Why I Don't Believe in Santa Claus

I don't like Santa. I love Christmas. My dislike for Santa Claus has nothing to do with how I feel about the holiday. But I'm frustrated by what I see in every store, in almost every facebook post, and shining bright in Christmas lights. The magic of Christmas is not a jolly man in a red suit coming to reward good behavior and punish bad. It isn't even the more realistic story of a good man who wanted, either in reality or simply in legend, to help three poor girls out with their dowry. I very much doubt that St. Nicholas, if he were really as righteous and pious as the stories suggest, would have even wanted so a--well, let's face it---ludicrous character named after him, and I am certain he would not have wanted said character to take over the holiday meant to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Because the true "magic" of Christmas is simply this: that God became human to save a people who wasn't even that interested in him.

Wait...

Let that sink in.


I know you probably know it already, but really stop and think about it. The God of the universe, the one who created galaxies and knows the stars by name and is eternal, timeless, ageless, became human. He stepped, intentionally and with perfect design, into a single, fragile body on a single broken world, to be helpless, and hungry, to know pain and loneliness and suffering.

This broken world had no hope. None at all. The world was dark, and there was no light in it. Until God came to walk with us. Imagine being in the dark and the cold. Imagine never knowing light. Then imagine the amazement of seeing for the first time, of light coming through the dark and showing you colors, textures, brilliance and radiance. Hope. Love. Peace.

That fact, in itself, is so amazing that I can hardly hold it in my head long enough to really think about it.

This is the Christmas story. It is the very essence and meaning of Christmas. And anything else, no matter how cheerful, or harmless, or well-meant, looks cheap and tarnished in comparison.

But do the people across the street have a manger scene in their yard? No. They have a blow-up Santa. Why? Santa Claus can't save them. St. Nicholas couldn't have even if he'd tried. And the Santa today very little resembles the saint for whom he was named in any case.

My problem with Santa Claus is that he isn't my savior, he's not real, and he has no right to be at the center of attention. My problem with Santa Claus is that people use him as an excuse to lie to their children because it's "traditional" and "magical" and because they don't want their kids to miss out. But I have to ask, what would they be missing out on? Christ's salvation still stands, so what do they have to lose? Except, maybe their faith in you, when they realize you've lied to them.

So, no, I don't believe in Santa Claus, nor do I think we should encourage children in any tradition that, at its core, has deception as a necessity. Stockings are fine. I think they're a cute way to do little gifts. But don't lie about who fills them.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...in him was life, and that life was the light of men. The lights shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1

Impossible Grace

What grace is this that saves me, unworthy, from the storm?
What love is this that finds me, lost and rebellious, in the deepest darkness?
What hope that shows me a future beyond all imagining and desperate longing?
Who is this that offers such refreshment to my soul, such rest to my weary spirit?

It is my Lord, and him alone. Nothing else will suffice once truth has been tasted, for all the world goes to ashes around me when I look to him. Everything is shaken, but that one, who holds me and covers me with the corner of his great cloak. To him I must cling or be lost, I think. And failing again, I feel that his arms are holding me, safe though I try to wander, though my eyes are caught by pretty things, my heart by things not so pretty, my mind by ideas that run rampant instead of held captive to truth.

This is grace, impossible
This is love, unstoppable
This is hope, undying
My Lord, my God, my Love is faithful beyond eternity

"Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you..." "For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling..." "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is your. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all." "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." "But we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and preserve their souls." "...for our God is a consuming fire." "...who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." "And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price."

Open Hands

I cannot serve with hands grasping tight,

Clenched behind my back to keep hold of

What I want, what I think I need, deserve, desire

Dross and broken dreams, ash and dust, useless

But mine, undeniably

Empty hands I would be of use to you

To soothe and rescue, to feed and defend

And so I would find my empty hands soul-filled

With grace and hope and love, spread with peace

Treasure, undeniable

Open my hands, my God, I hold them before you

Relax these stubborn fingers from my hold

Take these broken dreams

Take this pain, this doubt, this fear

These tears of self-made sorrow

Empty my hands, my King, I raise them to you

Fill them with grace

Not to be grasped, squeezed, owned

And so distorted and destroyed

But to be held loose and given free

Refuge

Have you ever heard that saying "He doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain?" As a rule, this is not a compliment. Usually, it's used to describe a person we find to be exceptionally dense or lacking in the most basic of common sense. Then I wondered, how often am I like that?

