3 Keys to Surviving Christmas

I remember the drug Christmas was - the twinkling lights, vintage sounds of seasonal classics, the humming of sugar coursing through my veins, the inexplicable phenomena of dancing sugar plums, roving schoolmate conversations on just how Santa could possibly do all that he was credited with doing, oh, and the free soaring elation of dreams come true in the days leading to Christmas morning.  It was the feeling that anything could happen; Santa a slave to our desire.  Christmas reigns as king of all days for most kids when all wanted is translated and understood in all received.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Poor old St. Nick pimped by consumerism as a delivery mechanism for desire equals happiness, receiving trumping giving and individual, again, escalated above all others.

As a parent, I’ve always felt rather infringed on by the ol’ jolly guy from the North Pole when on Christmas morning Santa is adored for fulfilling my daughters’ wish list.  After all, where in the world was he when I waited in eternal check out lines, braved armies of latte laced moms hellbent on getting their shopping carts through the most precariously tight spots and wasted away late night creating mosaic wonder with wrapping paper always cut too short?!  Tucked away in stories, songs and magical tradition, sipping a piping hot peppermint mocha.  Always the winner and well used to the adulation.  Good spot, Santa.

There’s much to be said about the shimmering fantasy that Christmas both is and is not.  First, there’s December 26th when the world finally exhales from Black Friday and Christmas morning.  Decorations look worn, work resumes and we remember that Christmas feels more like an extended dream than an intentional celebration.  Then there’s the facade Christmas can be when nurturing an ethereal fantasy of the most wonderful time of the year distorts happiness and ensures unmet expectations.  There’s just no way that everything will always tie together perfectly like a Hallmark family movie special - someone will get in an argument, the turkey will be too dry, the day will move too fast, you will undoubtedly receive a gift causing you to wonder if the giver even knows you, etc.

For many, the idea of Christmas will again outshine the actuality and history of the celebration.

Promise fulfilled.  Sin’s grasp threatened in the breath of a baby foretold.  Redemption personified in the God-man rising from the poorest of poor.  Man’s heart barred from the garden open-armed welcomed into the Kingdom.

In our home, we accept Santa as part of Christmas, along with Christmas trees, lights hanging from our house and gifts, but the story to own them all is that of selfishness ushering in emptiness and brokenness and the unrelenting, decided love of a Father who stops at nothing to make all as it should be again.  Advent sets a right rhythm to our observance of Christmas.  We don’t wrestle to keep the Christ in CHRISTmas.  Advent reminds us to rest in the irrevocable promise of Christ both now and always.

It simply is so easy to live at a ferocious pace in the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas day, and in doing so, the season shrinks to a blur of tinsel, shopping lists and seasonal have to’s.  As a result, Christmas really does come and go in the twinkle of an eye.  There’s so much more to the season that can completely serve as a foundational building block to your children's developing world.

As a means of surviving the hustle of the holidays, I’ve discovered three keys to fully engaging in Christmas as a family.

Set expectation Each year we start at the beginning again.  Before the nativity came the need.  Four Sundays before Christmas we set expectation with our need for Savior that began all the way back in the garden when Adam and Eve broke away from God and clung to themselves and desire.  The waiting in brokenness through time and promise spoken in ancient prophecies leads us to nativity where Jesus entered time humbly.  Everything else about Christmas seems to appropriately fall into lined priority as proper expectation is established each year.  I want my kids to celebrate and experience the magic and elation of Christmas as a result of God’s promise.

Have a Plan As a means of not being pushed forward too fast by the busyness and bustle of the season, we try very hard at being picky about what we do and what we don’t do.  Just this past weekend, Marissa and I sat down to plan and layout our family activities for the month.  This has helped me in two distinct ways.  Having a schedule for our family events helps me focus on enjoying family instead of trying to do everything.  Maybe more important, having a plan is helping me actually save money during the Christmas holidays while enjoying our time more meaningfully.  One in three families will push themselves into debt during the Christmas season in an attempt to buy happiness in presents and experiences.

Honor traditions As our kids grow so does our activity.  What needs to be maintained throughout the year is family and home, a place to belong and return to.  We maintain family and home in our held traditions.  There’s nothing elaborate about most of our traditions.  During the holidays, the girls always expect movie nights, hot cocoa and Christmas cookies in addition to our family Christmas tree decorating and their little sisters’ Christmas tree decorating event where they have full reign over their own three foot tree.

