I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 32.

Which makes me a decade older than Taylor Swift, but who is counting?  Bless it all, I am.  

Some pretty remarkable things have happened for me since 22.  College graduation.  A job.  Marriage.  Then the baby carriages.  So many breath-taking things in such a short time span. And too many mistakes, fumbles and learning curves to count.

One of the ways I responded to all these beautiful milestones was trying to be a grown up.  Or my version of a grown up.  Grown ups did the right thing.  Always.  Grown ups were strong and didn't ask for help.  Grown ups made meatballs from scratch, even when babies were crying and sleep was a distant memory.  They dusted their baseboards at ten pm when company was coming the next morning.  They wore sweatpants and took showers every third day.

And the kicker: grown ups didn't chase dreams.  They just didn't.  They needed to be fully invested in the reality of jobs, children, and keeping up on laundry.  There was no time for dreaming, unless it involved the American dream of picket fences and 3.2 kids.

There were parts of me that I kept stuffing down into my shoes every time they surfaced.   My creative person.  My spontaneous person.  My funny person.  They would well up, at times, and yell, "remember me?" I'd be like, "no habla ingles," and promptly drown out their sound with my vacuuming.  They were all too much for me in my twenties.  I was too overwhelmed with keeping it all together to let them come out and play.

But God.  My whole life story can be summarized in this magical phrase.  I am a wiener, but God.  I try to be perfect, but God.  Thank God for the but God's.  Jesus, in His originality, began to transform my ideas of what being a grown up looked like.  It was not running after the ideal grown up that I had frantically painted in my head.

It was allowing who He has made me to be to settle in.  All of me.

When God purposed my little life out,  He didn't include the long legs I have wished for.  He didn't make me as tall as I'd like.  He threw in a mind that races like a hamster in a wheel, a disposition that makes me slightly awkward in large group settings, and hair that will just not stay straight.  For the love.

And while I know the list of all the things I have not, He has opened my 32 year old heart to notice the things I am.  Work with what the good Lord gave you, and so forth.  I am realizing, more and more, that being a grown up is the greatest balancing act of all.  It's the act of reconciling all the parts of myself to one another and fitting them together in a way that says: I don't care.  I love it.  I love this.  I love me.  Thank you God.

It feels like, finally, I've gathered all the little versions of myself and have told them to get in my belly.  I'm no longer putting my pre-teen awkward self in a time out.  I'm calling the part of me that needs more sleep up out of the basement and back into my bed.  I need eight hours folks.  I just do.  The attention seeking part of me is okay too.  I've learned how to work with her.  Wow. So many parts and persons in this shell of a body. We'll need a special handshake or something.

I needed to walk through my twenties to get to this grand place of 32.  I feel settled into myself, finally at peace with who God has crafted me to be. I also know that it's not over.  I know that decade from now, I will feel even more resolved to live my one and only precious life with this stretch marked body, this quirky mind, and the genuine spirit God has given me.  

So, to all of my twenty something friends who are dreading the big 3-0:  Run towards the light that is your thirties.  You are getting older.  There is absolutely nothing on God's green/polluted earth you can do about it.  But, along with those fine wrinkles forming at the corners of your horrified eyes comes an understanding of yourself and your God that only time can bring.  Hug it.

Arrival.

Ten years into marriage and I am still buying the whole love language thing.  Time after time our marital tension boils down to one simple indiscretion:  I am not loving him the way God designed him to be loved.   And he is not sitting down on the couch and processing/analyzing/discussing every nuance of our life with me.  

My poor husband.  Especially on road trips.  I look at him, after the car is packed and the girls are strapped in and stuffed with goldfish, and say: You are MINE.  Then I promptly pull out my mental list of all the things I'd like to discuss with him.  

By the second hour, Greg is usually like, "Are you tired?  You look tired.  You should totally take a nap."

Gah.  I don't know what it is about me, but I don't understand myself until all streams of consciousness have left my brain via my mouth.  I need my words and thoughts free, so I can run after them with a net and keep the ones that make sense.  It's kind of like elementary school, where the teacher would scramble a sentence on the chalkboard and we would take turns writing it out correctly.  

I need the time and space to think aloud until I arrive.  It's how I roll.

I understand, that for most men, pointless talking is like a form of Chinese torture.  Men are designed to have conversations that are efficient.  You know.  With conclusions, game-plans, and bullet points.  Greg, bless his heart, is forever trying to meet me where I'm at in my thought process.  Most of the time, however, he gets off the hook.  He is a lucky man.

