Another Advent Post

December first!  Advent!
Ahhhhhh.
I've waited all year for this.

Gotta tell you though: nothing has changed.
This year, like last, you will find me clinging to the hope and promise of Christmas because I believe that if the gospel matters in anything it matters in everything.  I need this so much. Regularly, I forget about truth and define myself by the fact that I'm still overweight, struggling with my mental health, and trying hard to try hard.  So I need to take this time every year to focus my heart, my mind, my soul, my strength on what matters.

What matters is the glorious gospel of Christ; distilled into the heartbeat gift of the Baby in the Manger: Immanuel, God with us.

He didn't come for me because of my looks or lack thereof. He didn't come for me because I'm eager or hopeful or despondent or depressed. He didn't come for me because I try hard or because I give up, usually both. He didn't even come for me because I need Him need Him need Him (oh God, how I need you!).

No.

He came into the world because that's who He is.

That's who He is.
Immanuel.
God with us.

Oh sing, my soul, and breathe free, breathe deeply of this truth.
Eyes up and off of me, He came to us.
And that's all that really matters.

Merry Christmas, friends.
xo.

Of Course He Sees It That Way

I've always loved the Bible story of Naaman (in chapter 5 of 2 Kings). Like most of us, he's not the kind of person you'd expect to go to God for healing. He's a commander in the Syrian army, he's rich and powerful, and he has a captive Israelite slave working in his household. 
But he's got leprosy. And this slave has pity on him, and says "oh, if only he could go to the prophet in my land and be healed!" 

So Naaman, this guy who moves in mighty political circles, asks the king for permission to go to Israel. And the king encourages him to go, and sends him with a letter of introduction and a request for healing to the king of Israel (because of course, wouldn't it be the king who has power to heal?). Naaman sets out with a fancy cavalcade, bringing heaps of gold and silver and fine clothes to try to pay for this impossible request.

And the king of Israel warily receives this commander with all his pomp and reads the letter and he looks at Naaman and he's like "whaaaat?! Syria's king is picking a fight with me! Nobody can heal leprosy but God!"  Er - what's the politically correct way to tell your powerful neighbour's commander he's nuts?

But God's prophet Elisha sends word to the king that he, Elisha, is actually the one Naaman should come see. 

So Naaman takes his opulent treasure and leaves the palace and winds his horses and chariots down through the common streets and stands at Elisha's door.
 And Elisha sends a messenger, who tells him, "go wash in the Jordan River seven times, and be clean."

And you can totally see it - this Naaman, who is used to strategizing and political reasoning is utterly incensed.  First, he was sent away from the king, down to this house where he isn't even received. He doesn't get a fancy show of power from this prophet, no incense or hand-waving or magic; not even so much as a how-do-you-do. He gets a messenger, who tells him quite literally to go soak his head -- and in an Israelite river, at that! Is Elisha trying to tell him Israel's rivers are better than Syria's? How dare he!?

From a political standpoint, he's been rebuffed and belittled and given the runaround.
And of course he sees it that way, that's the only standpoint he has, you know?
That's his life.

But his servants have a different perspective.
When he starts to storm away, unhealed and completely enraged, raving about the superiority of Syria's rivers, they come after him and speak gently to him.
"Hey," they point out, "wouldn't you do anything to be healed? Anything at all? He's not telling you to do anything hard: just wash and be clean."
And their perspective adjustment is just what he needs.
So he goes into the water and dips seven times, and bam, his leprosy is gone and his skin is fresh and new and this God is real and this God is amazing and this God is who he will adore forever.




Ahhh. Elisha wasn't trying to cast aspersions on any rivers. The King hadn't dismissed him out of hand. They had led him to God for healing.

But he needed the perspective adjustment from his servants in order to receive it.

I love how the people who direct Naaman to healing are, at all three points of the story, servants. They don't have a lot of power, but what they have (their faith, knowledge, and perspective), they use for good. God loves to hide his treasure in powerless packages. In captives. In messengers. In servants. 
And through them, he blesses Naaman and brings him to know and love Himself.

Sometimes I'm like Naaman. I need help, but instead of getting it, I find myself knocking at the wrong door, getting bent out of shape and tied up in knots over imagined slights to my precious dignity.  I need people to speak gently to me, to share their faith, share their messages, to adjust my perspective and lend me theirs.

Yeah.
We can hear more when we listen with another's ears.
We can see more when we see with another's eyes.


