking that my parents had been lying to me my whole life. That’s a cautionary tale for you parents out there.)

But I think what bothers me about this commercial is that the person they describe in this commercial isn’t Santa, it’s Christ. Just notice the language they use–Santa is equated with love and generosity, he is the reason for childlike faith, and he lives eternally. That’s Jesus they’re talking about, not some made up fat dude in a red suit.

And that’s what bothers me about this commercial’s attempt at sentimentality. The use of the word “it” is the final nail in the coffin of Christmas time theology. We are completely divorcing all language about Christmas from its actual meaning. Hollywood desires this to be a season of “hope” and “joy” but without any sort of foundation upon which to base those sentiments.

Hope in what? Joy in what? We are a country plagued by war and immorality. Our economy is faltering and people are losing their jobs. From where are we supposed to conjure up this hope and joy? It can’t just appear out of nowhere, and it certainly isn’t going to come from Macy’s. 

That is why it’s imperative that we as Christians hold on to the meaning of Christmas. And not just “in your hearts”–that’s not enough. You need to fight for it in tangible ways. Invite your neighbors and co-workers to church with you on Christmas Eve so that they can hear the Gospel. Ask your non-Christian friends what they think about the Christmas season, or what they teach their kids about it. Think of creative ways to engage people in conversation, because it’s in our faces every day.

And that in-your-face dynamic of Christmas commercialism is the key reason why we need to fight. The predominate teachings about Christmas are coming from Hollywood commercials instead of people who actually know Christ. That’s why we need to speak up and step up. Don’t just get swept up in the Christmas time craziness and let this opportunity pass you by. Use your sphere of influence to fight against the superficial messages about Christmas so that we can reclaim its true meaning, and celebrate the source of our gifts, rather than the gifts themselves. 

I posted the following blog just after Christmas last year, but I thought it would be a great reminder as you go out and get your Christmas tree this season. Whenever you look at your tree this year, consider whether it is a picture of your spiritual life.

Even though the Christmas season ended over a month ago, our Christmas tree is still sitting in our front yard. “Why?,” you ask. Well I blame the garbage pick-up people. Apparently there was some sort of miscommunication between us.

A couple weeks after Christmas had passed, we dragged our Christmas tree to the top of our driveway so that the garbage truck could take it away the next morning. Well when my roommates and I came home the following afternoon, we arrived to a startling surprise. Not only had our tree NOT been picked up, but it had been shoved all the way down the hill of our front yard.

It was so far away from the curb that it looked like a deliberate and clear rejection. It was like they were sending us a message: “We want absolutely nothing to do with this tree. In fact, please don’t come near us again.”

Needless to say, I’m still a little hurt.

Ever since then, our tree has been sitting in our front yard untouched. No one from the road can see it because it’s so far down the hill, which is probably why we haven’t moved it–we don’t have to worry about the neighbors thinking we’re hillbillies who leave our trash in our yard. But we also haven’t moved it because we don’t really know what else to do with it. The garbage people rejected it, so where else does one turn?

(And p.s., if you know the answer to why our tree was rejected–if there’s some kind of North Carolina Christmas tree disposal law about which I am unaware–please inform me)

Now this tale of Christmas tree woe is not the point of my writing today. But seeing that sad, little Christmas tree in our front yard, which browns and withers with every passing day, reminds me of an important spiritual truth.

At the end of the day, a Christmas tree is little more than a dying tree. This reality is obvious now that my tree is dried out and brown, but we don’t really think about that fact at Christmastime when the tree is dressed up with ornaments and lights. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I would just sit in front of our tree and stare at it because it was so beautiful, but no matter how much we dressed up that tree, we couldn’t change the reality that this tree had been cut off from its roots, and was now dying a slow and sure death.

Oftentimes, my life feels just like that beautiful Christmas tree. I have covered myself with all kinds of Christian decorations–I have a seminary degree, I’m a writer, a college minister, a Bible study leader, and a mentor to many young women. But at the end of the day, those achievements are all just decorations. They don’t really mean anything, because they do not sustain the Christian life. If you cut yourself off from the Source, then you can be doing all the activities in the world, but still be withering spiritually. And sometimes I feel like I am.

That said, I want you to ask yourself–are you a Christmas Tree Christian? Do you feel as though you are piling on decoration after decoration, yet neglecting the source of your spiritual life? Are your roots firmly planted in an ever-growing relationship with God, or have you cut your roots off by neglecting time in Scripture and prayer?

Like a dying Christmas tree, spiritual death is not readily apparent. It could take months, even years, before the lack of nourishment becomes observable. And that makes it easy for us to ignore this part of our spiritual lives. But if left unfed long enough, the death will inevitably come. Our branches will become too dried out to hold up those ornaments, so they will break and drop them. And eventually, we will look just like that poor little tree that sits in my front yard.

If you are feeling that strain on your branches, or if you feel as though your roots have been cut off from their source, take some time for yourself and God. At the end of the day, your Christian activities are nothing more than cheap ornaments, treasures on earth to be burned away. God cares little for the things that make us look glorious, but He cares greatly for a heart which glorifies Him.

Well, sort of.

Right now I’m in California visiting my brother and sister-in-law, and yesterday we all went to the pound to adopt a puppy! She is a 4 month old black lab named Isobel, “Izzy” for short, and she is awesome! Possibly the coolest dog in the world…second only to mine.

The first 24 hours of having her have been a relative walk in the park because she had minor surgery yesterday morning, and since that time she’s been completely doped up on anesthesia. She slept the entire ride home, and then plopped down on her bed as soon as we got her inside.

