Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’
Posted by Nicole on December 23, 2013
Advent. We wait. We wait for God to come down here and be with us. Just hurry up and be with us.
Yesterday, I felt it, that dull discomfort of waiting for things to be RIGHT – To feel God with me and to feel Him making all things comes together for Good. I wanted it, bad.
This incredible waiting that is called LIFE drives some of us mad. We get short burst of fun, joy, beauty, and meaning and then we wait again. This incredible waiting, like watching intermittent shooting stars when what we really need is dawn.
We wait for heaven and the Light of the World to come. Heaven will not just be for our souls. Heaven involves our bodies too. This is the gift of making love.
God, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven – not just in our hearts but in our bodies too.
In honor of Advent and Love and Making It coming together this week, today we have the gift of reading a personal essay from a woman who has never been kissed and is beginning to let herself feel the desire and hope of what will come someday. May all our waiting and longing be this vulnerable and brave.
-Nicole
****
I dreamed a few months ago that I had my first kiss.
Yes, I’m 25 and I’ve never been kissed – or even been on an official date. I was a little too “mature” (and obnoxious) in high school to stoop to “chasing boys,” and I was a little too driven in college to take time out for life. Which is strange, really. I’ve always wanted the support of a relationship and the chance to build a life with another person and love them unconditionally. I want the deep friendship of shared experience and ideas and the knowing of each other that comes from that. I want to explore the world of sensuality and romance in a healthy way, which I haven’t always. Other things have just gotten in the way.
It doesn’t take a significant other to experience growth, of course. Sometimes that can even inhibit it. I’ve grown more in these last two years at home dealing with chronic fatigue than I think I have my whole life. I’m learning to make space for myself, and that I have a right to take up room in the world. I’m learning to let go of other peoples’ burdens and pick up my own oxygen mask first in a crisis. I’m learning to lean in, to stand my ground, to experience life ready to fall and fail and make mistakes and then get right back up again.
I think it’s appropriate that my dream took place at some kind of fancy dinner. I’ve discovered a deep love for food and cooking since I’ve been home. I even remember what I was eating in the dream – it was some kind of deconstructed gourmet s’more with a white chocolate mousse and graham cracker crumbles served in a martini glass. Which actually sounds delicious.
It’s also appropriate that in my dream, I spilled some on my shirt. I’m kind of a messy person, a fact I’ve hated my whole life. I bump into things and fall up the stairs. I spill things all the time and have never managed to keep my room clean. I have big curly hair that goes frizzy in the rain. As much as I’ve always wanted to be sleek and svelte, I’m learning that I’m really a flannel pajamas and fuzzy socks kind of girl. And that I’m beautiful, curly hair and all.
So, laughingly, I tried to wipe the spill off my shirt, standing by the table. My date laughed too, kindly. He put water on a napkin and helped me clean up the mess.
We were standing close then, of course, and when I noticed I felt the urge to back away. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I had heard what happens when people stand too close. Because it’s the reflex I’d developed overseas to protect myself and maintain purity and propriety. Because I wouldn’t want to send mixed signals or be rejected or make someone else uncomfortable go too far or do any of the dozen other things I’ve been warned about. There are no guarantees when you let people get too close.
But this time, I stood my ground instead. I chose to take up my own space and let someone else move out of the way, for a change, if this wasn’t what they wanted.
I looked up at him – he was definitely taller than me – and closed my eyes.
He leaned down and we kissed. My heart beat fast.
Then he put his arm around me and walked with me to a quiet corner, a bench where we could sit together and just be.
There was no rejection, only welcome. Only peace. Only the comfort of knowing I was home.
I don’t expect my real first kiss to be quite this revelatory, necessarily. But now, I think I’m finally ready to find out.
Ellie Ava: I’m a storyteller, an explorer, and an avid fan of all things science… especially when it’s fiction. After many years of exploring new cultures and perspectives in Europe, I’m back in the USA taking time to discover the things bubbling up in my own heart and mind. I blog about life at ellieava.tumblr.com.
Posted in Free Flying Faith, Love and Making It | Tagged: advent, Christmas, God, Heaven, jesus, kiss, love and making it, waiting | 5 Comments »
Posted by Nicole on December 18, 2013
One week til Christmas. One week til we celebrate God being with us.