The Psalms are full of references to taking refuge in the Lord. 

Psalm 37:39-40 

"The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him."

Psalm 9:9

The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

Psalm 18:30

This God--his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

And there are many references in the other books of the Bible speaking to the Lord being a refuge, stronghold, rock and shelter. But what good is such a shelter to me if I choose to stand outside in the rain and cry? What use is the best fortress if I won't go inside and seek protection from the one who owns it?

So often, I think, I see the storm building, and rather than running inside and watching through fire-lit windows, I choose to stand there and sulk about the rain and cold. Oh, praise the Lord, who saves even the souls of those who don't have enough sense to walk through open doors! Praise the Lord, who comes out to meet me in the storm and carries me into the light!

Grace Notes

Let my life be a melody to my king
Full of the harmony of love and peace
Graced with notes of joy

Sometimes, as today, I wonder how I can spend so much of my life effectively blind to what God has done. He is not simply the creator of the universe, masters of stars and nebulae and black holes that spin the galaxies into shape. He braids he laws of physics around his fingers, and without him, nothing would hold together. Surely that is splendid, but it does not touch my heart.

Mystic Mountain - NASA

The earth itself is beautiful with a splendor that sometimes takes my breath away, when clouds edged silver by sunlight wrap the verdant green of the mountains against the bluest of skies, when the wildflowers sway in the field like summer's confetti, or the ocean rolls, full of light and dark and salt. It is beautiful and this does, in its way, touch my heart, but nature cannot save me, cannot fill me.

Photo by Michael Gabler

Then there are people, wonderful, beautiful people, who touch my life for good or ill, who take my heart and fill my hours. But they are flawed, as selfish as I am, as incapable of understanding and as deaf of heart at times. And though I love them, they cannot save me.

The Arena in Arles - Van Gogh

But, my God, not only has he saved me, but he has given me back my ability to enjoy everything else he has done. Because I am saved, I can love those who hurt me. Because I am filled with his joy and his strength and his peace, I cannot look at the sky and be struck breathless with awe at the beauty of what my God has created. Because I am loved, I can examine the laws that hold this universe together and see the glory of my Father. Everything I see, I see because he has put it there.

But I forget. Sometimes, I see the stars and do not remember what holds them in their places, I look on the mountains as only a feature of the land, and I see people as untrustworthy and not worth my time. This should not be possible, and yet, I have proved every day that it is so. So I pray today that my eyes will be opened and never closed to what my God has done, to his tremendous love and his faithfulness more constant that the sun. I pray that I will sing out the love of my God with every action, that, though there be grace notes, there will be no rests in my song.

Three Snails and the Moon

As a preface, I'd like to say that I came up with this idea more for a children's book than anything else, and I have great ideas in my head about someday illustrating it...if ever I find the time. Please do enjoy, and as always, if you have any comments, let me know.



