Stay tuned for more Paris Updates...but for now O Holy Night

We have had a fun few days with friends & family.  Church w/ the Day family yesterday, Picnic & Pastries from Gerard Mulot & enjoying the treats at Luxembourg Gardens & playground.  Two Words:  Meringue Chantilly!!!  The Day kids spent the evening with us at the apartment for a fun kid night while Lori & Andy had a fun night out on the town.  Mimi & Grandad painted the town red & green and hit lots of arrondissments yesterday seeing the sights & ending with pork toes & risotto (more on that later).. :)  Molly, Stephen & Ben made a surprise visit via Skype with Christmas treasures for the kids... Today we woke for a fun Christmas brunch at a cafe & walking through a marketplace to get the final items for our Christmas Eve feast, and then a walk through new streets undiscovered by us until today with a grand view of the Notre Dame.    I can't wait to post pictures of all these wonderful blessings real soon, but today...my heart turns to the manger & our desperate cry to the throne of God on behalf of our friend Sarah for healing & for all of us to walk in wild pursuit of His heart, His desires, and throwing down ANYTHING that hinders us.  I hope I can express my heart here of the loud hymn of Christmas pressing through my veins.    O HOLY NIGHT!!!!!

Here are some words this week that I have reflected on:

A friend wrote .....   "We are surrounded by snow and having a snow day today. It is good to see the world white as snow again... feeling all this suffering plus the school shooting recently - i am desperate for that God who came as a baby. We need Him SO bad... it is so clear and there is just no way to reason past that fact. Praying for a Christmas miracle for the first time in my life- oh Jesus come!"  I LOVED the picture of a white snowy ground!!

Another friend who wrote about the crucifixion and seeing a Christmas message in the text - "if we were sitting across the table from each other I would totally share with you. I found a beautiful and weighty Christmas message in the conversation Pilate has with Jesus right before His crucifixion. May it ring in our ears each day this season…" 

[Jesus answered…] "My kingdom is not of this realm." Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth."  (John 18:36-37)

"My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe."Psalm 45:1

"Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm!" Psalm 47:6-7

Or my precious husband who interceded this week with the hearts of our kids.  They have done so well being on this fun long journey.  But with day to day adventures and treats, it's inevitable that we all become ungrateful for the moment and look for the next thing.  Upon returning from his time in Normandy, he spent the day with them on Saturday addressing the need to enter the day with thanksgiving & created this video with the kids... I hope you enjoy!  It breathed peace into my heart and challenged not just the kids, but myself as well where I was choosing ingratitude rather  than thankfulness to the Lord on High for everything, even the hard days, and asking for His eyes and heart in all things....

Learning to be grateful today..

So whether this year your Christmas is merry & bright or dark & stormy - He came for us all - those of us who know Him already or have yet to call upon His name (Jer. 33:3).  May we all come humbly to the Lord, who came wrapped in swaddling clothes & lying in the manger.  I loved how the devotional Jesus Calling today said:  "Receive my gift with awe and humility.  Take time to explore the vast dimensions of My Love.  Allow thankfulness to flow freely from your heart in response to My glorious gift.  Let My peace rule in your heart, and be thankful." 

I was reading what one of Sarah's Austin friend's wrote on her blog - Jennie Allen & LOVED what she wrote about moments that we feel God forgot....

"Sarah has had multiple strokes over the last several days.  Will she live?
And if she does live- will she ever be the same?
Today we wait as fears toss around in our heads, that we dare not speak.

God, evil bows to you and yet it seems to be flooding us.
And this darkness bends to somehow reflect your glory but oh the cost feels so high.

I walk in the front doors of the hospital several times a day… I walk past a small statue that I’ve never noticed the dozens of times I have bounced in to see new moms with their healthy babies.
It’s an image of You. You are draped on a cross with nails holding you there.

We keep looking at the darkness and it feels like you messed up here…
Maybe you forgot she has a 2 year old that won’t remember her. You forgot she is the best mom and her kids adore her and need her..... You forgot she makes us all laugh more than any other friend we have. You forgot that so many people love her we can’t fit in waiting rooms.

Or is it us that’s forgetting…
Maybe we forget that we see days and you see eras. We see a friend and you see your child. We see sickness and death and you see our never-ending unimaginable life. We see a waiting room in mourning and you see Sarah and me in 10,000 years laughing and cutting up together at your table. We see 3 children without their mama and you hold their souls and see just how to press into them.
You get to be God whether we like it or not. You get to decide how this goes and we can only beg at your feet. And when you feel forgetful to me….

I walk past the statue and you yell to me from your cross:
I have forgotten nothing. And I am not passive about My approach to this problem.
I deal. I deal with this sickness and pain and death.
I do not forget. I bleed out for this.
So as you walk past me on that cross, Jennie, into a room that feels out of control and full of suffering…
don’t see a weak, distant, forgetful God.
You see a God who tells oceans where to stop and a God who tells evil where to stop.
You see a God who bleeds out for those we cry for.
You see a God who suffered first. I am with you.
And I have a plan here.

Beg and Praise God with us for our friend, Sarah Jane Henry. "

This friend also wrote after the day of the Connecticut shootings - she drove to be at the bedside of Sarah....

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining…."

"It seems that brokenness breaks everything all at once sometimes.
There are days that the entire world pines… We all hurt for heaven yesterday. And I couldn’t shake it today… I woke up with a physical ache to be done here.
But today in the midst of the ache and ICU my son turned 13 years old.

After leaving the hospital together he and I pulled up to the mall to pick up his gift from us and he said “Mom, this seems silly. We don’t have to go to get my present right now…. it doesn’t seem very fun or important does it?”
And for a minute the ache let up…. my son was 13 and healthy and compassionate and way too handsome for his own good and we were going to get him a fun shallow present that didn’t matter but did to him. It felt exactly fun and important.

A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

We get glimpses of hope, a few glorious morns…. just enough to make us hurt for heaven and to believe there is more.

In His Name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy Name!

What is your ache today?"

May we bring them to the manger rejoicing that our Savior has come!!!  Oh let us come and truly adore Him.  We love each of you so much & wish each of you a Joyeux Noel this year!!