Because I have my sisters.  Oh, those saintly psychos that I am blessed enough to call friends. With these women I have room to ponder, reflect, and whine until I make sense.  There is time for the arrival.  They understand that getting there is just as important as the conclusion.  They are able to speak truth into the process, and patiently hold my hand so I don't trip on myself. 

Which is why I value coffee and dinner dates just as much (ok, a lot more) as the play date.  I love doing life with my friends who have young kids, but conversation at it's best is choppy and unfinished.  There's always a nose or bottom to wipe.  That's the reality of most of our lives right now.  And it's beautiful.  

But there is something to be said about stepping outside of our fruit-snack realities and into deep and messy conversations with one another.  It is so worth it.  It is worth the shots of double espresso or the cheese fries or whatever it takes to stay awake enough to have meaningful and intentional time together.  I meet one of my dearest sisters at six in the morning and we pound french toast like you wouldn't believe.  It's the only time that works for us.  Therefore we make it work.

I feel like this is one of the good and perfect gifts that God has given us.  Untangling life through conversation and prayer with a sister.  It could also be so the men in our lives don't go insane from non-stop dialogue.  Greg loves when I share insight garnered from a heart to heart with a friend.  Probably because it saved him four hours of his life.  But still. 

Long live the girlfriend.  

Outsourced.

I'm a little hesitant to even try and camp on such huge grounds with my tiny vocabulary, but the wrestling in my heart won't give my fingers peace until I try.  So darn it all, here I go.

Outsourcing.  Tiny pet peeve of mine.  When I call a customer service number and end up speaking with a very nice (albeit hard to understand) person in Pakistan; I usually end up getting off the phone because:

A. I feel rude after asking them to repeat themselves and I don't want to hurt feelings
B.  My kids are punching each other in the eyeballs with crayons
C.  I just want to talk to the source.  Just please.  Put me on the phone with whoever    
     created this cell-phone, this credit card, or this dishwasher.

You guys.  The abiding life in Christ Jesus is being outsourced.  We are exchanging His words for blogs (oh the irony), sermons, podcasts and relevant Christian magazines.  We are devouring books on Christian living, fist pounding at the Toby Mac concerts, and aligning ourselves with politicians who believe as we do.  We chase after whatever is trending.  I hear this year it's riding Schwinn bicycles and composting.  So there's that.

We are creating a sub-culture where the middle man becomes more important than the Man.  We flock to our spiritual heroes in times of crisis, despair, and political brouhaha.  We beg them: tell us your thoughts! How should we feel about Boston?  Where should we align ourselves on marriage equality?  We chase down our Pastors and Christian radio-talk hosts to help us crawl out of spiritual valleys, relational mire, and financial bogs.  We scream for steps, diagrams, and plans.  

Someone just give us a freaking plan.  

 One of my dear friends likened it to a sugar addiction. We need our fix.  Our spirits have become accustomed to tidbits of holiness, packaged and presented in other peoples words and revelations.  We want to Cliff's notes version on Christianity, thank you very much.  Trudging through the Word of God on our own and sitting in a dark closet waiting for Him to speak is just far too laborious.  

If someone could just chew up my food and spit it into my mouth, that'd be cool too.

For, if we substitute these good things for the Best Thing, then no wonder the world is confused by us.  If, when people come to us, asking about our Jesus and Who He is, and we bring them to church, point them towards a Francis Chan book, or tell them to listen to K-Love...aren't we just like those difficult to understand Pakistani phone calls?  Are we always ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us, or are we ready for Shane Claiborne to do it for us?  

People are asking US for a reason.

Are we daily searching the Word of God, hiding it in our heart? Do we even realize that is is living and active? That it will cut some of the holy tension and confusion we feel while wandering this planet? That, even the stories we swear that we could recite from memory or Mrs. Andersons 2nd grade Sunday school class can still breath God's promises to us in new ways?   And prayer.  Oh, the power of hitting our knees, crying out to the Source of everything.  Lifting up our voices on the behalf of the week, needy, and lonely ones.  Waiting in silence, allowing God the space to do as He may.  

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 peter 2:2-3

 We need to grow up into our salvation.  We have tasted that the Lord is good.  Now it's time.  Time to hit it hard.  He has given us his Holy Words, you guys.  No middle man needed.  Let's take full advantage of our royal priesthood status, and enter the holiest space of all...a life in community with God.  A life lived to know Him and make Him known.  

