What Have You Done?

Matthew 25:40

What you have done for the least of these . . . you have also done for me.

Shouldn't that be our motivation?

Everyone is fighting their own battle. Everyone has their cross.

Everyone!

Is that where Jesus is?

Isn't that where Jesus is?

He is just not in those Third World Countries or in those holding "Homeless and Hungry" signs.

He is everywhere!

He is in the person you pass in the grocery store, the person next to you at a stop light, your friend, and your co-worker.

He is everywhere!

Everyone has their cross. Everyone has their aches and their struggles.

Christ is made visible where grace and mercy is extended.

He is everywhere!

What ever you have done for the least of these . . .




Stephanie

Want . . .

I know my last post was a bit dark. I feel like I should apologize but I am not going to apologize for how I am feeling. It is what it is.

It seems like Christmas for my family this year is carrying on like it always has. I really don't expect people to not celebrate because scrooge here doesn't. It would be nice if everything could be changed up and different so I don't feel the absence of my sweet girls as much.

I dreaded the question, "What do you want for Christmas?" Because what I truly want cannot be given. And that hurts so much.

My reflex response is, "I want you to go up to Heaven, get Emmerson and Vivienne and bring them back to me."

I stop myself before I actually utter those words. I stop because I know it is an unrealistic expectation to be jotted down on a wish list. I stop myself because I cannot stand to see the pity look on another's face.

So, instead I list off items that I don't really want or need. In fact, I actually cannot remember a single thing I said I wanted. I wish now, I would have had the energy to tell them nothing. Give whatever you would have bought for me or the money you would have spent to someone who truly needs.

You see, I am in deep pain but I am still aware of the blessings that surround me. I may grieve my girls but it doesn't mean that I also am not thankful for what I do have.

I think some people find it necessary to point out all the good in my life when I cry over what I have lost. I don't need someone to do that! In that moment I need a shoulder and an ear to listen. I know what I have! Trust me, missing my girls doesn't make me blind to what surrounds. And when someone points out a blessing in the moment a tear drops, it makes me feel like my loss does not matter. That their lives were not worth something. That I am not allowed to grieve sweet, innocent Emmy and Vivi because I have a living, breathing blessing in my arms.

This Christmas, it is dark for me but it does not take away the fact that I can see glimmers of light. It doesn't mean that I don't count my blessings.

This Christmas, just because I don't want to celebrate in the ways of year's pass, does not mean that I don't turn to the Heaven's and notice the Light that transcends all and gives hope.

Hope . . . that is all I need.

Hope . . . that there is a true end to all suffering.

Hope . . . that I will see my girls again.

Hope . . . that I will bow before my King and give thanks for all that has been given.




Stephanie

What is Christmas All About?

Christmas is . . . hard for me this year.

It is hard trying to find any bit of Christmas spirit. There is none.

It is hard to go Christmas shopping, or put up Christmas decorations.

Okay. That last one I didn't do. My husband put the tree up a couple of weeks ago and just yesterday, my daughter and him put on some of the ornaments. I sat by and watched.

There is no spirit in me for Christmas and that is definitely foreign to me. Like I have said before, I used to always LOVE Christmas.

Their have been some say that I need to do certain "Christmas" things for my daughter. To be quite honest, I am really getting sick of hearing that.

I don't have to do anything.

I know that sounds really defiant and bratty but it's the truth.

Christmas for me this year isn't full of the usual splendor and good cheer that it has in years past.

It just doesn't. 

Do those people who tell me what I "need" to do realize that they are ripping the scab off my still-fresh wound? Don't they realize it hurts more to step into the light of "here, everything is wonderful" when it really isn't at all? It never was. Don't they realize it hurts to pretend? It hurts to be among those who have never hurt this way?

I have been thinking a lot about Christmas. Not like I used to, mind you. But I have been thinking a lot about it.

I think, that for all these years, I have approached Christmas all wrong.

A few months ago, I was dreading this season. Now I am counting down the days when it will be over. I looked towards to December and saw nothing but black. I still do see a lot of black in spite of all the twinkling lights.

About a month ago at church, my minister preached about Jesus' birth and the circumstances surrounding it. He talked about a terrifying King and the beauty that was absent. He talked about the terror and darkness that surrounded the One True Kings birth and I felt . . . relieved.

Relieved to know that I am not the only one who does not see Christmas as that which we have made it. A lot of masked cheer and too much consumerism veiled in good intent.

We look back to His birth and we have made something of it that it wasn't. We have made it seem like everyone was waiting on pins and needles for His arrival and all the world was right.

It wasn't! He arrived in a barn with only the animals as a witness! There were no bells ringing signifying new life. Let alone a birth of a King. There was no write up in the local paper declaring His weight or naming the proud parents. He arrived in the midst of pain and darkness.

So much darkness! He arrived at a time when a ferocious King feared anyone who would steal his crown. He killed family members who threatened to take it! He killed innocent male babies and children because his fear overwhelmed (Matthew 2:16).

It was not a Hallmark movie set. It was awful.

It was dark.

Just like this Christmas is for me.

For all these years, I have thought all the wrong things about Christmas.

It isn't about Santa Claus, trees, twinkling lights, dishes or gifts.

It is about a ray of Light who dared to enter the darkness.

It isn't about the gifts we buy, the foods we make, and all the pretty things we decorate our homes and packages with.

It is about darkness and how an innocent, pure baby broke through and created a way of Light for Life.

I'm not saying Christmas Trees, decorations and shopping are wrong or bad, I just don't want Christ to be an after thought or use Him as an excuse. I want Him to be the reason. I want Him and what He did to dwell in me and motivate me.

I want to give to those who are in true need. In need of food. In need of water. In need of shelter. In need of the Light.

If this is what I have received from the darkness, I will take it.

It is Truth that comes down and pierces the darkness with Light.




Stephanie

The Big Made Small

I knew. That day I knew.

Not by the words that were spoken but more by the words that were not.

I knew.

By the looks on the faces and the unspoken words that exaggerated the noise of the silence.

I knew and yet I still begged God to do something!

I knew that the hope I desperately wanted to cling to of taking Emmy and Vivi home was slipping through my fingers.

Yet still, I begged. I begged for Him to do something. To perform a miracle .  . .

. . . so the next time those faces entered the room, the look would be different.

He did not perform the miracle I had requested.

I don't know why. I may never know.

But I am sure of this: He was there! That day, amid those faces, among the deafening silence, He was there.

He held my weak, shaking body.

The God of the Universe made Himself small to fit into that dark hospital room and wrap Himself around the hurt.

He is not so Big that He cannot comfort in small ways. He is not so Big that He cannot enter into our hurt, our rooms, our world.

It is not the first time the Big became Small.

Some two thousand years ago, He became microscopic and grew to a tiny baby born from a virgin.

A Big God made Himself small and helpless. Every need needing to be supplied by the very ones who needed to be saved.

The creator of everything, entered into His creation.

He entered into the silence, into the hurt in a small way.

He entered into His creation in a helpless way. In a small yet big way.

He entered into His creation to do the Big. He entered into His creation to wrap Himself around the hurt and to heal . . . to save . . .

. . . To perform a miracle. 

All because the Big became Small.




Stephanie