Christmas can be a mixed bag for many people depending on past experiences, both highs and lows.  It’s important to remember to always set the expectation of Christ as both reason and lasting promise as the season begins.  In doing so, you and your family will experience joy independent of the hustle and the bustle of Christmas.

joie de vivre, a thanksgiving.

a smile connected to the sun known by shuffled steps and a beaded brow all waited for all breath held for all hope hesitated for fulfillment, rest oh, and sleep the Sun faithful truer than truth known

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It’s been awhile since I’ve smiled without effort and rested in the day here without waiting for another.  That’s the day I know now, full of hope and the knowledge that no matter the circumstance, hope perseveres, founded in the faithfulness of a God who knows no stopping or uncaring.  Other days will crash ashore with uncertainty and challenge, but the faithful learn that trust is best perfected in unnavigable waters.

Ten days into marriage and my heart couldn’t be more thankful - thankful that God gave me the tenacity to not let go in the pursuit of hope and happiness and the strength to cross from one life to another.  And joy overflows.  Marissa emanates a blinding beauty all of her own accord, but will forever echo hope in a way my heart hears especially because of God in the binding of us.  In today and into tomorrow, we will walk hand-in-hand, through thick and thin, matching love and smiles in each wave that crashes upon us all because of Something much bigger than us, bigger than death and life.

And so, this is a simple thank you, a public testament honoring God for never letting me become lost within myself or too afraid of each crashing day into me following my first wife’s death some three years ago.

You must allow yourself to be found, throw open the blinds and welcome in thankfulness, and then you will be there found and free.  Unprejudiced thankfulness is the fruit that hangs on the branches grafted into God by grace.  For then, nothing can thieve the joy of living.

We all have much to shout thanksgiving for.  Raise your glass, friend, in the thickest and thin.

me, set an enemy of my daughter's heart

Often lately, we’ve found ourselves there stuck between emotion and disappointment.  Tears threatened to fall from her reddening, yet stubborn eyes as she stood before me while doing her best not to look directly at me.  I leaned over her lording big controlling words meant to strip down her actions to unthoughtful disobedience aimed to hurt and defy.

There we stood, worlds apart screaming at the moon wanting love without give trouncing on delicate soil uninvited yet demanding so long to lullabies equaling love I know she loves me.  She knows I love her, but there are times lately when I feel absolutely lost parenting Elizabeth, my oldest.  The fact that she’s only approaching her teen years intimidates me, especially when others are quick to respond that I should brace myself for when she is a teenager.  And the waves won’t quit as my younger daughters race to break on those teen shores, too.  As we near then, the joke of owning an escape cabin visited monthly sways further from comedy and closer to reality.  Until I own a cabin, patience must be cultivated in my thorny heart.

“There will be times when you won’t like me very much, and I need you to understand that I’m okay with that.”

Patience hangs from a branch rooted in love and there my heart finds clarity and returns to Christ-led parenting.

In times overrun by emotion and disappointment in my shortcomings as a parent and her defiance as a child, I grow impatient and irate and steal moments from guiding love sharp enough to cut through the most mired emotional tangles.  Simply put, I am my own worst enemy as a parent when my love is based more on my kids liking me than me loving them.  And by loving them, I mean caring enough to wage steady war against their little hearts set selfishly inward, evidenced by possessive pronouns littering their speak.  The real challenge is in separating from my own selfish heart enough to let the love of Christ guide me as a parent rather than my heart mercenarily demanding obedience for love.

Love doesn’t demand; obedience blooms in a heart loved so well.

Like a veteran gardener plucking weeds from good soil, I vigilantly remind myself to hold higher value to where we’re going instead of how we’re getting there.  And this is important to remember, for it’s easy to get lost in wanting to be loved back by your children.  If I will love her defiant heart well, I must set myself as an enemy to her heart.

Practically speaking, her tears shouldn’t shape the way I love her, neither should her accusations of me not understanding her and not caring about how she feels.  My role is to lead her through fierce times where Love will be saving grace.  Lots of parenting can be left to positioning - how I position my heart, will determine how I’m able to reach through innate selfishness that plagues their little hearts as it plagues and preys on all human hearts.  My goal is to set them free, free to love truthfully.

In short, parenting is the most difficult thing an adult will ever aspire to do.

the glow beyond then.

Few days I go back, deep into the abyss where those days hold the stillness of a mausoleum, memories cataloged beauty and yesterday.

When I do revisit those days, I find the most perplexing piece of my life lived.  Like a garden pushed up through soil holding death and pieces of what once was, I only gaze upon goodness flowering death and disappointment, a sure evidence of God’s immeasurable grace.

And soon, another evidence of good grace stands ready to fill our lives raising us from four journeying hearts to five. I can’t help but realize God foreknew of the goodness to come, all seen now and much more far into tomorrow.  Even in the darkest days following my first wife’s death, the horizon glowed with hope and passage to promise.  Little felt sturdy under our feet and the present day then seemed to stretch longer than my resolve.  Still the horizon glowed in contrast to the faded hues of then and whispered invite and rest.  When we shuffled lost and weak stepped and she meandered through life sure but curiously wondering of beyond, he knew.