For some people, their lives are so full of family and friends, hot chocolate and Christmas Lights, that the darkness is just a shadow in the corner or a fading streetlight down the road. For others, this is a time where the darkness threatens to swallow them whole.
Light flaunts its warm power in the life of one and barely flicks the skin of another covered instead in cold, dark loneliness.
Advent is the waiting. The waiting 100s of years for God to come and make things right. Waiting generations for triumph and light and love to flood the world. Waiting for God to be with us – really with us. We need God with us. God, who says He is Light and Love, and yet seems to leave us lonely and scared in dark places.
God, are you avoiding me?
Where are you when I need you? Psalm 10:1-2
Advent is the waiting. We have no choice. Reminded of our powerlessness against the speed of time, we wait. We cannot save ourselves or our friends from the pain of waiting on God to BE WITH US.
With Christmas comes the promise of a future where we are whole and full. Christmas is the promise that while the pain is still here, God is doing a new thing. He came down to sit in the dark with us.
And this is what He also asked us to do for each other too. While we wait, we wait together. I will wait with you.
The light breaks through dark’s hard shell at the exact points we meet each other. At the loving touch of a friend, a spark ignites.
The spark that says we are going to make it.
Every day this week, I will be posting a story or an essay on advent and waiting and God with us.
Today’s first story is written by Melissa Hawks. A friend I met through adventure and spontaneity. She knows how to tell a story and she knows how to find God in the dark.
This is a story of sitting in the dark and waiting together – seeing the sparks of God’s great love in our small acts of faith.
****
Hookers, Heathens, and Me by Melissa Hawks
I left early that dark morning, stopping to get gas on my way. It was freezing and rainy as I stood next to the gas pump, tears threatening to spill over and mix with the drizzle. Standing on tiptoe to keep my too long yoga pants from soaking in the puddles, I was so lost in my own painful thoughts I almost didn’t hear her.
I was jerked from my inner turmoil when an “Excuse me,” escaped her chattering teeth. She was beautiful and had a black eye. A leopard print chiffon shirt bared her stomach, a tiny skirt, and platform heels to rival the ones I tend to wear covered the rest of her. Her blonde fro curled wildly in all directions and her eye make-up was smeared from tears she had cried. At the moment, mine was a mirror image.
“Can I pay you $10 to give me a ride to my car in the parking garage over there? I just got beat up really bad by the last guy I was with. I don’t mind riding in the backseat.” The pain in her eyes.
“Get in the car, girl, and don’t worry about paying me. A girl’s got to help a girl out.” I didn’t really put any thought into it. She was shivering and in pain. “Of course, I’ll drive you. And no, you’re not sitting in the backseat. Get up here in front.” I tossed my bags in the backseat and made room for her.
She climbed up into my Jeep and began to cry. “This man. He just started slamming my head into the TV. Why am I still here? Why am I still doing this? I need to go home. Back to San Jose.”
I was empty. Beyond empty. I was at the bottom of the pit called empty, broken open. All I could offer was this “Our choices, baby, we make them all by ourselves and we have to remember we are in control of our destiny. We have to choose better.”
Sitting in my car with a prostitute/hooker/call girl who had just been beaten up by a john, I’ve never felt more broken. There were no words to her about God. There was just an understanding about her brokenness because I was experiencing it myself.
I think that’s what love does in the face of broken. It doesn’t look away. It holds the face of pain in its hands and says “you’re not too much for me.”
She must have seen that deep pain in me too, because right before climbing out of the car she leaned over. In a cloud of perfume she hugged me and kissed my cheek. “We’re gonna make it, girl. We’re gonna be okay,” she whispered in my ear.
Some days we can only make one good choice in the midst of a dozen awful ones. Some days we can’t rescue someone else. Some days we can not even rescue ourselves. Instead redemption comes from the most unlikely of sources.
No promises that we’ll be unscathed or that we’ll come out whole on the other side. No false illusion covering the a fact that it’s a brutal and ugly process. Not even a pledge of some small beauty that awaits at the end. Only one simple truth.
“We’re gonna make it.”
God speaks to me through hookers and heathens. Maybe because I am one.