Three Snails and the Moon

    Once there was a lush garden, overflowing with every kind of fruit and vegetable. There were grapevines over the walls, stands of lemon and orange trees, bright banks of rosemary and basil and rows of apple and cherry trees. Strawberry bushes crowded in the shade next to tomato vines and tall stalks of golden corn.
    This garden was made specially for snails, who spent their days sleeping and their nights eating all the good food that the garden provided them through the careful care of the gardener.
    But everything was not well in the garden. The snails began to fight amongst themselves, arguing as to which one of them was the best. Finally, a very wise, old snail with a large coiled shell of orange and black came forward.
    “Let us end this dispute,” he said, slowly, which is how all snails speak. “For so much fighting is not good for us.”
    The other snails agreed with this idea.
    “But how will we decide who is best?” asked one snail, his shell a coil of chocolate brown and pale pink.
    “We will set a task that only the highest among us can complete,” said the wise old snail. “That will truly prove who is best.”
    And they all thought this was good.
    “What task will it be then?” asked one, his shell as black as coal as he glared at the others with his long eyestalks.
    “The moon,” said the wise, old snail. “Whichever snail can reach the moon will be the best.”
    “The moon!” said the coal-black snail. “Ha! That will be easy. I’ll show you that I am the best.” And so saying he started climbing the nearest cornstalk. Up and up and up went the courageous gastropod until he had reached the very top of the cornstalk.
    But still the moon was above him, vast and silver in the night sky.
    “Ha!” said another. “Surely I can get higher than that.” So he climbed the grapevines strewn over the wall. Up and up and up to the very tip top.
    But still the moon was above him, shining bright amid the stars.
    “You fools,” said the third, and his shell was green and red and black. “I will show you how to reach the moon.” So he climbed the oldest, tallest apple tree in the garden. Up and up and up. It was so tall that he had to stop and rest halfway through, then he climbed again. Up and up, and up and up. Finally, he clung to the very highest leaf of the apple tree.
    But still the moon was above him.
    On returning to the ground, the three snails began to argue again. The one who had climbed the apple tree claimed that he was better than the others because he had made it the highest.
    Finally, the wise, old snail intervened again. “Who reached the moon?” he asked.
    The three snails turned their eyestalks away.
    “I made it to the top of the cornstalk, but the moon was still too high to reach,” said the first.
    “I made it to the top of the wall, but the moon was still too high to reach,” said the second.
    “I made it to the top of the apple tree,” said the third. “Higher than these two could go.”
    “And did you reach the moon?” asked the wise, old snail.
    “It was still too high to reach,” said the third snail. “But I made it the highest.”
    “And was the contest to see who could make it the highest?” asked the wise, old snail.
    “Well, no,” said the third, shrinking a bit.
    “What was the task?” asked the wise, old snail, as if he had forgotten.
    “To reach the moon,” the other admitted grudgingly.
    “And have you done it?”
    “No,” said the third.
    “Then you have all failed equally,” said the wise, old snail. “Go and live in peace with each other.” And the wise, old snail pulled back into his shell as the morning sun rose over the garden. And he slept.

                                  ...and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags 
                                                                                              Isaiah 64:6

Soul-honey

Proverbs 24:13-14

My son, eat honey, for it is good, 

and the drippings of the honeycomb 

are sweet to your taste.

Know that wisdom is such to your soul; 

if you find it, there will be a future, 

and your hope will not be cut off.

This passage caught my attention today. Partly because I think "soul-honey" is an awesome word combination. I also did a little research. It turns out that honey isn't just a tasty treat. When applied to wounds as a balm, honey acts as a slow-release form of hydrogen peroxide, preventing infection--without the burn of pure hydrogen peroxide. It also has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Of course, none of this was known when this verse was written. I love finding out how the Bible proves it can be trusted in even the smallest ways.

It isn't a great leap to carry the metaphor to wisdom and the soul. Wisdom is antibacterial in that keeps organisms that start out small like greed, lust and anger from taking root and growing into great infections. It is also antioxidant in that it prevents slow, unnoticed decay of plain, seemingly harmless laxness that can ultimately lead to cancerous growths. Finally, wisdom is anti-inflammatory in its effects. "Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense." Prov. 19:11

Having decided that wisdom is definitely worth finding: where to find it? We don't exactly have wisdom-combs (wisdom-hives?) hanging from every tree--or actually any that I know of, but Job 28 has a great poetic description of trying to find wisdom, and I would highly recommend reading the whole thing. These, however, are the highlights. Verses 12-15 state, "But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living. The deep says, 'It is not with me,' and the sea says, 'It is not with me.' It cannot be bought for gold, and silver cannot be weighed as its price." It seems someone who is genuinely seeking this miracle cure for the soul might at this point start getting worried. Fortunately, Job doesn't leave us hanging for long. Verse 23 says, "God understands the way to it, and he knows its place." And the chapter ends with, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding."

Proverbs also has a lot to say about wisdom, often using a female personification to show what wisdom is and what it decidedly is not. Getting wisdom isn't always easy. Just as getting honey from a beehive isn't easy. It takes preparation, dedicated study and the right tools, but it is definitely worth the effects.

Beehive

Photo courtesy of Vards Uzvards

Living, the Dream

I am living in a dream

Only glimpses of the true life come through

And I question why what I see doesn't make sense

As I lay with my eyes closed

And my spirit caged inside this shell

Perception is distorted by the viewpoint

The fractured pieces are poor imitations

Mirror-images of what will be

Spiraling through a sleeping mind

But beyond there is the one

The truth that has saved

To see him

I must open my eyes

Wake from this dream

Fly from this cage

And

I am not afraid

Because the truth that has leaked through

Into my sleeping mind

Is far greater than this dream that I am living

To the Young Women in My Life

To the young women in my life...