Into the new horizon, the new day, hope swallowed death in a momentary microcosm of eternity arriving as always echoed.  Only weeks away from the light of new day warming our faces, we couldn’t be more ready to enter in.

Let me be lovingly clear, she’s not the horizon, nor the salvation; she’s the evidence of his resolved grace.  And grace continues to be the most formative teacher shaping life beautiful behind and warm joy ahead.  God doesn’t keep score or measure fair of all good and bad in our lives somehow having to managing balance.  Grace invades where it’s not welcomed, grabs our hand and leads us through.

The new day pushing in requires a new me – the days after yesterday brought me here.  Through those grief wrenched days following death, I learned to be a different man who sweats the same, yet talks with a heart hallowed, then filled again.  Grace primed me in my darkest to stand, to love and belong again.  Death fits as a defining memory behind and little more than a looming reality somewhere ahead, while life rushes deeper and freer closer to the feet of God.

And so life independent must swing to life together, merging messy, lines blurred into a new color of two now together.  Much of my life has been a strong lean into grace and furious falling forward each day.  The approach to each day fixed into a rhythm of not focusing so much on how we made it as a family so long as we did make it, but life merging from the four of us to the five of us demands more stability and intentionality, not mere happenstance and butterflies.  My love must be ready for more than just affectionate high fives and romantic date nights.  After all, she is someone my heart will be tied to and my feet will find cadence with until there's little distinction.

I’m learning how to practice love that cuts through me – my fears, my circumstance, my past, my worries, my mistakes, my deficiencies – for sake of belonging to her and us and now and promise not always seen.

[II Cor 4:16-18]

parenting is the simplest thing ever :: A Deeper Family post

The blades just kept spinning like life and order and nothingness.  Everything made sense in its whispered hum.  I just faded in the noise, into time unaccountable and in the realization that my hands do less these days while my mind just spins in circles –much like the humming fan blades turning intoxicatingly.

I do far less these days, but I’m busier.  And tired(er).

On an average of five hours sleep, I go until I cannot or should not.

Just a handful of months ago, I finished my first book to much joy and self-adulation.  The amount of focus needed to see an idea through to storyboard, gruelingly sliced and shaped into an outline and then strung tighter together with words, pushed limits broader than I knew possible.  I met the day earlier than dawn and the kids to work with diligence closer to the end.  Words filled blank pages deep into night after the kids went to bed, all the while, working and learning to be a single parent between the margins of writing.  As I look back at pictures of daddy daughter dates, first experiences as a single parent and too many dessert overloaded movie nights to count, I see me smiling easier.

Those days didn’t escape.  We leaned into each moment honestly and didn’t even know it.  We didn’t need to.  The moment was enough and it was all we wanted – nothing more.

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Continue to full article at Deeper Family

10 Habits to Break (and NOT live by) :: routine.

We live in circles and lines defined more and better each day in routines, in habits.  The habits we tolerate shape our pace through life and weave together the perspective in which we gaze out at the world alive around us.  In similar fashion, we fail to perceive or even recognize the panorama of what could be when we become hemmed in by habits.

If we always return home the same way everyday, we may never become aware of a shortcut, a better way home.

There comes a time when ascent flattens and pace slows to life less than extraordinary.  In youth, we excitedly run with risk absent of consequence as we pursue dreams unhinged to plausibility.  Call it youthful exuberance or recklessness, but there is an invigorating vitality in running through each day with a hunger for more and a thirst for tomorrow.  As a result, we grow exponentially in youth, not because of the mere pace of our going, but our openness to new experiences and investigative curiosity in all surrounding us.  Naturally, we slow in our lean into adulthood as we take on responsibility and schedules.  The pace of yesteryear cannot be maintained in the same way as we draw circles of priority and lines of direction.  

But plateauing should never be our resigned position; learning and experiences are necessary to our growth and development as professionals, parents, spouses and friends.

When each day fades into undisturbed routine and the rush of wind pushing against our face as we pursue life more calms to barely whispering breeze in our halted stance, we reach stasis - the point where things will be as they will be and dreams are excused as insubordinate and unwise fantasies.  In our circles and lines, we drown in deadlines, goals and schedules and the panoramic disappears leaving only what’s immediately in front of us.

For me, walking outside the lines of routine holds high priority and considered an absolute necessity to continual growth.

Across the board, I violate lines appropriated safe by responsibility.  This is how I escape routine reigning as sacred in my life.  My violations are subtle, but transformative to how I value life and what really matters.  As an example, my schedule isn’t allowed as much value as what I’m actually doing.  So if one part of my schedule requires more time to do it well, the schedule bows to the activity.  Common within my scheduled writing time are moments when the words don’t fit together like they should in order to give proper voice to what I’m writing - in other words, writer’s block.  Instead of moving on for the sake of sticking to the schedule, I push through the block and closer to mastery.

