The Keeping & The Kept

I’m not very good at resting. Which is something that can sound like a #humblebrag except that so much of scripture talks about rest and to not do it well shows my lack of faith in a pretty blatant way. 

On Fridays, my husband keeps the Sabbath. (For most people, a Sabbath day makes more sense on a Saturday or Sunday, but in a pastor’s house those days are busy workdays. So we are thankful for quiet Fridays here.) Yesterday morning I asked my husband to help me learn to rest better, and he - in typical wise Josiah style - said he thought my problem was all internal. “Why do you feel like you can’t rest, love?”

To be honest I’m not entirely sure. There are probably cultural expectations I could blame, or the mental weight of not contributing financially to our family like I did when I was working full-time, or the practical things like laundry and dirty dishes and diaper genies that need emptied. What feels truer (and more sweeping, less romantic, and wholly embarrassing) is that I functionally think of myself as the little-g god of my life. I feel responsible for our successes and failures. I feel as though I can stave off the bad and invite only the good if I just work hard enough at this mother-and-wife-hood thing. 

While I cognitively know this isn’t true, while I know all the hard work in the world doesn’t guarantee any sort of favorable outcome for anyone in my life, it’s hard to stop doing the mental math of faithfulness. I know good works don’t equal blessings from God and yet this is the place I find myself on Friday mornings when I’m feeling especially guilty about sitting on the couch doing nothing. 

I said approximately none of this to my husband though. Instead I resolved (as one often does in January of a new year) to try it. Instead of running ragged trying to keep everything afloat, I will rest. I will submit to my limitations of time and effort and energy, the limitations of my body to be constantly moving, the limitations of my mind to try to work out what everyone needs and when. This practice is good and holy, I think. Even if it feels maddening and itchy to begin with. I don’t think there’s any magic in keeping the sabbath, but I do think there is wisdom in it. 

And so yesterday I kept the sabbath for the first time in a long time. I read a book and watched West Wing and took a nap. I accepted the generosity of the language around sabbath in the Bible - “keep the sabbath” - because it has already been given to me as a child of God and I need only to keep it, enjoy it, enter into it. And while I did that, while I rested and embraced the limits God has wisely placed on me as a human being, the world kept turning. In fact I’m quite sure we are all better off for it because I’m entering this week with fresh, newfound energy and joy. In this keeping of the sabbath, as in all things, my Father in heaven is keeping me. Thanks be to God. 

The Rhythm of Our Advent

This little corner of the internet has been quiet the past few weeks for a couple of reasons: 1) I’ve been working on a project for my church that is now in the out-of-my-hands-but-not-yet-into-yours stage. (If you attend Horizons Church, keep an eye out for the Advent guide!) and 2) Josiah and I have been spending most of our spare time preparing to move. I wrote a bit about how our rental home was for sale and it looks like someone is interested in purchasing it, so we’re moving. If you think about it, we’d love your prayers. We love our home and aren’t excited about leaving it, but we’re trusting that this is God’s best for us and trying to walk faithfully in that.  

Now that that’s out of the way, I wanted to share a few ways that I celebrate the season of Advent. Advent is the season on the church calendar that stretches the four weeks leading up to Christmas, and it’s traditionally a season to practice expectant waiting for Jesus’s coming.

There are probably hundreds of lists on the internet about ways to maximize your time this Christmas to attend all the parties and see all the lights and wrap all the presents with picture perfect homemade bows. If that is how you love to celebrate Christmas, then please do those things and enjoy them! I’ve found that a slower pace makes it easier for me to focus my heart on Jesus and enjoy the good gifts of this season without feeling rushed and frantic. Below are some of the traditions I’ve made that help foster that slowness and expectancy.

Before I got married, I celebrated Advent on my own using a few different devotionals/guides over the years. (One of my favorites was The Dawning of Indestructible Joy which I still highly recommend!) Last year, Josiah and I tried the She Reads Truth and He Reads Truth Advent books and loved them so we’re doing the same thing this year. Each day of Advent, there’s a scripture reading and online devotional that we do on our own. Then, each Sunday of Advent, we read the scripture together and light the candles in our Advent wreath. Celebrating Advent this way is one of my favorite traditions.

I’ve already started listening to Christmas music this year and have been loving The Oh Hellos’ Family Christmas Album. The songs/movements are soulful and deep with bouts of joy and celebration mixed in, which feels like the perfect mix for a season where there is much to celebrate but there is also much we are still waiting for expectantly while suffering presses into us. This album balances that in a really unique way.

Last year I perfected the art of the homemade chai tea latte. I use Twinings Chai Tea (which you can find at nearly every grocery store) and heat up about ¼ cup whole milk while the tea is brewing. My younger brother gave me a milk frother (like this) for Christmas a couple years ago and I use it to froth the warm milk before pouring it into my cup of tea. I top it off with a sprinkle of cinnamon and it always makes me feel Christmas-y to drink it in the morning!

One of the ways I practice simplicity during the Advent season is in the way I wrap gifts. Every year I buy a big roll of plain butcher paper and use it as wrapping paper. It’s significantly more cost effective than buying rolls of bright glittery wrapping paper, and I personally prefer the understated look of the matching gifts under our tree. To decorate them a bit, sometimes I’ll add a sprig of greenery from outside, some red or dark green yarn, or a hand-lettered word on the package like “merry” or “holly.”

A few years ago I tried my hand at making clay gift tags and I’ve made them every year since. They are a bit more labor-intensive, but I love the way they look on packages, and it’s a fun project to take on while listening to Christmas music. I used to use salt dough, but last year I tried a recipe for cornstarch dough and it’s what I’ll use again this year. It’s whiter than salt dough and smoother to write on. The recipe talks about adding glitter and making different shapes, but I like to keep it simple by making plain white circular tags that I can write on later with a Sharpie.

While not exactly an Advent-specific tradition, I love to make homemade bread this time of year. I follow a simple recipe and the rise time reminds me that Advent is a season of waiting. While it’s baking, our whole house smells wonderful and inviting, and the best part (of course) is eating it warm out of the oven with butter.

During Advent, Josiah and I love to diffuse Young Living’s Christmas Spirit essential oil. I don’t sell essential oils and nearly all of mine are the cheapest brands I could find on Amazon or at Target, but this little bottle is worth the $10. It smells like a Christmas tree and oranges and cinnamon, and it always lasts the entire month of December even though we diffuse it every time we are home and awake. Whenever I smell it now, I think of sweet Christmas memories with my husband and the cozy feeling of our home in the winter.

However you choose to celebrate, I hope this season is full and rich with reminders to you of the Lord’s faithfulness and love.

Quiet Faithfulness

Originally published by Horizons Resources

A year before I started college, I read a stack of books that were hot in the Christian book market (I was the cool kid in high school) and the familiar thread of full-time ministry as the highest calling ran through each. I was not alone. In fact, there was a movement of people my age who grabbed hold of these books and read them cover to cover, determining that full-time ministry was the only worthy calling for any Christian.

I’m sure for some of those people, full-time ministry was a perfect fit for their unique giftings and strengths, but for me and many others, this idea that some work was more spiritual than other work was a heavy burden to carry. These were books that said, “This is how you love and follow Jesus,” and then painted a picture of the Christian life in only primary colors.

The “radical” Christian life has become idolized in our churches and in Christian culture. We view pastors and missionaries as people who have a more direct connection to God, something deeper than what is available to the average person. The outflow of this idolization is a belittling of the lives of small, daily faithfulness.

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