We need community.  We need each other.  No matter how foreign or powerful or captive or free we are. 

Thanks for being my community, guys.
xo.

Ambush of the Mouth

I'm reading in the book of Kings, 1 Kings 17, where God sent Elijah to Zarephath, a town whose name means Ambush of the Mouth.

Ambush of the Mouth. And like most Bible names, it holds a story inside it.

In Zarephath, there lived a widow with her son, and they were dying of starvation due to a drought. They had enough oil and flour to cook one last meal and that was it - they were preparing to die.

They were ambushed with hunger.

But when God sent Elijah, he also sent a miracle: their ordinary almost-empty jars turned into always-full jars of flour and oil.  And so Elijah settled in with them and they lived together happily for many days. But then tragedy struck and the widow's son fell ill. The Scriptures describe it like this ...And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him (verse 17).

No breath left in him. Talk about Ambush of the Mouth!  Avoiding starvation by nothing but a blatant miracle of God only to die of suffocation?!

Ambush. I can just imagine the widow's heartbreak and bitter thoughts. Why would God have bothered to keep them alive for this?

But God wasn't done being awesome. 

Elijah prayed, and God chose to give the breath of life back to the son. Breathed into his mouth the breath of life.

And in the end? The widow testified:

And the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth." (verse 24)

It's like she was worried, all that time. Like she couldn't rest in the miracle. This unusual abundance must fade sometime. 

But now - finally, now, she knew.

There was Elijah speaking the word of the Lord, raining abundance and restoration.  Truth.

I picture her throwing up arms of surrender as she gave in to the delight and relief of it all. Ambushed by love and miraculous restoration. ❤️

Thankful

Vava and Kachi both have birthdays on Thanksgiving weekend, so the holiday kind of gets lost in the bustle. 

We don't live near family, so we don't have any special Thanksgiving traditions or meals to attend (which is probably a good thing with all the partying going on over here).

. 

Every year, a chip truck in town does a fundraiser for the food bank. In exchange for 2 non-perishables, or a cash donation, they give a plate of fresh-from-the-farm turkey dinner, complete with a pumpkin tart for dessert.  So, in the middle of our busy weekend, without lifting a pot or chopping a single vegetable, we just swing by Bakers Fries and get to sit down to a gorgeous turkey dinner.

It wasn't planned. (If I was going to plant a family ritual around Thanksgiving, it probably would have been something involving way more work for me and with considerably less awesome results.) Sam and I just stumbled across it while walking home from church on our first Smiths Falls Thanksgiving. It's a good gift.

For this, along with a life full of visible and hidden blessings, I am truly thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

Xo.

Get Out / Of The Way

A while ago, I read an article subtitled "Why We Should Take Kids Outside and Get Out of Their Way". It probably resonated with me because that's my favourite thing to do. I wish I could attribute this to my excellent parenting but it's pretty much because they love playing outside and I love being lazy.
We go to the beach almost every day, and some days it's harder than others to get out of their way.  Other people warn me that Pascal is standing next to the water, as if this is something I should correct. They tell their kids that frog hunting is not allowed, and then glower while mine catch and release every frog they can find.
Today, there's another mom at the beach and I love her.
She hasn't once suggested things for her kids to do.
No performance parenting.
No "come eat your organic quartered grapes to recharge your energy, honey."
No extra loud reminders.
She's reading on her phone and her kids are playing in the water. (They're currently mermaids, beset by pirates; earlier they were making castles and then destroying them like dinosaurs.)
This mom, this chill mom who is raising happy and polite kids with great imaginations, is amazing.
Take 'em outside and get out of their way.

