death by a lion. part two.

i am sitting at the table in our home away from home (it seems). we have found this family friendly beach condo/hotel place with pretty great off-season rates that we have come to love (we've made so many memories here now...) and we decided to come at Christmas this year. crazy low nightly rate to come to heated swimming pools and atlantic shore in december...but this year, praise the Lord! they have had crazy unseasonably high highs. (in the low 70s). i just can't get it in my head...running errands in my hoodie and practically sweating because i can't quite go out in just a tshirt when my best friend, new yorker-now is posting pics of wintery wondery trees covered in lots and lots of inches (feet?) of snow.

this is the longest vacation we've taken as a family (just us) in...um...ever. five nights away. and this morning is the halfway point. *sigh* but fitting because my intention was to blog. blog. blog on this trip and i think it took me a couple of days to wind down and let some anxieties of life fall off...and pray through scott's fever and flu symptoms...and recover from aiden's walmart aisle grape juice and potato chip throw up incident (reminded me of the intoxicated patient when i worked in the ER...wine.) huh...yeah five yr old grape juice is much easier to deal with even if in the camping aisle. (loved carrying my clingy boy to the car/his lethargy miraculously healed when we got back to our place and he was ready to play hide-and-seek again). thinkin it was car sickness and nausea from the hot tub and hot bubble bath that morning. *whew*

soooo... part two. part two of this vacation. part two of my last asireadthebible post and writing through part two (well, a little more than half) of the old testament these next several days.

i've read and reread the death by a lion thoughts. i've thought about my mom. Christmas was her thing. her favorite. her joy. on second thought. on part two thought... not on second thought like i don't agree with what i previously wrote. but on continued thought... just a continued hope in the goodness of God. at Christmas. at advent.

this is about to help me. (thank You, Counselor.) sometimes i start writing, knowing what i'm supposed to write about but not knowing exactly the point yet. and then, as i type...He speaks. this is that time. one of those times. and i'm blown away. 

i just needed to write about my mom again. this is nothing about first kings. or about the thought-provoking narrative of a prophet. but...it is about question-of-the-heart answering truth. just a personal thing and a Christmas thing. i felt i needed to come back to part two of this blog. i wondered if i should say "i know that was speculation about why God may have allowed mom and dad to go through that. i have no way of knowing what the future held for them and definitely want to express confidence in who they had become and in the idea that God was doing some cool things in them at the time of her accident. they wanted to sing more. to sing with her sister and to give of their lives." to emphasize that we just don't know the whys sometimes and it's ok and i want to still and always trust. but also, i think i was to come back to it to think about what part two could mean to a blog like that.

this urgency to trust in His faithfulness. i'm supposed to emphasize this. that He is good. and more than that...that He is good because His heart is affectionate toward us.

three days away from Christmas and still not sure what to put under the tree for the four most important in our lives. tsion. salem. hope. aiden. when i was growing up, Christmas was soooo very simple. everyone got everyone else one or two simple but meaningful gifts. and we went from youngest to oldest opening each. taking the thoughtfulness in. our goal was to make mom cry. and she always did. and most years, dad either bought or made my sister and me a special gift. one year it was a handcrafted wooden box with a note "you are my treasure."

i've been anxious about my kids' expectation. but in my heart i know they just want to hear, "you are my treasure." 

and in our life experiences, i know that that is what we most need to hear...that
we. are. treasured. because this...!!!!!:  when we come to a place in life...in our own lives...or when we read about it. when we read about a death (by a lion or otherwise...) when we read about a tsunami or a school shooting or cancer or child abuse or...about the unloveliness or unlovingness of people who call themselves Christ-followers or about selfishness in alllllll its various forms ...we are shaken to the core and tempted to believe the lie that truth and trust are both evasive...and the lie that the Author of it all is indifferent.

can i shout this out this Christmas?:  He's not indifferent!! He loves! He concerns Himself with our pain and our circumstance and our past and our healing. He grieves when we grieve and injustice pains Him...as He stays/steadies His hand for coming judgment. He is poised for righting wrongs and healing and... for unthinkable mercy and forgiveness. and... 

He wants us to know that we are treasured.

reader!: "although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." we are treasured, and it is demonstrated to us in this (matt. 1:21) that He was born to mary and that she would call His name Jesus, "for He will save His people from their sins."
and romans 5:8, "that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (this means to me...He didn't die for us after we said we were sorry for everything. or after we made all the wrongs right in our lives. He died in anticipation that we would keep screwing things up and it would break His heart but He would wait...and some would respond to His love...and that was all worth it.)

you. are. treasured, reader. and in your circumstance, you can't see what He sees exactly, but He can still your heart and if you're listening...whisper to you that you are treasured. 

can't wait to whisper it in some creative way to my kids this Christmas...treasured by me and treasured by Him...God who came at advent.