Even more important than writing and routines, family holds a much higher regard.  Just last night, I sat up an hour later than my oldest’s regular bedtime to hear her heart and set right insecurities festering within her emotions.

I believe we develop far deeper and much more stable in our pursuit of life in moments outside the lines rather than holding to patterns and routines boasting safety.  And I believe God invites us to run outside the lines and deems it befitting of His immeasurably sufficient, unconcerned with safe grace alive in each of our days.  Sacred and safe routines are means of preservation and reek of a me-centric attitude void of God’s leading as primary.  Regularly, I remind myself that God rarely seems to be concerned with safe, but instead provokes curiosity and ideas of ahead within us.  Consider the apostle Paul’s positioning of God in Ephesians chapter 3:

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

In every opportunity, may we reach outside the lines to grasp life well strengthened by a power alive and at work within us, and may we resign routine a lesser priority unable to threatened what really matters.

*(image: Ross Anderson)

the next 48 days.

To say part of me is not a little afraid is to whisper loudly in the hush of sacred grace.

To say all of me is not overjoyed is to withhold praise.

My heart holds quiet all dreams and hopes and smiles reserved for tomorrow, for that day has yet to mature, and still it will.  The future always houses the hope we struggle to see.  We writhe and struggle to be okay, well fit in the burning of today.  Our eyes condition to the dimness of today seeing mostly behind, less of now and even less of all ahead.

I woke earlier than the sun shivering cold in single digit temperatures. Overnight the fire had died down to a pile of glowing ash and the small heater built into the cabin wall had reached a limit. In the dark, I finally crawled off of the sofa and stumbled close to the stone fireplace to thaw. Nine degrees read the thermometer. I remember thinking the morning appropriate and just right, the cabin cold and lonely. Realizing the smoldering heap of ash and coal would provide no comfort, I laced up my boots, added another jacket and double checked my pack for paper and pen. Within minutes the forest surrounded me. Each frigid step forward gave cause for worry.

What if I don’t find Him? What if the moment I’ve been seeking is silent and all calms to being unfair still?

I had come to lose all that was already lost. My mind kept bringing me back to why she died, more particularly, why would He let her. Like a child going sick on a spinning merry go round, each day soured my stomach even more. Death overshadowed life, cooled the warmth of love in my heart and smeared goodness with the ashes of life lost. I found the cabin in hopes God would find me. I didn’t feel found waking that cold morning only the lingering sting of death and anxiety of silence.

So much of my life has been redefined these past three years. I’ve lied, hidden my heart, retreated from friends and kept telling myself God is good, all while a heart war between grace and justice, with tomorrow its price, waged on. Anger flashed in moments worn too thin to be okay. Beneath the surface of my heart made up to look healthy, grief boiled and hissed monologues twisted in truth and pain. Deadlier than my wife dying was the dying of my own heart.

Back in the forest nearly lost that frozen morning I medicated my heart with distance. I sewed my wounds together with words and ideas that sounded heroic and safe but didn’t take faith. Those sutures insulated my heart from the reach of hurt as best as possible. On my shoulders I would carry my daughters away from death into a brighter day. I didn’t need love to be happy then, but my parched heart craved it. Careless words jabbed at God like an ant at the universe while He mostly stayed quiet and close.

In each subsequent sinking day, I learned to swim in the current of God’s unquitting grace. Never have I lived a day when all has been lost. That’s the brightness His love conditioned my eyes staring back into the void to see; a grace strong enough to swallow it all, the good and bad.

He knew then, three years ago at the mountaintop, what I know now.

Grace finds us shivering in the cold of life faded and lifts us higher than the tallest mountain.  Three years removed from losing myself in the cold shadows of the Ozarks, I live a life undeserving of the feeble strength my quick retreating heart holds.  My heart had to die completely in order to belong to any other day than the lost one behind me.

And here I stand, friends, removed and stronger, hand in hand with an amazingly resilient woman whose compassion inspires me and truth challenges me.  Just 48 days from marriage, my heart couldn't be happier.  Marissa and I come from different lives whose paths have curled and bent around roadblocks but managed to merge, spurred by grace's determined touch.  Years from now we may find ourselves thinned by life and struggling to hold on, but grace will not let go.  it is with God that I go and full confidence that I rejoice both in now and every day ahead of us.

I could dream of no one better that I'd rather win and lose in life with, love and laugh with and pursue God's dreams with that this woman who loves me so well.  I'm reveling in each of the next 48 days, a new start arched and framed in beauty and grace.