Leftovers

I don't know about you guys, but for me, sometimes it's way too easy to feel purposeless. 
Usually I feel like all I do is reclean and recook and refold and reteach, day after day.
And I look around and I see some people living these magnificent lives, impactful and meaningful and productive. And I kind of feel like ... leftovers. Scraps. Not adding any value.
And this morning - I know, it's silly, but bear with me - I set a batch of sourdough to rise to make bagels. Mixed it, kneaded it (bliss!), and then when it was soft and springy and perfectly smooth, rolled it in a ball to rest, while I scraped out the bowl where it would sit and slowly rise. 
I found a surprising amount of dough in the bowl, maybe a quarter cup, and I was about to toss it out when I suddenly felt bad for the scrapings. They had done all the work of fermentation, had been mixed and scraped and mixed and scraped again, and now - nothing. Garbage can.
So although I laughed at myself for feeling sorry for a handful of leftover scrapings, I took it over to my smooth, springy ball of dough and worked it through. Fold, press, turn. Fold press turn. And God sang to my heart about His heart. He wasn't laughing at me for feeling sentimental over the scrapings.
He feels the same way.
How do I know? Well - you know the miracle of the loaves and fishes, where Jesus fed five thousand people from one lunch of bread and fish? Guess what he did with the leftovers?
He gathered them up. Gathered them, and counted them; twelve baskets full.  Every basket proclaims his glory, his abundance, his more-than-enoughness.
Maybe there was one basket for each disciple, to teach them this truth: in Christ, there are no scraps.
No leftovers.
No garbage.
We matter.
I matter.
You matter.

Every one of us, gathered up and counted.

Our Own Stack of Blocks

This week I was watching Boss Baby with the kids. Have you seen that one? It's about a boy whose parents tell him that a new baby is coming home, and then it's his journey through the fears and insecurities of what that all means. It's funny and my kids love it, but there's one part that was stressing them out.
The boy, Tim, is afraid that when the baby comes, there will be less love for him. He pictures love as a finite resource, like a stack of blocks that he will have to share: his deep fear is that there will be less love for him.

When the movie got to this part, I paused it and tried to unpack it a bit for my kids. I had seen a few worried expressions flash across their faces, and I wanted to assure them.

"That's a big fear for many of us," I explained, "that we won't be loved. We're afraid there's not enough love to go around.  But every one of us comes into the world with our own stack of blocks - our own big pile of love.  It never runs out. Because no matter who else loves us or doesn't love us, the One who made us loves us.  We are all already loved. And not just loved: so loved.  SO LOVED."

And one of the kids piped up, "except bad guys."

And I shook my head.  "Nope. Nuh-uh. Jesus told us who God loves. God so loved the world (hear it? sooooooo loved the world) that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.  Everybody. We're all bad guys, all sinners. And He loves us - He gives us all our own big stack of blocks."

And we turned the movie back on and they dove back into the story, but the truth I got to share with them has been ringing through my heart all week.

I don't know about you, but I say the meanest things to myself in my head.
"You're a bad mom," I think, after losing my temper in an exasperating moment. Or "You should go on a diet." Or "How long has it been since you mopped that floor?"

And the Lord has been interrupting me and saying "so loved" in place of those sharp words.

"You're a so-loved mom. You are so loved. How long has it been since you remembered you were so loved?"

Dear friends, I wanted to share this gospel truth with you.
You are so loved.
It's the reason He sent Jesus.
It's the reason Jesus died and rose again.
It's why the Holy Spirit came.
It's the sure foundation from which we can read the Scriptures, learn from Him, and know Him.
God so loved the world.

Guest Post: God, Our Father Who Loves Us Like A Mother

THIS IS A REPOST:


Mothers are some of the most underappreciated people in the world. A mother knows what it’s like to sustain and nourish another human from her own body. A mother knows what it’s like to give her body and her strength, to give up her waking hours and her sleeping hours, and even to give up her life for the care of her children. A mother knows what it’s like to deplete herself to the point of exhaustion, to give all of herself for the little people who depend on her for their very life but treat her with such disregard and disrespect all day long, always demanding more and never showing any appreciation or giving anything in return. Mothers, if this is any encouragement, God knows exactly how you feel.

God identifies himself with mothers and motherhood in at least three ways. First, in His sufficiency; second, in His self-sacrificing tender-kindness and loving-care; and third, in His unrequited love. By examining how God identifies Himself with mothers and with motherhood, we can learn a little about God and we can draw comfort from knowing more of God’s companionship with us and His care for us.

God chooses to identify Himself to us primarily in masculine terms, He wants to be known as the Father. But God, as the perfect parent, is the one who protects and provides for His children and nourishes and sustains them. Furthermore, human fathers and mothers both are created in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 says, “In the image of God, He created him; male and female he created them.” It follows then, that God’s parenting of His children has the characteristics of both fatherhood and motherhood. The Presbyterian minister, Scott Sauls says, “God is our Father who loves us like a Mother.”

