Monday, December 26, 2016

A Season—and Life—of Hope




           
            Since though most of us are still hung over from too many sugary Christmas cookies, eggnog, gingerbread, and fruitcake, I’ll keep today’s post short.

            Hope. It’s the season of it. The Advent lights have been lit, the biggest gift-giving day of the year has gone down in another year of history, and we wonder what’s in store for us in 2017. But we don’t have to stress over it too much, because we move and look forward in hope. The confident assurance that God’s promises—like Christmas—will come true.       

Remember what we’ve learned this month:

1. There’s hope for the world because Jesus is returning.

2. There’s always hope in the world because Jesus is always with us. He promised to never leave or forsake us. And He always keeps His promises.

3. There’s hope beyond this world, because the resurrected Jesus will return to come to take us home.

As my pastor says, “You can never separate Jesus from the baby, the cross, and the crown.”


Hope. You cannot live without it.

Hope. The best Christmas present anyone has ever received!




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Join me next Monday when I’ll give you some great tips for a prosperous New Year. And, no, they don’t involve making a list of resolutions!



So, until Monday, may your week be full of blessings that you receive and give, your heart be full of joy and thankfulness, and your days be filled with laughter. Build a little heaven in your life right now, and watch your heavenly garden grow!


Blessings,

Andrea

When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on earth. ~ A. W. Tozer

Images by Google

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Christmas: A Heavenly Timetable




            Trains are notorious for being behind schedule. At least Amtrak trains are notorious. My husband, kids, and I have experienced that on numerous occasions: broken down engines that required a LONG wait and a “tow” home; stopping and waiting for a cargo train with more seniority to pass us, on their way to delivering goods; and then weather that delays or slows travel.
           
            It’s not so bad, unless you need to be at a certain place at a certain time. Especially at Christmas, since it doesn’t get postponed for delayed trains. But sometimes being behind isn’t so bad at Christmas, either. And that’s what the following story is about—a train and some passengers moving on a pre-ordained schedule, while God was working out His own. At Christmas.
           
            If you’ve always enjoyed train travel and taken some rides, you’ll appreciate this story. If you’ve never ridden a train, you’ll still appreciate the wonder of it all, and, if the feedback I’ve received is any indication, you’ll want to book your next cross-country trip on one!
           
            Enjoy!





A Heavenly Timetable
Andrea Arthur Own
           
            After plunking himself next to me at the breakfast room table, my husband, Chris, gave me The Look, the one warning me his overachieving brain had hatched another big idea. “How about breaking from our normal Christmas traditions this year to take a train trip to Seattle and then across the country to Milwaukee to spend Christmas with my family?” he asked.
           
            I grinned. Now this was one of his better ideas! We were both captivated by a train’s magical, romantic allure. With two young sons, ages six and two, I knew romance was unlikely, but I hoped for magical. I didn’t have to think twice. “Let’s do it!”
           
            Chris delved into trip planning, and on December 21, we all boarded Amtrak’s luxurious Coast Starlight in Los Angeles for the first leg of a seventy-four-hour odyssey. When the train departed the station, we were already enraptured and delirious with anticipation.
           
            We spent the first day learning to dine, balance, and promenade successfully without being decorated by our food, ricocheting off narrow corridor walls, or rebounding into another passenger’s lap. Moving between the jostling cars also required a new skill set. Our boys erupted in belly laughs as they perfected their train legs and learned how to buckle themselves into our sleeper compartment’s top berth. We relished hours spent in the spacious lounge car playing games, learning magic tricks, nibbling fancy snacks and Christmas chocolates, and surveying breathtaking landscape. By day’s end we felt like train travel pros. And we were in heaven.
           
            In Seattle we departed the Coast Starlight and boarded Amtrak’s Empire Builder to journey east. When we stopped in Spokane around midnight, I was grateful to be ensconced safely in a heated sleeper since the outside temperature registered below zero. But my cousin’s winter train trip horror story of his Amtrak breaking down and toilets freezing over made me slightly uneasy.
           
            In Spokane we remained on our train and awaited the arrival of another Amtrak carrying connecting passengers from Oregon. Assured the wait would be short, we went to bed thinking we’d sleep through most of Idaho. But when I drew aside our room curtain at sunrise, the “Spokane” station sign greeted me. We hadn’t budged an inch. Our train was now six hours behind schedule, and we languished for another three hours before the awaited train finally arrived. After those sleeper cars were carefully attached to ours, we departed.
           
            We soon crossed the Washington-Idaho border, turned northeast, and zipped across the Idaho panhandle. As we neared the entrance to Montana’s Glacier National Park, alabaster snow lay around us in all of its dazzling, virgin state. Only an accumulation of deer tracks in several areas near the rails revealed life stirring amidst the powder-cloaked ground. Towering evergreens bore mounds of snow on their outstretched, bowed limbs, inviting us into their secluded winter wonderland. To us Southern Californians, it all looked so…Christmassy!
           
