'Tis The Season

Bring it on!

Christmas is my favorite holiday, with my birthday running a close second (don't even try to tell me that my birthday isn't a holiday).

Retail Christmas is a phenomenon that has grown into an evil monster covered with green eyes with dollar signs instead of pupils, and multiple arms; something of Biblical proportions straight out of the book of Revelation. We won't go there.

The Christmas season seems to start earlier and earlier every year. This year I noticed fresh cut trees for sale before Thanksgiving--quite a surprise.

I have made a tradition of buying a tree the first weekend in December, but this year, with trees cut so early, Leland and I decided to get our perfect tree home and into a bucket of water before it turned into kindling.

So much for tradition. The tree went up *gasp* right after Thanksgiving. This tree really will be kindling by Christmas day, but oh well...it makes everything happier!

Photos by Lynne Holder (c)2011 

The Christmas of my heart is about family, love, laughter, and the delightful antics of my 2 year-old granddaughter, Kate, to name just a few of my favorite things. 

 Photo by Jon McCalmont (c)2011

Thankfully, it's not about the stuff. It's about God's gift to humankind.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. --John 1:14 

As the Christmas season begins it is my intention to see all that is beautiful. I started with the beauty I see in our perfect little tree, and the beautiful, child-wonder on Kate's sweet face.

She is definitely on the Nice List.

Thwarted?

Today I came across a message from a dear friend. He wrote it in August and I had forgotten it, stuck at the bottom of the list of Facebook messages:

I've been catching up on your blog posts. I love your writing. You write just like you speak, and I can pick up on your humor, happiness, sadness and even your frustration...Please keep writing. You have something very special going on there, and only God knows how He will use you through your gift of writing.

It impacted me again, much as it did when I read it almost 4 months ago. To think that anything I had written made an impression on someone, enough to write me such an encouraging note, was amazing. But this time it was a little sad.

I haven't kept writing. The reasons are many. This has been a difficult season of life, one where every step has been met with obstacles on my path--not little ones, but those that cause me to stop in my tracks.

Rock slide in the Smoky Mtns, TN

The picture above feels like my life--what I see every day. The questioning this has brought about feels justified, born of sheer frustration. I feel thwarted.

Will God ever use me through my writing, for anything? 

I read this while I sipped my coffee this morning:

How little those know Me who think I wish to thwart them. --God Calling

How little I know Him. That made me stop and think, which can be a good thing or a bad thing for me. It usually leads to more questions, but for now, I choose to own this statement (with a prayer to know Him more), and flip the "off" switch in my brain. Time to just be--to rest in the blessing of what is, this moment.

Stone By Stone

I have a great little book titled God Calling; a collection of the writing of 2 women, arranged in passages by day, covering an entire year. The passage I read today was another reminder that I have not mastered patience, and its very close companion, trust.

Heaven's Colors 

Looking back you will see that every step was planned. Leave all to Me. Each stone in the mosaic fits into the perfect pattern, designed by the Master Artist. It is all so wonderful! But the colors are of Heaven's hues, so that your eyes could not bear to gaze on the whole, until you are beyond the veil. So, stone by stone, you see, and trust the pattern to the Designer. 

Trust, to my mind, means letting go. It's so hard to let go. Why? Because we're taught that hard work and perseverance result in success. Chase your dream and never give up. Right?

Letting go feels like giving up. Letting go feels like the sure demise of one's dreams.

Maybe, just maybe, letting go is falling into a big, fluffy pile of warm blankets.

Maybe letting go is trusting that the pattern of our lives is already designed and laid out--and it is a beautiful mosaic.

Maybe letting go is the way to all we can ask or imagine.

Maybe there's something greater--something more. 

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. --Ephesians 3:16-19 

Maybe grasping hold of God's love is our greatest success.

But seek first his kingdom...and all these things will be given to you as well. --Matthew 6:33

I'm not going to lie--it's still not easy to trust that and let go, but it is my goal.

Lemons

That big plate full of stuff I was talking about a few weeks ago was suddenly and unceremoniously dumped in the trash.

Plate empty.

In its place? A crap ton of lemons.

This morning I received a job rejection after a phone interview, a face-to-face interview, a personality profile, and a week of waiting.

I wanted a positive, upbeat environment after the hell I endured for a year and a half. I wanted to actually believe I was making a difference in people's lives, in some small way. Everyone I met was so nice and I thought everything went very well. Then I got this:

"Thanks for interviewing with our company...we wanted to inform you that you were not chosen for the position."

A form email. Nice.

How is it that I don't have what it takes for this job?

I shook that off as best I could, telling myself every encouraging verse, positive quote, and cliche I could possibly think of to bolster my sagging self-esteem.

Move on. That job was not meant to be mine. God has something better for me.

I left for a meeting that had been anticipated for about a week. It had to do with an article I had pitched to Reject Apathy about the pain and suffering that still exists in post-civil war Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Managing Editor liked the idea and gave me a deadline of November 4th.

The bell rang, the starting gate flung open, and I bolted out of the chute. I thought about my angle day and night. I interviewed someone who had been to the camp this past spring. I wrote a few sentences while waiting to interview a Bosnian national via Skype.

I just knew I was doing something of Kingdom value.

At lunchtime, I met with the person that I believed would be able to facilitate donations to a refugee camp where people live in deplorable conditions, and I believed I had support.

[Looking in the mirror] Oh, the naive and idealistic. Bless their hearts.

In less than 15 minutes my article was shot down. Don't bother with 911.

Two rejections--rather big ones--by lunchtime. Ouch.

At home again, I sat at my desk to check my email. First in the stack--Your credit card statement is ready for viewing.

I tried very hard not to, but there was too much on my internal pile of "stuff". I felt the volcano start to rumble and rise in my throat, and then--tears, damn it.

Who knew that trying to help a group of suffering people in a war-torn country that is yet to recover 16 years later could be so complicated? So political? So many toes to step on?

Clearly, I need an intuition tune-up, or God just needs to simplify things by writing his plan for me on my walls. Fine with me, go ahead and mess up the paint. 

How have you handled your rejections?

My Apologies!

To all who have been visiting my blogs recently, I offer my sincere apologies for Google+ bombing all my posts and removing all the photos.

I was not aware that being a Googler and a Blogger meant that all my photos were linked to Picasa albums; therefore, when I deleted those mysteriously appearing albums from my G+ photos...well you can well imagine my horror the next time I went to visit my blogs.

I am now wiser for this excruciating lesson. I loved sitting for hours on end trying to figure out what picture I had posted on the oldest posts.

On another topic, I still have a lot on that aforementioned plate. The chef thought I was still hungry and dumped another serving, or 3, on there, so now my head is spinning.

In other words, I'll see you when I see you.

Peace.

Time To Hit Pause

I have a few things on my plate, as they say, that are demanding my time and energy, so this blog is on hiatus until further notice.

I hope it won't be too long before I'm back to post again. In the meantime, enjoy the great fall weather. God bless and keep you!

No Matter What

I say I am a writer. 

What if I don't write every day?

What if I don't want to be negative and only write on the days I feel good?

What if I write when I don't feel happy and illuminate the dark corners of my life?

What if I'm just real?

I can write if I am happy, sad, moving forward, stagnant, grateful, or struggling.

I should. Life is all of those things, and more.

No camping on the banks of "that river".

Still, I hesitate. 

Who wants to read the negative bits of being a dreamer?

Does anyone care?

Do you write, no matter what?