The only time she came close to moving at all last night was when we would sit down beside her, and she would enthusiastically wag her tail in response. But as flattering as that felt, I think the wagging was less a sign of her affection for us, and more a side effect of the drugs–if she could talk, she probably would have been saying something along the lines of “I love you, man! No really, I LOVE you!”

Needless to say, we’re not entirely sure what her personality will be like once she emerges from her drug induced haze, but so far she seems like a real sweetheart.

I have never adopted a dog from the pound, so this is all a new experience for me, and it’s been very thought provoking. We were told that about 90% of dogs that end up in the pound are there because their owners had problems with them. Maybe the dog was aggressive, or barked too much, or peed all over the place, and so on. For all of these reasons and more, pet owners cast off their animals into fate’s hands. Maybe another family will adopt them, but maybe not.

Given that background, Izzy’s story is one of tremendous fortune. Not only was she rescued from possible death, but she was delivered from a horrible environment into the lap of luxury. In the home of my brother and sister-in-law, she is now loved unconditionally, and every one of her needs is attended to. She will never have to worry about food or water or shelter, and she will always be safe. She was loved before they even met her, and the rest of her life is secure.

Well as I sat next to little Izzy this morning watching her sleep, I thought about how her short life has been a beautiful story for Easter. Hers is a tale of being unloved, rejected, and handed over to possible death. But then, due to no action of her own, she was suddenly plucked from that state and delivered into the hands of someone who loved her, but not because of anything she had done, and will take care of her for the rest of her life. It is a perfect picture of redemption in Calabasas, CA.

Now I know this analogy is bordering on cheesy–something you might find in Reader’s Digest or Chicken Soup for the Soul, but the reason I mention it is that this would have been a great Easter story, regardless of what time of the year it transpired. You see Easter is not something that happens once a year. While it is indeed important to set aside a special day to focus on Christ’s death and resurrection, the story of Easter is something that happens every day of the year. Everywhere around us, God is bringing His salvation into the world, and everywhere around us He is working out redemption. Every moment contains a sign post, an echo, a whisper of what is to come–we must simply look for it.

So yes, mourn Good Friday and celebrate Easter Sunday, but don’t stop there. God has created a world that shouts to us the goodness of His grace and love. Yesterday I found it in an L.A. County dog pound. I’m sure I will find it some place new today, if I only look.

I don’t know how this happened, but I managed to get through 27 years of life and 3 years of seminary without ever having attended an Ash Wednesday service. In fact, I didn’t even know what it was until I got to college. I was pretty confused when I saw people walking around campus with black smears on their foreheads. I remember wondering if it was some new cult that I hadn’t heard about.

Well today I experienced my first Ash Wednesday service EVER. It was thoroughly un-Baptist–lots of reciting liturgy and reading excessively long and bleak passages of Scripture. I tried to spice it up a bit by suggesting we add music to the program, but even with my guitar playing and my attempts at being upbeat, it was fairly dark.

It was also very powerful.

Let me tell you why….

If you’re like me, you may not understand what this crazy Ash Wednesday stuff is all about, so I’ll fill you in. What most people do know is that it marks the beginning of Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter. Traditionally, Christians have used the season of Lent as a time to fast in preparation for Easter. It is a time to reflect on the gravity of our sin, and how that sin resulted in the execution of our Savior. Fasting is a way of focusing our hearts and minds on what is to come–every time we are tempted to partake of the chocolate, soda, sugar, etc. that we’ve decided to give up, we are reminded of Christ and what he sacrificed for us.

But what’s with the ashes? In the course of an Ash Wednesday service, the minister places ash on your forehead in the shape of a cross and then pronounces, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” What’s that about?

Well in my opinion, this is the coolest part about Ash Wednesday. Those ashes are not just random ashes from the minister’s fireplace–they come from a very special source. Traditionally, they are the ashes of the palm leaves used at Palm Sunday the previous year.

Do you see the meaning here?? The very palms that we used to celebrate and exalt our Savior are the same palms we use to acknowledge our tremendous unfaithfulness to him. One minute we are praising God, the next minute we are sinning against Him. That is the searing truth behind those ashes. They remind us of what it is to be human, what it is to be a sinner.

And that is why those words are spoken over us on Ash Wednesday. The ashes of our duplicity are emblazoned on our foreheads, exclaiming to us and the world: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are human, you are fallible, you are a sinner. Think on this, meditate, grieve and repent for you stand unfaithful before a holy God.”

The hymn we sang today was entitled “What Wondrous Love Is This,” and the Episcopal campus minister noticed that one of the stanzas to the song does not appear in the Episcopal hymnal. He also had a sinking suspicion why. The words of the deleted stanza read as follows: “When I was sinking down, beneath God’s righteous frown, Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.” The minister jokingly reasoned that Episcopalians don’t like to think about God frowning, which is probably why that stanza didn’t make it into the hymnal. People don’t like to think about that kind of God, a God who detests our sin.

But that is what Ash Wednesday is all about. We are forced to confront our sin, without excuse. We have to be honest with ourselves, and honest with God. That is indeed a difficult task. But in doing so, we are blessed to discover the magnitude of God’s love. The more seriously we take this season, and the more thoroughly we consider the depths of our sin, the more profoundly we will understand the grace that has been bestowed upon us, and the more jubilantly we will rejoice upon the day of his resurrection. While Ash Wednesday is somber, it is not masochistic–it is actually a means for more fully comprehending our blessedness. If we are willing to embark on this difficult journey for the next 40 days, we will discover it is actually a gateway to fuller joy.

I hope this little Ash Wednesday lesson encourages you to embark on just such a journey.