God identifies Himself with motherhood most strikingly in the use of His name, El-Shaddai. El-Shaddai is the second name by which God chooses to identify Himself to man. He reveals this name to Abraham in Genesis 17:1-2, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty (El-Shaddai); walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly.’” The name El-Shaddai is mistranslated as God Almighty in our English Bibles. The name El signifies strength, power, or might and is used through the Old Testament as the word “God” or “god,” it indicates to us the power of God Himself. Although there is still some ambiguity around the origins of the name Shaddai, it is believed to be derived from the Hebrew word, shadaim, for breast. This indicates sufficiency or nourishment. Some have made the suggestion that the name El-Shaddai be further translated as “the many breasted One.” Another translation might be something like God All-Sufficient. God introduces Himself to Abraham as El-Shaddai with the promise that He will “multiply [him] greatly.” God also introduces Himself as El-Shaddai to Jacob, repeating the same promise to him in Genesis 35:11, “I am God Almighty (El-Shaddai): be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.” God introduces himself as El-Shaddai and associates this name with the promise of offspring. Later, Jacob, now known as Israel, invokes El-Shaddai in his blessing to his children, most notably in his blessing on Joseph in Genesis 49:24-25:

“His arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (El-Shaddai, God of Jacob) … by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty (El-Shaddai) who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.”

Jacob, looking forward from the brink of the population explosion he has been promised in Genesis 35:11, appropriates the name of El-Shaddai, and calls down distinctly maternal “blessings of the breasts and of the womb” to his children and grandchildren. God, does not only provide multiplied offspring—blessings of the womb—but also promises to nourish and sustain them—blessings of the breasts. Of the Patriarchs it is Jacob who is most associated with the name El-Shaddai. Jacob himself calls El-Shaddai “the Mighty One of Jacob,” and afterwards, through the Old Testament, the name El-Shaddai is often used next to the name of Jacob. We can imagine Jacob, who was so close to his mother, having a particular appreciation for God as El-Shaddai, the God who nourishes and sustains. The prophet Isaiah invokes the same maternal imagery when he writes, “You shall suck the milk of nations; you shall nurse at the breast of kings; and you shall know that I, the LORD, am your Saviour and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob (El Shaddai, God of Jacob)” (Isaiah 60:16); and,

“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance. For thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem’” (Isaiah 66:10-13).

Through the prophet Isaiah, God promises to comfort the people of Israel with the restoration of Jerusalem, “as one whom his mother comforts.” In this translation it seems the consoling breasts belong to the city of Jerusalem, but still, it is God who provides the nourishment that flows through them; God is the true comforter and here he is a maternal comforter, comforting His children as a mother. The breasts are a metaphor for both nourishment and comfort, like a mother comforts and nourishes her child with her breasts, God will comfort and nourish His people. This is not a reluctant association, throughout Scripture, God repeatedly identifies Himself with motherhood.

As we see in the passages quoted, El-Shaddai is the God who nourishes and sustains. His power is sufficient to all His children’s needs. He provides for them abundant blessings. He uses the imagery of breasts as metaphors for the way He nourishes His people from Himself. El-Shaddai is the God who provides Manna for the Children of Israel in the wilderness. He is the Rock who was struck in the desert to quench the thirst of His people. He is the God who, through Jesus, says, “I am the Bread of Life” (John 6:35) and invites us to feed on His body and drink of His blood (John 6:54). This is the God who gives life by the breaking of His body and the draining of His blood. He is the God who, by His own self, nourishes and sustains life.

In this way, God is not being like a mother, rather the imagery works in the opposite direction. Mothers are image-bearers of God, they reflect His tender nurturing heart when they tenderly nurture their children. The mother who sustains her child with her own body, who nourishes her child from her breasts, and who comforts her child with the closeness of her body until that child thrives images the God who is our El-Shaddai. The God who is sufficient to our every need. The God who births us by His Spirit. The God who sustains and nourishes us from His own self. And the mother who exhausts herself for the nourishment, sustenance, and comfort of her children can be sustained, nourished, and comforted from the resources of El-Shaddai who is sufficient to all her needs. Perhaps you, mother, exhausted in the late hours with an unsettled child in your weary arms have been comforted to find yourself cradled in the everlasting arms of your El-Shaddai.