Please understand.  This is coming from an area of personal conviction.  I love reading others stories and how God has inspired them.  But those stories are not my own.  And the Author of my story is waiting, patiently and long-sufferingly (it's a word now) for me to live out my own.  I am ever learning.

Remind me.

I thank you, Lord Jesus.

For when you descended to the depths of Sheol you brought my junk with you

You brought with you the part of me that wants to promote myself through my parenting

You took with you the way I count beans with my husband

You went down with my trappings of appearance

You lugged my endless battle of idealism

You sank under my wasted time on social media
You descended with my tendency to find flaws in everything and everyone

You carried my pride. My doubt.  My jealous heart

The weight of my filth crushed you, like an anchor
Dropping you into the deepest grave of all.

The effortless way that I give into myself over and over again

Pushed you down further, deeper, and held you there

And you left it there 

You did battle for me

Because you went, I will never have to

Please. 

Remind me, that when you rose, I rose

I stepped out of that grave with you.  Unblemished

Clothed in white, no longer sitting in my own filth

Clean because you did my laundry

Remind me, it's already done

Let my little life exhaust itself in gratitude

My hands become calloused in thankfulness

Not because I need to prove myself to you

But because it is finished.

Thank you Jesus.  

The List.

"This isn't going to happen."

Rachel Baker. Circa 2000.  On a grassy knoll in between my freshman dorm and his.  Breaking his heart.  Without a candlestick.

"We'll see about that."

Greg Hamann.  Circa bleach-blonde-hair-sticking-out-of-a-visor-era.  Calling my bluff.

I can pretty much boil down our entire pre-dating relationship to this single conversation.  We hashed out this talk many ways, in many settings, with various hairdos for well over a year.  Greg, with a resolve only God knew, pursued me in a way that was unparalleled.  I couldn't figure out why.  I was a hot mess of contradictions, pimples, and holy determination.

The first time Greg and I took the obligatory walk around Judson's loop he tackled me to the ground somewhere around the sand volleyball courts.  I didn't know whether to scream, laugh, or pee my pants.  I think I did a little of each.  I was thrown off by how forward he was. I kind of liked it.  We sat in the cold sand, looked up at the stars, and talked about things I didn't usually talk about.  He wanted to know about my family. It was refreshing. Greg was very honest about where He was at.  With God, with himself, and with me. 

Somewhere between the sand volleyball courts, the late night walks, the rocks he threw at my dorm window just for me to open up so he could tell me he was thinking of me, the notes I'd find in my campus mailbox, and the way he unabashedly declared his intentions of winning my heart...I realized....he already had it.  I was slowly giving myself over to the notion of a future with one Mr. Greg Hamann.  

Just one thing.  There was The List.

Somewhere, in my infinite youth group teenage wisdom, I had created The List.  The List was a detailed account of character qualities and physical qualities that I wanted in a future husband. You guys.  Don't judge.  It was the thing back in 1998.  Also, my best friend came to college with a plastic Cinderella slipper on a necklace.  Waiting for her prince charming.  So there.

The List.  My future husband must have brown hair.  Blue eyes. Working towards full time ministry.  Guitar skills and vocal talent preferable.  Willingness to move across the country, across the world for the Kingdom.    Must outfit himself entirely from American Eagle (stop it. I know.).  He must be able to sit down with my dad and have heavy theological conversations.  He probably shouldn't be too attached to family.  He must not weigh less than me. Ha.   He needs to lead me spiritually.  He needs to be intense.  Fit in with my ministry minded friends.

Greg.  Blonde hair.  Bleached blonde, in fact.  Blue eyes. Marketing major. Was still figuring out the Jesus thing.  Athlete extraordinaire.  Had never held a guitar in his life.  Wore a thrift store bowling jacket with Otis on the nametag.  Told me on our first date that he would never move away from his family.  Skinny as a rail.  Had never prayed with a girl before me. Greg was not complex. Sure of himself, yet humble in a way I had not yet known.  We also ran in, er, different social circles at Judson.

So why, for the love, was I falling in love with him? On paper, literally, we didn't make sense.   Many of my ministry minded friends didn't understand our connection.  I know many of his teammates didn't really grasp how we made sense.  I went back and forth.  Greg remained steady in his feelings for me.  To this day, neither of us really know how or why he did.  But God.