            When we emerged from the pristine backwoods into a sprawling meadow, a sprinkling of rustic log cabins balancing geometric-shaped snow stacks greeted us. Some single-story cabins were swaddled in snow to their eaves. They appeared to be hibernating contentedly, patiently awaiting their owners’ spring homecoming.
           
            The only thing distracting us from this breathtaking spectacle was our slowing train that soon screeched to a stop. We peered out windows in curiosity before learning that the rail switches had frozen, which meant rail switching had to be performed the old-fashioned way—by hand. To accomplish that feat, the engineers would shovel through snow and then chop out ice binding the tracks to access the switches.
            
           My husband and I locked eyes. Quick mental calculations confirmed we wouldn’t make our scheduled arrival of early Christmas Eve. I hastened to our room to verify the heat still worked and then tested our toilet’s water flow. So far so good.
           
            After two backbreaking hours spent hacking and scooping in freezing temperatures—while most passengers munched snacks in train car warmth and admired the sublime scenery, and I test-flushed our toilets several times—the crew safely completed the rail switching, and we were once again on our way.
           
            But some fiercely agitated passengers became persistently vocal about their displeasure. Many were making train connections in Chicago for passage to East Coast cities, and now they’d likely arrive too late to enjoy Christmas festivities with their families.
           
            Yet as their agitation level increased, our family’s joy skyrocketed. The train crew didn’t have control over the weather, and we knew they were doing their best to get us safely to our destination. Our boys certainly weren’t keeping track of time. This was an adventure! And I was determined not to allow a schedule failure to derail our enjoyment. Doggone, if we ended up spending Christmas Day on that train, I’d be telling our boys Bible stories and leading them in caroling! Couldn’t these complainers be grateful they didn’t have to endure frigid rooms and frozen toilets?
           
            Finally, to avoid hearing the escalating, sometimes salty passenger complaints, Chris and I ushered the boys into our room and shut the door. It was already after dark on Christmas Eve.
           
            As we rolled through North Dakota under a crystal clear sky, I was mesmerized by the spectacle outside our window. A full moon illuminated the ice-clad, iridescent prairie for miles, transmitting an ethereal appearance to the far-reaching landscape. The voluminous orb engulfed the ebony backdrop, its light blotting out any surrounding starlight. Powerful. Magnetic. Blinding. Fearsome. Its incandescence bored through my eyes right into my soul.
           
            The dazzling star guiding the Wise Men to the King flashed into my mind. Was that light they followed with such urgency so glorious and mesmerizing? So…intimidating? A tangible presence of glory invaded my senses. But instead of joy, my heartstrings reverberated with an unexpected, disquieting fusion of humility and fear. I felt exposed. Reflexively, I looked away and lowered my eyes. “No wonder the Wise Men immediately fell on their faces and worshiped him,” I murmured. “They didn’t have a choice!”
           
            The light remained with us as we departed North Dakota and crossed Minnesota and Wisconsin. It illuminated the rails for miles. We felt bathed in it. The sense of glory and power remained, and the fear soon melted into a soothing sensation of divine, protective love. It was the next best thing to a caroling Heavenly host! At 2:00 AM Christmas Day, we arrived safely at our destination.
           
            We’d already received our Christmas present, though. The Creator’s finger had been displayed across three thousand miles of dazzling panorama. Even in the “dead” of winter, we witnessed signs of life bearing testimony to his presence.     
           
            If the train had been on schedule, we would have arrived during daylight hours and missed the radiant Christmas Eve moon reminding us of that miraculous night that forever changed the world. The night that truly gives meaning to Christmas Day. We would have missed the peace and magical events that often seem mundane to jaded eyes.
           
            Although there was celebration with family yet to be enjoyed, our hearts overflowed with the magical gift of our Christmas train, which traveled on its own, heavenly timetable: late, yet right on time.





May you all enjoy your own “magic” this Christmas. In fact, be on the outlook for it!
God enjoys surprises. J




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If you’re interested in reading more family friendly Christmas stories, pick up your own copy of this year’s Chicken Soup for the Soul Joys of Christmas book. This story, and many others, will keep you laughing and smiling this Christmas and for many years to come!




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So, until Monday, may your week be full of blessings that you receive and give, your heart be full of joy and thankfulness, and your days be filled with laughter. Build a little heaven in your life right now, and watch your heavenly garden grow!


Blessings,

Andrea

When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on earth. ~ A. W. Tozer


Image by Google and Andrea Arthur Owan

Monday, December 19, 2016

The Advent and Maintenance of Peace



            
           Yesterday we lit the Peace candle for Advent, a topic we’ve been studying for several months here on Broken Hearts.
           