1. What do you want to be remembered for? I don't mean after your death, but five or ten or fifteen years from now, when you've moved on to a new city and you're out on your own, when you've found new friends to add to the old ones, how do you want them to think about you?

2. How do you see yourself? I don't mean physically, but how do you see your own attitude. Would you want to be friends with someone exactly like yourself? If there's something you don't like, you have the power to change it. Happiness is a choice.

3. Take a deep breath. Never, ever panic.

4. What do you fight for? What do you fight about? There are some things, most things in fact, that aren't worth the trouble. Family, marriage and friends are not among them. Never fight for yourself; fight for those you love.

5. Be strong enough to do it yourself, but if someone offers, let them help you.

6. Offer to help others.

7. Fall in love with God before you even think about "liking" someone else. I don't care how cute he is...if he's not in love with God, you'll regret it. By the way, cute only lasts six months, at most.

8. Boys are not stupid. They are different. Very, very different. Talk to them like you would talk to someone who has just learned English as a second language. Be careful. Be kind. Be clear. Don't expect mind-reading.

9. Forgive. Even if they never admit they are wrong, forgive them. Don't assume they meant to hurt you. If you have a problem, talk to them personally, not about them to others. Never gossip.

10. You don't have to have a career. You don't have to get married. You don't have to have children. But you do have to be useful, helpful, compassionate. Make a difference wherever you are.

11. Learn to cook. It'll save you so much money. And baking is fun.

12. Pray. All the time.

13. Dress well. Let's be honest, you know when you're wearing something too short, low-cut or tight. Don't. You're beautiful, and you don't need to degrade yourself to get attention.

14. I love you all, and I always will.

Quasar

When I was in high school, a band called the Smalltown Poets sang a song with these lyrics: There must be something else that all of this revolves around / I appear so small and barely make a sound / Still mysterious these frequencies they draw you out / Looking for some light, see what I'm all about / The rest of them are stars / I'm a quasar.

This caught my attention, as it may have yours, because quasar isn't a word you hear in everyday conversation. To be as brief as possible, quasars are QUASi-stellAR radio sources. They surround black holes at the center of certain galaxies and emit massive amounts of light along with radio waves. They are the some of the most luminous objects in the known universe.

Quasar 3C 273

Now, back to the song.

Obviously, as Christians, our light should be drawing people to study us and ask what makes us shine so brightly. We should be quasars.

But that's easier said than done. Philippians 2:14-15 gives us some good guidelines for shining. "Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world." 

 This is a verse I was often (read very, very often) reminded of as a teenager. As sometimes happens, this repetition has led me to sort of ignore this verse for the most part. I definitely haven't given it as much thought as I should have in recent years. But now that I am thinking about it, wouldn't it be spectacular to be around someone who never complained or grumbled about anything? I'm not talking about false smiles and such, but what about someone who actually had that sort of attitude? Wouldn't that be awesome? Wouldn't that make you wonder what that person had going on that made them so capable of serenity? It would make me wonder. And I'm supposed to be a quasar.

Another thing of note about quasars is that they don't draw energy from within themselves. Unlike like stars, they aren't burning fuel that is packed inside them. Instead, as far as people can tell at this time, quasars emit light and radio waves as a result of gases swirling around and being inexorably drawn into the black hole. Gravity and massive amounts friction come into play as well as event horizons and other astronomical physics things. If you understand all the maths involved, I applaud you. As far as this illustration goes, however, it's only important to understand that something else powers the quasars. They aren't just out there burning brilliantly by themselves. In fact, if the black hole gives out, the quasar dissipates. So if we want to burn bright like quasars, we have to be close, event horizon close to the source of our power. The closer we get, the more light we will shine. And, like stars drawn to black holes and astronomers drawn to quasars, soon we will start pulling other people closer to our God.