****
Melissa Hawks is a curator of brand and story at Hawks & Rock. She is discovering what it means to write her own story and how God lives in the detours.For her personal brand of awkward, space geekyness, and inspiration follow her @melissahawks account Branding wisdom can be found at her company’s twitter @hawksandrock and the Hawks & Rock website and blog can be found at hawksandrock.com.
Posted in Free Flying Faith, How Can I Help | Tagged: advent, Christmas, community, darkness, faith, God, jesus, light, Love | 7 Comments »
Posted by Nicole on November 18, 2013
Because, it’s the holidays. Thanksgiving is almost here. Christmas too. And we know who we are…
What I thought would be a short post about the holidays for a link-up with an amazing spiritual leader and director, Tara Owen, has become a mission statement. I refuse to see failure or stress in moments that I didn’t think worked out “right”. The wrongness does not make the moments worthless. Only my attitude can make them worth-more or worth-less.
Keep reading if you want to join me!
Because, it’s the holidays. Thanksgiving is almost here. Christmas too. And we know who we are…
We are moment makers.
We plan and we dream. We buy ornaments and the perfect decorations; not from Pottery Barn (ok, maybe one thing), but even better than that. We find each piece of our decor all over the city… some at Michaels, Target, Ikea, save-on-crafts, Hobby Lobby … we arrange, we find, and we organize. We make treats and we pray over them when we remember to take the time. We want to create the perfect Christmas Season full of a love our families and friends and OURSELVES can feel. We want to feel it! We want it to soak into our bones in every possible way.
We light candles to remember the light. I have candles. Oh, I love them so much!** My favorite ones are discontinued. I can’t find them anywhere. And when I burn through the last two I have, there will be no more Christmas or Jesus in the world.
We listen to music, we make smells, we bring out the soft blankets and warm boots. We read scripture. We make lots and lots of plans to see every person possible because we love them and it’s exhausting but we love them so we go again. We find a sweater and put on mascara and we go.
And we go and we go. We create and we create and we go.
We are so busy making moments.
Another day goes by and we have the sense that it was good. We flop into bed and mumble, “That was a good day.” Because we think it was good. We hope it was good. Sleep, plan, repeat.
It all seems good, but we can barely remember what we did yesterday… we can barely remember what we did this morning. (Except I know I got Starbucks. I remember that.)
We are so busy making moments that we forget to be IN the moment.
****
This is where I start to have trouble. This is where I am tempted to tell myself and you
“4 ways to slow down and appreciate the holidays”
But it’s just not that easy. I know it because I THINK I am living in the moment. I think I am slowing and appreciating and grabbing all that gratitude out of my pockets and sprinkling it on the world and God and myself. I think I am the gratitude fairy.
But I’ve been the gratitude fairy for a few years now. I don’t think it’s working. I still forget what I did yesterday. I still yell at my kids for grabbing an extra stuffed animal to bring with us on the Santa Train, because “Now we are late and the tickets were very expensive … and that stuffed tiger is really big! You are going to have to carry that the WHOLE time!”
I am so busy creating a wonderful, beautiful life for myself and my kids that I forget that life is full of wonder and beauty.
Even in the mistakes and the missed trains.
I am so busy making wonder that I forget to notice the wonder all around me.
Even in the imperfect Christmas lights and burnt cookies.
I am so busy making beauty that I forget to notice the beauty in the moment.
Even in myself and my lumpy sweaters.
And even when I do remember to pay attention to all the awesome (actual “awesome”), it is fleeting.
I think that’s one of the hardest things about this time of year as I get older. These months feel shorter and more impermanent. Fleeting.
This is part of why I try to maximize every moment… fill every moment to the brim with all the joy and fun and CHRISTMAS I can carry in my little arms. I want to combat time. Perhaps if I create enough fantastic moments, the feelings will last longer than just December.
But they almost never do. I hate that feeling of December 27, 28th …or January 4, 5th…. as we walk around feeling the magic of Christmas float back out to sea with the tide. Emptier, sadder. “Oh right, this is real life…”
There is an underlying melancholy to Christmas that we all feel in different ways because Christmas is connected to so many ideals and it is so temporary.
Think about some of the best Christmas Songs – especially of the last ten years. There is an ache there. A profound ache for home and permanence and love that does not hurt so much.
We do not have those things, and even when we do, they are so fleeting.