            But this time of year, it often seems impossible to obtain or feel any kind of peace. My dental hygienist and I were just discussing that this past week. Every year she hopes to get ahead of the game and “be ready” early for Christmas. But this year she’s once again lamenting her lateness and all of the things she still has left to do.
           
            And shoppers scurry (and often push) through malls and then rush home with their presents, sometimes causing accidents in their haste, or frustrating and screwing up traffic in their text-driving multitasking.
           
            Some corners of the world live in constant upheaval wondering if a bomb may flatten their home and rob them of loved ones. Prodigal children leave their parents heartbroken and subsisting on happier memories. Recent family deaths or breakups leave survivors lonely, anxious, grieve, or bewildered. I remember the year my dad died, just two weeks before Christmas. The mood, in spite of our attempts to the contrary, was somber.
           
            Just how can someone have peace this time of year? Really slow down, quiet his heart and mind, and let the heart and mind thrive in a peaceful state?
           
            There’s only one way to really have and enjoy it and only One person who can deliver. And that Person is Jesus, the Messiah; the Prince of Peace.
           
            And it’s His candle we’ll light this coming Sunday, Christmas Day. The Christ candle. The culmination of Hope, Love, Joy and Peace. In a baby. But not just any baby. God in the flesh. Come to us. Immanuel. Prince of Peace. When He came down from Heaven is when peace truly entered the world. A centuries-old prophecy fulfilled.
           
            As Betsy Arkema writes: “Becoming human was not a twist of fate…, it was a choice. God chose to give up everything—to become nothing.
           
            “This child was a King. A King in a dirty stable, wrapped in rags—but a King with a plan.
           
            “This child would bring hope. Not just a wish, but the confidence that God would win over evil.
           
            “This child would bring love—a love that would never be taken away, a love that is beyond our understanding.
           
            “And this child would bring joy, for he would deliver us.
           
            “This child would bring peace, even in the midst of great suffering and trials—a peace that assured his followers that he is in control even if it feels likes nobody is.”




           
           
            Are you feeling at peace right now? Have you asked yourself why and explored all of the potential reasons? Are they obvious to you? Wondering how you can have it?

            Try praying. I know it sounds too simple, but prayer—real God-beseeching prayer—is difficult. Slip away to a quiet place—your prayer room, favorite chair, and outside spot. Hang up a “Do Not Disturb” to keep out intruders. Put your baby down for a nap. Lay out your prayer mat. And then—

1. Open your Bible. Ask God to lead you to a passage that will speak directly to your heart. Personalize the passage; nothing is so powerful as praying the Scriptures. Ask God to give His peace that transcends all understanding.

2. Express thanks to Him for your blessings—your family, your health, your memories, your future hope in Him and eternity. His past faithfulness to you.

3. Then, be watchful, tuned in to your heart. If turmoil and sadness and doubt threaten to dismantle you, turn your burden over to Him. Lay it down at the cross and leave it there. DON’T pick it up again. He knows what to do with it.

4. And don’t feel guilty about lying down to take a rest. Listen to your body; it’s designed to send out warning signals to tell you what it needs. Often our acute sense of turmoil is simply too much stress and stimulation. Babies and toddlers aren’t the only ones who can benefit from a nap!

           
            Then rejoice on Sunday morning, for the Light of the world has come into the world.
           
            And rejoice! For He’s coming back!!







I’d you like to read a fun Christmas story about how God works on His own timetable, for our pleasure, even when things seem to be late, you’ll want to read my extra post I’ll be putting up on Wednesday. It’s the short story “A Heavenly Timetable.” An abbreviated version was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul’s recently released book The Joy of Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

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So, until next Monday, may your week be full of blessings that you receive and give, your heart be full of joy and thankfulness, and your days be filled with laughter. Build a little heaven in your life right now, and watch your heavenly garden grow!


Blessings,

Andrea

When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on earth. ~ A. W. Tozer

Image by Google

Monday, December 12, 2016

Advent: A Season of Joy, For Now and the Future





           IT’S one of the most uplifting Christmas songs in the Christian hymnal. We sang it yesterday in service, a perfect song for the third Sunday in Advent that is commemorated with the lighting of the Joy candle.
           
            Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
            Let earth receive her King;
            Let every heart prepare Him room
            And Heaven and nature sing,
            And Heaven and nature sing,
            And Heaven, and Heaven and nature sing.

            Ah, yes, joy! That wonderful, giddy feeling everyone gets this time of year. (Well, not everyone, unfortunately. This winter holiday finds some people in the throes of severe depression. But more on that later.)
           
            Joy. The third candle lit on the third Sunday in Advent. Joy in a Savior sent to Earth. A happy, joyful event, the birth of this special baby. The earth’s King.
           