God also identifies Himself with motherhood in the way He self-sacrificially cares for His children. This is expressed by Jesus in Luke 13:34; He laments over Jerusalem,

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

He draws on the imagery of a mother hen, sheltering her chicks from danger with her own body. He points to the instinct in mothers to put themselves in harm’s way to protect their children. In His lament, Jesus is referring prophetically to the time when, by the breaking of His body, He shelters His people from wrath. In His sacrificial death, Jesus holds nothing back, thrusting Himself fully into danger to secure the safety of His people. The fact that He likens this to the care that a mother hen has for her chicks is evidence that God has purposely designed motherhood to reflect Himself. The loving care and tender kindness that a mother has for her child reflects God’s care and concern for His children. Like a mother, awake in the night with a troubled child, God is the one who “will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4) as He cares for His people. Like a mother who sets aside her busyness and her work to hold a needy child, God cares for His needy children, “In His arms He carries them all day long.” Indeed, His attention to His children, described in Psalm 121 is maternal care:

“He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. … The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore” (Psalm 121:3-8).

We can imagine the Heavenly Father, here paying close attention to His small child’s every step as He walks beside His child, He protects His child from the glare of the sun with His body, casting a cool shade. In this way, a mother who forgets her own needs and desires to be diligently attentive to the comfort and safety of her child reflects the tender care of God for His children. Further, God is the God who “swears to His own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:4). This is intentional, He does not make promises carelessly, not realizing the cost; no, God weighs the cost, and considers it worthwhile. In this way, a mother who, for the love of her child, endures the pain and labour of childbearing and the personal cost of caring for her child through the day and through sleepless nights, considering it worthwhile, is an image of God’s self-sacrificing care for His children.

A mother who gives of her body, her spirit, her attention, and her energy out of love for her child and finds her love unrequited knows something about the love of God. Motherhood is a thankless vocation. To a child, a mother's sacrifices are expected and demanded; her desires are meaningless or nonexistent. Her child openly believes in his own supreme importance: mother is of no more value than a dispensary. Her commands are taken as idiotic suggestions, or completely ignored. She rescues her unwitting child from danger and is thanked with screaming resentment. Her child repeatedly returns to the danger and ignores her mother's warnings. A mother knows exactly what God means when He says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people" (Romans 10:21). God holds out His hands in grace, giving and giving. Each moment of life is a gift from God, each breath, each new day, the food that sustains, these are the least of His gifts but if He withheld any one of them none would survive. How like small children we are. We depend on God's grace but give Him so little thanks. We complain about the good gifts He gives us because they are not precisely to our liking. We grow bitter towards Him when we don't get the things we want, the way we want them. We often remark on the foolishness of the Children of Israel when they complain to Moses in Numbers 21:5, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” "There is no food ... and we loathe this worthless food," how ridiculous, how like small children they are. But how like them are we? There is no love like God's love, no one could give more than He gives. But His love is unrequited every day. Arrogantly, we receive His gifts with no regard for the giver. Still, God gives. He gives at such cost, He gives His greatest treasure to win us. Jesus, God's great gift, for us. But His gift is largely ignored or rejected. We fail to value it, we don't appreciate the cost. We treat God with the disregard of small children for their mothers. Still God loves us, He chooses to see past our unreceptive hearts and He loves us with the kind of tender love a mother has for her small children. The mother who smiles at her children's petulance, who patiently serves her children with a love that makes her forget their unkindness, reflects the love God has for His children. Our God is kind.

Today is the day the world sets aside for the appreciation of mothers. We should appreciate mothers all the more for showing us something of the great love of God for us. He is the God who, like a mother, nourishes us from His own self, gives to us at such great cost, and whose gifts we receive with indifference and contempt. We should appreciate mothers for reflecting the kindness of God in their care for small children.




PLEASE ALSO READ: http://scottsauls.com/blog/2014/05/09/esteeming-every-woman-mothers-day/

He Prays for Us

This week was a tough one for me. It's been a hard go lately.  I know I'm not alone in that; we all struggle and face our own battles.

The enemy has been pointing out my insufficiencies, and, overwhelmed, taking my eyes off Christ, I began to sink.

When I was sinking into despair I texted a friend who I know has battled her own mighty share of struggles. "Help!" I cried, "I can't do this alone."

And she came out of her busy life and brought me some wine and stood in my kitchen and wrapped her arms around me and prayed for me.

And I remembered reading this amazing snippet by Robert Murray McCheyne, that goes "If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me."

I did not hear Christ himself praying for me, but this sister, this friend - the church which is his body - came and stood with me, and I heard her praying for me.

And I knew this was an echo of my Lord's heart, praying for me.