But God.  I remember, methodically and painfully, God undid some of the benchmarks I had set for the future Mr. Rachel Baker. He replaced them with His truths, His standards, and His ideal for me.  I am a little slow on the uptake, but I began to realize how Greg Hamann was my new List.  Best. Decision.  Ever.

Fast forward twelve years later.  

Greg and I served dinner with our small group at a local PADS shelter.  It was my first time serving, but Greg has regularly helped out with the homeless in our community.  I was absolutely floored by how many of the homeless knew my husband, shook hands with him, asked him to pray, and asked him about his family.  I stood in a stupor as my husband rallied forty plus of the marginalized population to pray over our meal, and how he quietly and calmly diffused tense situations, broke up fights, and gave to whomever had need.

My husband had never looked so hot to me.

Um, and I was an awkward fool.  I stammered around the homeless, nervous about saying the wrong things or making too much eye contact.  I was super uncomfortable when a teenage mom-to-be was crying on my shoulder about her place in life.  I was like...do you want a kleenex?  I'm sorry that you are homeless, pregnant, and that your husband doesn't want to be with you anymore. Want a brownie?  

Here I am.  I am most comfortable within the four walls of a church.  I speak fluent Christianese.  I know how to lead worship, prayer meetings, small groups and I can change a nursery diaper like no other.  Doing life with other believers is my first language.  I am so confident of myself, and of God when I am inside a church building.  I know, like three people, who aren't Christians.    Take me outside those four walls, and my confidence is shaken.  I'm so humbled.  And ever-learning.  

And my husband.  Who didn't meet The List.  Who shakes hands and shares prayers with the least of these.  Who serves and doesn't need a soul to know about it.  Who quietly shares his faith with those in his workplace.  Who just does.  Outside the four walls of the church.  He doesn't know Christianese.  Or if he does, he doesn't use it.  Greg has a simple, active faith.  While I am talking about what God is teaching me in a coffee shop, he is handing a coffee to the homeless man outside my window.  

I came home that night earlier than Greg.  I sunk to my knees, crying and thanking God for my husband. And feeling a fool.

I have so much to learn from this man.

I am so thankful that God doesn't keep lists for us.  I am so glad he shook my silly nineteen year old self into realizing His Word is actually true.   He has plans to prosper us.  If only I could learn to let go more, of my check-lists, and my ideals, and my hopes.  

I know, that offered up to God, in fear and trembling, He will take my check-lists and transform them into something so so so so beyond what I could try to imagine.   


“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” 
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I got 99 problems, but Seven is not one.

I had one of those talks with my sister, Adrienne, that only sisters can have.  We were discussing a book I've been asked to review, Seven: An Experiential Mutiny against Excess, by Jen Hatmaker.  I LOVE me some Jen Hatmaker.  Like, let-me-inhale-everything-she's-ever-written-or-spoken LOVE HER.  I was so excited to write a review on Seven because I deeply admire her ability to convict others towards active holiness through her honesty, humility, and ridiculous sense of humor.  

Ok, backdrop. Seven is about taking a month at a time to root out the excess in our Christian lives. Month one begins with food, where Hatmaker committed to only eating seven foods for 31 days.  From there, she reduced her wardrobe to seven articles of clothing for one month.  Then possessions.  Social media.  Waste.  Spending.  The intense Seven experience was end-capped with month seven: a fast from the busy life.  During this month, Jen and her family practiced Seven Sacred Pauses (Macrina Wiederkehr), where they made space for prayer and meditation seven times a day.  Just wow.

Ok, personal reaction.  Um, the book made me feel like crap.  I felt like I had just finished reading the account of a saint.  Seriously. I read about how she drove her family downtown monthly to barbecue for the homeless of Austin, and how she took part in a community gardening initiative that benefited the marginalized.   Bought organic. Had a compost. Created a storage room with her friends in the off chance a refugee might need some bed sheets or a night stand.  Girlfriend does all the fasting. Feeds all the people.  Prays all the prayers.  

Book review nothing.  Life review: ugh.

This overwhelming feeling of inadequacy is so not new for me.  I wish.  I felt it when reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis.  Pretty much any book chronicling a life chasing Jesus.  It's a familiar feeling; this holy despair.  An unparalleled tension.  I feel ready to have a full blown panic attack, worried that I am not living a life set apart enough for Jesus.  I look at these authors and how the Spirit has led them on these insane journeys, and has also gifted them with the use of words.  I feel so small.