            Unfortunately, not everyone receives Him as King. So, for them, the first sentence in the song has absolutely no meaning, and really, no signficance.


           Certainly the atheists don’t receive Him as King. They think believing in God and recognizing Jesus as God incarnate is a big joke, a ridiculous observance reserved for dunces who believe in hocus pocus and are missing some discriminating brain cells. The agnostics aren’t so sure, so they remained poked on the fence, with one foot in the world and the other on a spiritual banana peel, unable or unwilling to make a public commitment.

           
            But I’m here to proclaim that even though you might enjoy Christmas and have fun, and extol its good virtues, you really are incapable of experiencing its true JOY if you don’t know Jesus, this Savior we celebrate the birth of.
           
            Why do I say that? Because He is Joy. The source. Without Him there is no true joy. He gave joy when He was born, He gives us on-going joy, and He will give us eternal joy upon His return. Indeed, just knowing He will return in His Second Advent gives us unending joy.
           
            And why else do I say that you are unable to experience true JOY without God? Because it’s true. And the Old Atheists, like Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and Russell understood that. Many of them actually mourned the death of God, because they understood the ramifications of such belief, and it wasn’t just how their beliefs would be received by society. As Sean McDowell writes in More Than a Carpenter, “Atheists of the past were well aware of the consequences of denying God. They realized that without God we inhabit a cold, dark, pointless universe. Many older atheists mourned the death of God because they realized it undermined the foundations of western culture. Existentialist Albert Camus admitted that the death of God meant the loss of purpose, joy, and everything that makes life worth living.”
           
            But, as McDowell points out, the New Atheists actually celebrate God’s death and even think that life can continue as normal or even improve without Him, and without all of those nasty, evil religious nuts they believe have caused the world’s problems and heartaches. (Which is contrary to historical proof, I might add.)
           
            But Professor John Haught of Georgetown University refers to that kind of atheism as “soft” atheism that does not take atheism seriously. McDowell quotes Haught:
           
            “The new soft-core atheists assume that, by dint of Darwinism, we can
            just drop God like Santa Claus without having to witness the complete
            collapse of Western culture—including our sense of what is rational
            and moral. At least the hard-core atheists understood that if we are truly
            sincere in our atheism the whole web of meanings and values that had
            clustered around the idea of God in Western culture has to go down the
            drain along with its organizing center.”




            So there you have it. Unless you’re being intellectually dishonest, you have to admit that without the Judeo-Christian God, society’s foundation collapses and we’re left floundering around wondering what we’re really here for and who cares anyway since we’ll all just end up in the ground one day, and that will be it. (And, no, saying that our memory living on in our children and the good things we’ve done is a good equivalent doesn’t cut it. How many of your ancestors do you know by name, and can you recite what they've done?)
           
            We end up living without true joy. No matter how hard we try to muster it up by our own efforts, we can’t have it. Without the Source, the “organizing center” it simply cannot exist in our hearts or in the world.
           
            But when you believe in the Giver of that Joy, your soul is soaked in it. You have joy for today, joy for tomorrow, overflowing joy to share with someone else—like the hurting people who don’t have others to celebrate with this time of year, or don’t think they have any reason to celebrate.
           
            But we all have a reason. A very good one. That baby born in a stinky stable grew up to be a humble man who sacrificed himself so that we may live, here and now and into eternity. He came, he suffered and was murdered and resurrected so that we may have a full life while on earth and an even fuller life into eternity. We have joy because we know it doesn’t end here, we know there is life beyond the grave. Our joy will be complete upon His Second Advent. New meaning will be given to the words: “O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant…”




            So with that in mind, how about if, for just one day, we tweak the words to the opening song a little and sing:

            Joy to the World, the Lord will come!
            May earth receive her King;
            May every heart prepare for His return,
            When Heaven and nature will sing,
            When Heaven and nature will sing,
            When Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.


            For it is our hope and prayer that every heart will receive Him as Lord and Savior. Every knee will end up bowing to Him; the faithful pray that all will do it willingly.




            How about you? Is your heart overflowing with JOY? Have you already received your King, and will you willingly receive Him at His Second Coming? Will you be one of the triumphant faithful?


            I pray it is so. For if it is, The First Advent has a deeper meaning for you. It means joy in your heart for today, tomorrow, and eternity! May you be able to sing with joy—because our King has already come. May you sing with joy because there is a Second Advent on the calendar!




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Until next Monday, may your week be full of blessings that you receive and give, your heart be full of joy and thankfulness, and your days be filled with laughter. Build a little heaven in your life right now, and watch your heavenly garden grow!


Blessings,

Andrea

When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on earth. ~ A. W. Tozer

Image by Google