Streak-Free Shine

Being invisible has never appealed to me. I'm not really the sort of person to sit in the background, not matter what's going on. After all, if I'm going to be somewhere, I want people to know I'm there. Otherwise, what's the point of being there, right? To be honest, I don't usually find this a particularly troubling trait in myself. It allows me to get things done that need doing and move on to the next task, whether that be socializing (yes, that counts as a task for me), cleaning a bed or giving blood to a severely hypotensive patient. But I've begun to wonder if maybe, sometimes, it isn't a good idea to be too visible. I don't mean that I want to disappear into the background, because I really don't think being invisible is the point, but I do wonder if there isn't someway that I can be less me. I'm not being self-deprecating. I quite like being myself. However, I know someone who is a great deal better than I am (like saying VY Canis Majoris is a great deal bigger than the earth, if you're looking for a scale reference), and who deserves a lot more attention than I do.

For that reason, I wish I could be see-through, like a window, so that while I'm rushing about being visible and all, people would be able to see who it is that is giving me the strength to do what I do. And trust me. I definitely need the strength. I can't count on one hand the number of times I almost broke down yesterday alone. I am not by nature a patient person, so if you ever see me being patient, I hope you can realize that you're not actually seeing me at all. I'm being see-through.

There is, of course, a catch. Funny thing about windows: when they're dark on the inside, they only reflects what's outside. So if I tell people that I'm a Christian, that I believe in serving a Living God, then if I'm impatient or bitter, if I lie or cheat or curse, I'm painting the inside of my window black, covering up what I'm supposed to be showing, giving a false idea of who God is and what he wants. If I'm not revealing God, then I'm reflecting the world. And for people who have no idea what God's love truly is that must be terribly confusing.

Love is a great window cleaner (better than vinegar and newspaper). It strips away all that black paint and reveals what's truly behind the glass. I find it harder to use than I should. Fortunately, I'm not alone in this effort to create a streak-free shine. God is the one who started the process, and I know he's not going to stop until it's finished.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

 Philippians 1:6

Bus Stop

Sitting at a bus stop on green plastic bench with countless globs of used gum stuck beneath the edge, the wind blows cold and gritty down the street, not at all hindered by the plexiglass shelter sporting badly spelled insults and out of date advertisements...if you are lucky enough to be at a stop that has a shelter at all. Waiting for a bus that may or may not get there on time. It isn't what I would consider a comfortable, or even a safe, place to be. Fortunately, stays at bus stops are inherently transient. They are waypoints, not end points of journeys.

This world is much the same. It is a waypoint, transient and not terribly comfortable. In fact, sometimes, it can be downright painful, sitting in the cold and waiting for a bus that you thought was supposed to be coming. It isn't where you want to be. It isn't home. And if that were all there was in this life, I would be hopeless to the point of despair. 

The greatest thing about this world is that it isn't all there is. We wait at bus stops because we have somewhere else to go. Somewhere infinitely more pleasant and warmer. Somewhere we are meant to be. It may take a while to get there. And while you are here, you will almost definitely end up on a route you hadn't planned on taking either because you read the little colored lines wrong or caught the wrong numbered bus or simply because whether you wanted to go there or not that was where you were meant to be. Certainly, it sometimes feels like you'll be here at this particular stop forever. But it isn't permanent. Nothing here is. And that is the greatest hope I have.

Hebrews 12:25-29

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

Fire Drill

It's the middle of the night. You're tucked under your blankets blissfully unaware of the surrounding world, when you're suddenly woken by the shrill shriek of the fire alarm and the smell of smoke. With your eyes still blurry and your heart pounding, what do you do?

Do you crawl out the window? Call the fire department? Run for the kids? Or do you lie paralyzed as the haze grows thicker?

When I was younger, my parents used to have fire drills. They were awesome. Mostly because it involved crawling out of a second floor window on a special rope ladder. My parents had a plan. They knew who was responsible for grabbing which kids, and when we were older, we knew where we were supposed to meet outside the house. Fortunately, we never had to use that knowledge, and the only time the fire alarm went off was when the chimney fell over onto it, or someone burnt something on the stove. The point is, however, that we were ready.

The same principle underlies the training I've had to complete as a nurse. I train repeatedly for emergency situations, and when they happen, after the initial moment of brain-stopping panic, I know what to do.