So, my normal reaction to these convictions?  Do I pray more?  No.  Do I take out my Bible and study it, waiting for the Spirit to lead me on my own journey? Do I ask Jesus to lead me into what He has for my little piece of His story?  Not so much.

Instead...I get all cray cray.

After reading Seven, I partook in recycling freakishness.  I started interrogating the nutrition labels at Trader Joe's.  I went cold turkey with Facebook for a few weeks.  It's cool. I only missed out on three Christmas parties.  I would almost smirk as I drove straight past my old shopping grounds and straight into the parking lot of our local thrift store.  Stupid people who shop at Gap.  Darn the man.  I sat my four year old down and explained how we wouldn't buy chocolate from Hershey anymore because they bought cocoa from farms in Africa that enforced child labor.  She just stared at me blankly and asked, "So can I have my M&M's now?"  I maniacally demanded my family rest during the Sabbath.  My one year old would be throwing her pootie pie diapers down the stairs at the end of a Sunday because she was so bored.

I did it.  I went all commando on saintly. 

For like three weeks.  Slowly, my former life crept back in.  I (gasp!) threw a plastic water bottle away.  I caved in and ate a whole row of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.  I drove by a homeless person without a ready-made lunch in my backseat.  I bought a shirt at the Gap.  On clearance.  But still.  I felt like a failure. 

This is where a moment of clarity came through a discussion with my little sis.  I was explaining how I become three parts convicted and one part annoyed after reading books like Seven.  How I feel like I get wrapped up in other peoples stories and convictions, and I can't separate who God's called me to be from whom God has called these authors to be.  Adrienne, in her wisdom that still sometimes sidelines me, reminded me that the spirit of religion resides in both sides of the Christian spectrum.  Then came this beauty:

Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
    as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to heed is better than the fat of rams

                                                            1 Sam 15:22

Boom.  Thank you Samuel, prophet of old.  Sometimes, I get all caught up in the doing.  In what others are doing.  I see God moving in their lives and I want to join, so I can be a part of His story.  What I forget is that I NEED to be obedient to the life God has called me to.  That I might have another plot in His story. Sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice isn't what most delights my Savior.  It's obedience to what He has made known to me.

I'm not quite sure what that is yet.  I do know this:  while many convictions posed by Hatmaker in Seven have taken residence in my heart, her story is not my story.  I know that God wants to make my story known to me.  To all of us.  He is so capable. Capable of sweeping us into one massive holy story.  Braided together, overlapping, back and forth, all the while creating something strong,  something unique, something beautiful.  Something that points ALL of our spheres of influence back towards the Creator.  God.  Who does all the braiding.  Yes.

Please understand that I am not advocating being motionless for the Kingdom.  There are mandates set forth by God that cannot be ignored.  The Bible is so clear that we are to be actively pursuing justice, mercy, and holiness.  That we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and live outside of ourselves until we breathe our last.  However, God's Word (holler at your Samuel) also clearly says that we are to be on our faces before our Living God, asking what He has for us at this very moment, this very day, this very year that is before us.  

What a remarkable posture.  One of moving forward, eyes lifted upward.  Love.

It's cool. Once I strike that balance, I'll let you know.  But for now, I am going to rest in knowing that God is moving in Austin, Texas, and (believe it or not) the greater Chicago-land area.  I will do that next right thing in front of me, but I will also pause during this insane life and continue to ask my Creator to make my story known to me.  


"It's good to struggle and let the spirit and word convict in matters of truth. He gives us awesome mandates, and then there are the different ways God is original and unique with each of us."

-Adrienne Baker Bley the first.  Whom I love. 

On letting Christmas happen to you.

New Years Day 2012.  I found myself standing the wake of Christmas 2011.  I had left a trail of wrapping paper, bank statements, and chocolate fondue pots all through the month of December.  And I was exhausted. All I had to show for the Advent season were bags under my eyes, a new bathrobe, and a husband that knew better than to talk to me until I had my first three cups of coffee.