We aren't alone. He is praying for us. And He has given us each other,  to strengthen and hold one another.

I praise Him for His prayers, and for yours, my friends.

xo.

For Pascal, age 2.

I held you in my arms and gave you
approximately two thousand seven hundred
carefully sterilized bottles of formula.

These days you like to scoop up dirty snow by the mittenful

and shove it gleefully into your mouth

before I can stop you.

I have changed what feels like a million diapers
(actually also approximately two thousand seven hundred)
and left your bottom dry and ph balanced each time.

You still resist being changed

and never ever answer yes when I ask if you need a fresh diaper

as if sitting in filth is your favourite.

I have bought, cooked, sliced, and offered you
oh, let's just say two thousand seven hundred
bites of tasty fresh vegetables.

You are (even still) coming up with

new ways and words to refuse them; 

today's being "yuck" and "please no."

I have washed, folded, put away, and wrestled you into
your clothes two thousand times
more or less (probably more, counting blowouts).

Last night you discovered your firetruck jams

(freshly laundered after a stinky accident)

and have already thanked me three times for cleaning them.

(You're welcome)

I have slept through your cries, snoring,

until your siblings bring you to me

and I roll over and make room for you for one last dream.

And you still call for me first of all

and cheer "good morning, mama!" when I wake

and kiss my bleary, sleep-lined face.

I have been led outside in all seasons

by your insistence, to say good morning and goodnight to the birds,

an unusual but not unpleasant way to bookend the day.

And you still delight over the magic of being out of doors,

you race to spy the moon for the eight hundredth time

as if it was the first. 

I let you help me vacuum the house today

and it took six times as long, for you insisted

on carefully capturing each crumb with the upholstery attachment.

And still you did it, room after room,

painstaking and gleeful and triumphant

you endless adventurer.

I Don't Forget

At bedtime tonight, Kachi wanted me to rush through prayers. "Just say three things!" he whispered after he finished, before I began to pray.  It's Christmas Eve, after all, and he is far too excited for a prolonged period of silence.
So I prayed my truncated prayer, and picked up the story.
"Wait," he asked, "did you pray the neighbour part?"
"No," I shook my head, "do you want me to?"
"Yes please," he asked.
So I quickly asked God to help us to love our neighbours as ourselves, and Kachi said, "you know, I don't forget that you're my neighbour, mama."

And now he is snoring against my back, my precious little neighbour.

And Jesus, too.

He didn't forget us.
He didn't forget that we're his neighbours.
He came down, moved into the neighbourhood, took on humanity.

And loved us as himself.

Wishing you so much joy as you celebrate with your loved ones this Neighbour who did not forget - and does not forget - to love us as himself.

Xo.

Love Came Down at Christmas

Patrick and I fell in love at Christmas.

We'd been chatting on MSN for a few weeks when he invited me to his parents' place for Christmas. I said yes, and booked a train ticket to Toronto, where he was going to school, and then we bought a pair of tickets to take us both up to Northern Ontario.

I was so excited to see him, to spend time with him in person, but also so nervous. We'd only met in person once, so briefly, for less than five minutes. What if he misremembered what I was like? What if he was disappointed in me, in person? What if I was too ugly, or too tall, too frizzy, too freckly? What if he saw me arrive at the train station and decided to turn and walk away?

When I disembarked at Union Station, I couldn't find him. I found my bag, and then stood on the platform, waiting. As each minute ticked by, I grew more certain that he'd changed his mind, and didn't want this stranger infringing on his Christmas after all.  He wasn't coming. He must have seen me and decided to slip away.  I hadn't slept much on the way up, and nerves had prevented me from eating. The room began to spin.

Suddenly there he was, striding through the crowd, cheeks bright and eyes apologetic.  He walked straight up to me and put his arms around me and held me close.

The whole world stood still.

There was nothing else but the relief and joy of his embrace; no drafty room, no thrum of trains beneath my feet, no strangers spinning in a panicky whirl. Just Patrick.

He had come for me after all.
He loved me.

I knew it before our first kiss, before we'd ever held hands, before we ate our first meal together.

Because he could have been anywhere else, but he was right here, hugging me and not letting go.

And I know Jesus loves me, because

He came for us.
He did not leave us alone in the dizzying, spinning universe.

He came.
Because he loves us.
He has loved us from the beginning.
He came for his own, and he will not let go.

Xo.