****
So, Moment Makers, what are we do to? When the moments keep passing? When the holidays become a pain instead of a joy? When the lights are not enough to keep the darkness far away? When we feel the impermanence? When the struggle to see the beauty and wonder becomes too much and we snap?
honestly…
We do it anyway. We do it anyway and we do it even more.
The dark will always be there. It makes the light more beautiful. The pain of impermanence will always be there. It makes each moment matter that much more. Do it anyway. Here’s why:
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright!
We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us,
knowing Him directly just as He knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.
And the best of the three is love.
And so, there it is: 3 Things to do to Make Holiday Moments Matter:
1. Trust in God. Trust that what you do matters – every ornament and every cookie and every hug. Trust that light wins. Trust that you are seen and loved.
2. Hope unswervingly. Hope that the things we see at this time of year: Wonder, Delight, Love, Joy… even when we most clearly see them, it’s just a hint of the future. We are peering through a mist. It’ll get even better someday.
3. Love extravagantly. Love in whatever way you know how. Love and love BIG. Create moments. Burn cookies together. Laugh as you watch the train pass by. Love. The moments are only fleeting if they are not made of love.
We make moments out of love and trust that they will last forever.
Love is eternal. Love never dies. Love will last forever. 1 Cor. 13:8
… Three core “things to do” when we don’t know what to do. When we want to make the holidays special and meaningful and yet we struggle. We focus on “why” we are making moments and let the “what” and “how” be freer and full of whatever comes.
Why?
Because we trust that there is more going on than we can see. Because we have hope in a love that lasts forever.
Christmas is about “Emmanuel, God with us.” Experiencing God directly is what we are really after. We may not always know it, but that’s what all this moment-making is all about. We want to know God directly, but all we can do is create minutes that give us a glimpse of God – a glimpse of the good in life. If I remember that the reason why I create all these beautiful things and all these wondrous moments is to help myself and my kids see God in everything, then nothing is wasted and nothing is a failure.
At a party with old friends, God is with us.
At home, cuddled in bed, God is with us.
In the car, stuck in traffic to see Santa, God is with us.
Alone, wondering what to do next, God is with us.
The actual contents of the moment are secondary to seeing God there first.
So rather than trying to fill each moment with activities and stuff, I try to fill each moment with my attention.
See God in it.
Emmanuel. God with us in it all. This is the holidays. And rather than being the gratitude fairy, sprinkling thankfulness on everything, I am going to be a tour guide – pointing out the God (good) in every little thing.
God is with us.
So, we make moments. We create and we create and we go.
Knowing that God is with us, means we can create with pleasure and hold it all loosely, Trusting and Hoping that everything we do in Love lasts forever. The dark will still be there. The fleeting nature of time will still pull on us, but we will keep creating.
Another day will go by and we will have the sense that it was good. We’ll flop into bed and mumble, “That was a good day.” But this time, we will know it was good. We will make moments and be in them. God is with us. It is all good. Sleep, plan, repeat.
-Nicole
Find out more about Tara’s 6 week journey through Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany here!
Posted in Free Flying Faith, Honest Home | Tagged: 1 Corinthians 13, Christmas, holidays, hope, Love, moments, Thanksgiving, Trust | 2 Comments »
Posted by Nicole on May 23, 2013
All I wanted was one cute picture.
Today, someone I was with at the park pooped in their underwear and asked me to help wipe them clean. Then someone cried when I wouldn’t carry them to the car. Before that, someone climbed in my bed with dirty feet at 5am and left crumbs of I-don’t-know-what on my clean sheets, and someone stuck their finger in my nose and laughed at me. Tonight, I cleaned my whole house and then someone went around trashing all my hard work. I tried to go to the bathroom but someone kept opening the door and asking to see what I was doing…
This is a normal day. Actually, this is only a sliver of a normal day as a mom. These are moments that any rational person would define as frustrating – if not terrible.
From a normal, sane, adult person’s point-of-view, every day as a mom is a terrible day.
What’s a woman, who finds herself being a mom, to do about all this?
As a young adult I worked hard to choose good friends. I chose friends who treated me with love and kindness. If someone couldn’t respect my boundaries or be a good influence, I kept them as an acquaintance but not as a close friend. I didn’t befriend people I would have to teach how to be healthy.