If we can apply these principles to physical emergencies, I wonder why we so often overlook such planning for other aspects of our lives. Tragedies occur everyday. We can't, anyone of us, think that we will escape them. And yet, how often do we sit down and think of what we will do when the worst happens? I'm not talking about preparing for a zombie apocalypse and hoarding canned food. Honestly, I'm not even talking about preparing for a true apocalypse. I'm talking about those normal, yet life-changing tragedies: a death or hurt or loss that changes the structure of your life. What do you do when you can't see to take the next step because your eyes are stinging with tears? What is your emergency strategy?

The thing about the rope ladder from the second floor is that the first time down, you're terrified. By the second time, you know it will hold. And on the third, you're seeing how much you can make it swing...well, maybe not. Still, it's an exercise in building faith. The middle of the night with a house on fire is not the best time to discover whether or not the ladder will hold. It's best to make the decision to act before the problem ever arises.

So run your fire drills. Practice your faith. Make sure you know where your ladder lies, so when you need it the most, you won't be paralyzed in a smoke-filled room.


DANIEL 3

Thinking Like Origami

I've taken up a new hobby. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I'm attempting origami. I say attempting because there is, apparently, a lot more to origami than I had originally guessed. I just wanted to fold paper into awesome flowers and turtles. Then I learned, you have to have the right paper, along with--and who would've guessed it--the ability to understand what the arrows and lines on the instructions mean. So I asked a friend who recommended a book that explains the arrows and lines and has pictures for every bit of folding. Exactly what I needed.

Here's the thing about origami. You spend a lot of time folding paper only to then unfold it again, because you want the creases there so the paper will bend at the correct place later. And I had an aha! moment. How many times in life do we go through situations where we are forced to "fold" and we can't for the life of us say afterward why it was so necessary that we had to do that. Perhaps, if you're like me, you even spend some time asking God that same question...but then maybe, say, ten years later, you suddenly discover that being able to fold in that way is very important to your new situation. I can't tell you exactly what it will be. Maybe you had to leave something behind, or take something along that you didn't want. Maybe you had to say goodbye to someone. Whatever the case may be, I can't help but think that we are a lot like origami.

We have to, first of all, be the right kind of paper. A paper that can be folded without tearing, that can hold a crease without forgetting...and, of course, it helps to be colorful, too. And we have to be paying attention to the right kind of instructions. If you don't understand the basics, you can't jump into complicated designs. It just doesn't work that way. Trust me. I've tried this and several mutilated pieces of paper will attest to the fact. Last of all, we have to practice. Nobody gets anything right the first time. Unless they're one of those absolutely perfect people who can play fifteen instruments and speak twenty languages...definitely not me.

The wonderful thing about God is that when we fail to fold correctly the first time, he just smooths it over and gives it another go. Sometimes, I think I've been stuck on the same fold for months before I finally understand which way I'm supposed to be going. But God is patient, and he has the right instructions. He wrote the right instructions in a way that me and you and everyone on the planet can understand them. So this week, I'm going to practice folding.

Enough

What is enough? Coming directly after the holiday season this may be a little difficult to answer. Well, who am I kidding? It's always difficult to answer, isn't it? It's always hard to decide how much is just enough and not too much, trying to balance a life of comfort with moderation, if you even want to bother with that sort of thing.

Enough means different things for different people. Enough for people in America is undoubtedly different than the enough of people in, say, Africa. We buy filters for tap water because it's not pure enough. A majority of people in the world don't have water that's actually safe to drink. So enough differs based on what you're used to, where you grew up, how much you're used to having. Or does it?

I recently came across a Hebrew word that I've absolutely fallen in love with. It's dayenu (דַּיֵּנוּ ), which means, roughly but beautifully translated "it would have been enough for us". 

So, as the new year begins, I ask myself what would have been enough? Ransom from darkness and death? Eternal, faithful love? Certainly those seem to fit the bill. On top of these, I also find myself enjoying clean drinking water, a job where I get paid for the work I do, life in a country where women are allowed to vote and drive, clean clothes, hot water, good food. Sometimes it's hard to see that none of those things even register on the scale of "enough" because it's already been topped out. I have so much more than enough. Why do I ever think I need more? I'm not saying it's bad to have things, or even to like purified water. But those should not be the things we are relying on to be enough for us, to make us happy or safe or content. Even if I lose everything that I can lose, including hot water (which would probably be the worst struggle to be honest), I would still have more than enough. More than I would ever have thought to ask for on my own. And realizing that, I can be content...at least, until my brain distracts me again with trivial nonsense.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19