Hindsight can be hard on a girl. I should have smelled Christmas coming around the bend in November.  I should have forecasted it as I swallowed my last bite of pumpkin pie. I should have noticed how the month of December in our calendar was blacked out by office parties, church gatherings, and family celebrations. It was disguised in the taste of Starbucks peppermint mochas and shopping lists, but I should have known. Christmas was coming like a big, fat, overwhelming tidal wave…and I would be swept away.  Christmas 2011 was going to wash over me, knock me around a few times and leave me on the shores of 2012, wondering what had just occurred. 

 Christmas was going to happen to me. 

In November everything it made sense.  This is what the Advent season is about. Tradition.  Family. Community.  Schedule all these things for optimum Christmas experience.  Check.  Then there are pancakes with Santa. Wait.  Also, let’s not forget about the annual Christmas cookie exchange. The craft fair. Choir rehearsals. Grab bags. White elephants. Then December hit.  I burned out the first week.  As we walked through all that we had previously scheduled, I realized it was too much.  My Batmobile had lost a few wheels, but I kept moving.  For the sake of face-saving, for good will towards all and all that.

All these well intentioned things left us in a candy cane induced stupor, stumbling into church Christmas morning.  I was wound tightly, after cooking our traditional breakfast, opening gifts, packing our Jeep full of more yuletide goodness for another family celebration, and outfitting my children in their matching Christmas attire.  I recall feeling inconvenienced that Christmas was on a Sunday. Seriously, I had so much to do.  Celebrating the birth of Christ didn’t really keep with our schedule.

And there it was. 

Laid bare, like an ugly sore airing itself out.  As I sat for the first time in days, I was overwhelmed by a holy sadness.  I had missed it.  In all my fa-la-la’ing, in all my egg nog drinking and outfit coordinating, I had missed Him.  My Jesus, born to a teenage girl without an epidural in a dirty stable two thousand years ago.  The birth that changed the History of Everything.  In my frenzied state of chaos, I had dropped my gaze from Jesus and fixed my eyes on whatever was before me.  Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.  Especially at Christmastime.

I am ever learning.

I know that Christmas time calls for a posture of holiness.  A time that is set apart from all other times.  A time to remember our Infinite God contained in a swaddling babe.  Let’s not pretend like we have wrapped our minds around that last sentence. FULLY GOD.  FULLY DIAPERED.  Should all things Christmas point towards this Miracle? Um, yes. We, as believers that this Event did indeed change the History of Everything, should face our Advent Season head on.  Eyes fixed.  Hearts set. But what does that look like?  When we are standing in November, red sharpies poised towards December, how do we keep our gaze fixed on Jesus?

One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Luke 2:19 ^“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” She had just given birth, for the first time, in a barn-like atmosphere. She was unwed.  Mary was a baby herself.  She had strange visitors in the stable, shepherds and men of nobility who confirmed what Gabriel had told her months before. This child she had just birthed was indeed the Messiah her people had been waiting for.  What a rush! Mary’s response?  She treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.  She didn’t tweet about it.  She didn’t make birth announcements on Snapfish.  She treasured her good news.  She pondered that this little baby, borne of her own body, was going to Save her world.  And the rest of mankind.  No big deal.  

I want to be like Mary.  I want to create space in my life to ponder.  I want the opportunity to treasure the Good News that I have been given.  I want to stay calm in the flurry of the Advent season, eyes fixed on Jesus.  For me, that will take the form of more white spaces on our December calendar.  I am committed to protecting set times for reflection and restoration. 

I am going to have to learn to be okay with disappointing people, with breaking tradition so that my heart can be aligned with the One who made it.  I am going to plan meaningful moments and conversations with my children and husband that point towards our Jesus.  I am not going to rush through gatherings, mind already on the next event.  I am going to take those opportunities to look my family members in the eyes and encourage their hearts when we speak.  My husband and I are going to be purposeful with our gifts this year, knowing that all things Christmas should point towards the miracle that is Christ Jesus.

Let the Redeemed of the Lord say so.  Let us treasure what we Know.  Let us ponder how to make this Advent season one in which all things point towards the Promise we hold.  The Promise delivered in baby form. Let’s not just let Christmas just happen to us this year. Let us not get so caught up in all the good things that our Perfect Thing gets lost in eggnog frenzy.  Face it head on, full of intention and celebration.  Let us choose what to celebrate wisely.  Let us not get tangled up in the garland of “should do’s.”  Let’s be okay breaking tradition for the promise of what is sacred and good. 

Christmas 2012.  I can smell it coming.  But I am so ready for this.  I have my red Sharpie, ready to do some damage.