Now, my closest friends and roommates are small, demanding people. People who spill stuff everywhere. People who cry when you don’t let them watch their choice in TV show. People who tell me I look old. People who never ask how I am doing. I live with these people. My mother would never approve of this.
And yet, I AM THEIR MOTHER. I am the mother of these tiny people in the process of learning how to be kind, respectful, and healthy. But, I have to teach them these guidelines. It’s a switch I’m having trouble making.
I know, I know. I can already hear you criticizing me. It’s very easy to pinpoint where I might be going wrong in my parenting.
“You are not their friend, you are their parent.”
“If your children’s behavior is inappropriate, that is your fault, not theirs’.”
Absolutely! My children are my children. I love them. They are pretty stinkin’ well-behaved, loving, funny, a joy to be with. Our family is wonderful. It is my responsibility. THAT’S PART OF THE PROBLEM.
First of all, my family is great. And, oh my word, I can only imagine how terrible life is for others who do have really hard kids and family dynamics to deal with.
Secondly, I KNOW I am supposed to be grateful for all of the good in my life. My family is mostly healthy and loving – and that’s a huge gift. I know… I know.
Why do you think I feel so bad about knowing the truth and not being able to put my blinders on and pretend that I like being pooped on or having other people’s fingers in my nose?
****** It all started with a cat******
I was ten-years-old when Stripes, my childhood cat, taught me that having kids can suck the joy right out of you.
A playful, loving cat from the moment she joined our family, Stripes and I were fast friends. Stripes became pregnant and I was initially excited. KITTENS! Kittens living in our house. Oh, the fun we would have playing together all summer long. It was a dream come true. KITTENS!
Stripes, full of courage and natural strength , birthed her kittens one eventful afternoon. Patiently, I waited for the kittens to grow up. A few weeks went by. Their tiny eyes opened and their paws grew spunky. And, play we did! String! Flashlights! Fuzzballs! It was the best.
Except for Stripes. She didn’t play with us.
Stripes lay in my bed and rested. The kittens played and explored. Stripes continued to lay in bed. When the kittens were tired or hungry they all ran to her and snuggled, ate, climbed, bit, grabbed, snuggled some more, ate some more and went to sleep on top of their mom.
Stripes existed as the life-source for other tiny beings but her life-source had gone dim.
The kittens sucked the life right out of my friend. She was never the same.
So, when I got pregnant for the very first time, my first words were not full of joy and excitement. I had spent those emotions on Stripes’ babies when I was ten. I knew what I was in for now. Despite being happily married and actually purposefully making a baby, my first words when I found out I was pregnant were “Oh, Crap!”
Aaaaww! So sweet, right?
Listen, I know it’s all a miracle. I know these two little children in my house are an honor and a gift.
But taking care of them is terribly hard work.
******
So, what IS a woman, who finds herself being a mom, to do about all of this?
******
Here’s all I can do:
Struggle. Cry. Laugh. Cling to the source of my life for help. Sow the seeds of deep love however I can. Wonder at the mystery and pleasure and pain of it all. And if I cry or laugh hysterically while I clean the toilet after my daughter tries to “pee like daddy,” that’s fine with me.
Remember that fertilizer is made of “crap” and in order to have a beautiful, thriving garden you need a lot of fertilizer.
Mamas (and Papas), if you are reading this, don’t give up on yourself. You still matter. You matter in your own self and not just as the source of life for someone else. You are the gardener of a whole garden now, not just your own little tree. It’s going to be hard work. Use the crap. Use it all to grow good things for yourself and your family. If we do this well, when they are little and our seedlings need a lot of care, then as the years go on, the entire family will hopefully have food and beauty to enjoy.
There will still be terrible days everyday, but if you and I are lucky, maybe we will learn to focus on the flowers blooming and not the “fertilizer” making it all grow.
What about you??? How do you make it through thrive in your “terrible” days? What keeps you going?
-Nicole
Prayer: Hey, God, can you please, please, please help me find purpose and joy in all the terrible days? And in the moments I freak out… can you please redeem those in some awesome way? Pay back the years the locusts have eaten, use all things for good… all that hopeful stuff? Thank you! I choose to believe this all matters.
Posted in Honest Home | Tagged: Christmas, family, kids, mom | 13 Comments »
