Do you believe it?  Do we believe this?

God? Gives us gifts?

Presents?

Presence?

He has arrived!

Bearing gifts.

This Son of God, Jesus, is here to gather up the fragments of our little lives, the fragments of our collected and hoarded disappointments and give to us Himself and all the trimmings that come with Him.

Like eternal life.

Like  His peace to us now as we live out our daily lives.

Like His Presence to dwell with us.

He is here as Emanuel! God with us!

His gift of eternal life starts today, now. It isn’t something that we need to wait for. We get to live today knowing that it is already a done deal.

His word to the shepherds when the angel of the Lord appeared to them in a field so many years ago is also for us, for our kids, for our grandkids and beyond.

So take this word and run with it. It is yours, ours for the taking and believing and living out.

And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all the people for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2: 10-11)

There has been born for you a Savior…

Can’t top that one.

May God or an angel speak to you today that there has been born for you a Savior.

And with that, I add a crispy -clear Merry Christmas!

There! Take that and run with this gift in hand as you go about your day today, as you celebrate this wonderful event – Jesus’ birthday!

Merry Christmas!

One fine day she was betrothed to Joseph, engaging in a culturally arranged lifestyle of marriage with the promise of children to raise.

The next day or so it seemed, her life path took a sudden turn. Yesterday’s path was no longer an option. The sudden fork in the road had a signpost that read – YOUR LIFE/THIS WAY… NO LONGER AN OPTION/THAT WAY.

And because Mary was well-versed, because she knew her history – where she came from, because she knew God and His merciful ways, she was able to be a joyful participant in God’s plan for her life.

There was an innocence about her due to her youth. Perhaps not enough earth time had passed for her to grow cynical towards God- stuff like angels and prophecies of old now being fulfilled in her lifetime, on her watch, in her face.

An innocence that God preserved for such a time as this.

Gabriel bursting in on her planned future to announce God’s planned future for her brought a response that could only come from a God- worshipping heart. A heart devoid of years of built up cynicism.

Her response dripped with that innocence. “…but how? I’ve never slept with a man” (Luke 1:34 Message Bible).

She appeared to be ready to accept Gabriel’s answer to her question.

And not only accept it, her prayer response reveals her heart, reveals what she believed about God.

Mary’s prayer takes us into an expansive world of God’s promises that are in the process of being fulfilled. (Eugene Peterson – Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places p.273-74)

Hannah’s prayer from 1000 years earlier became Mary’s prayer of response to God.

And Mary said,

I’m bursting with God-news; 
I’m dancing the song of my Savior God. 
God took one good look at me, and look what happened-I’m the most fortunate woman on earth! 
   What God has done for me will never be forgotten, the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others. His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him. He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts. He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold. He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high. It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now. (Lk.1:46-55 Message Bible)

Mary was able to tap into that ‘expansive world of God’s promises that are in the process of being fulfilled’ and say yes to God, to the role He was giving her.

It is obvious from her choice of response that her life was built on the rock solid foundation of God.

When you come to a fork in the road of life that says YOUR LIFE/ THIS WAY…NO LONGER AN OPTION/ THAT WAY, how will you respond?

Might we learn from Mary, the Mother of Jesus?

How about Henry Gauntlett?

Ring a bell?

No?

These are names of two people that were perhaps quite obscure in their day but they left lasting legacies.

In their obscurity, they wrote, they created.

Passionate in their giftings and purpose, they left reams of papers full of hymns and musical compositions.

Although they lived in the same generation, they never knew each other.

For they were separated by country with Alexander hailing from Ireland and Gauntlett residing in Olney, England.

At some point God lifted the veil of obscurity in bits and pieces so that His handiwork could be completed on their watch of life and beyond.

As only God can do, these two people never met but their giftings collided, merging into a wonderful Christmas Hymn entitled Once In Royal David’s City.

She wrote the words, he wrote the music.

He merged the two. She never knew.

So who are these two rather obscure people?

Cecil Frances Alexander loved to write poems and hymns for children. Her passion was to make the Bible stories more meaningful to children. Her poem/hymn Once in Royal David’s City, appeared for the first time in a collection called Hymns for Little Children in 1848.

Henry Gauntlett was said to have composed over ten thousand hymn tunes in his lifetime. His passion for music began when he was a little boy. His determination to become a serious musician landed him the job of church organist at his church by age nine! A position that he held for the rest of his life.

Perhaps one fine day, Gauntlett discovered Alexander’s hymn/poem Once in Royal David’s City in that collection of Hymns for Little Children and knew that among his catalogue of many tunes he had one that fit like a glove to the words that she penned some years before.

I guess we will never know how it all happened.

But we do know this. They seized life with gusto. Gave their lives over to their calling. They probably never knew how far reaching their passions would go. And just like this story, we may never know the height, the depth, the range, the longevity that our influence, our lives, our giftings will have.

Perhaps we should take note and determine to live out the rest of our lives giving away our passions and our giftings, thereby leaving God -created legacies for those who come after our time here on earth.

Psalm 62: 5-8 says:

5 Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; 
my hope comes from him.


6 He alone is my rock and my salvation; 
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 


7 My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.


8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. 
                         

Selah

Selah. Interlude. Time out. Take a breath.

I don’t know about you but when I read a Psalm I tend to gloss over that word  Selah. Yet today as I read over these verses I realized that the word Selah is well placed.

The song at this point in David’s Psalm is about finding rest in God alone. I believe that this word Selah is metaphorically placed as a sign of rest. Musically, it was a break, or perhaps a breakout of interludal singing to God from the depths of  souls with no organized chorus at this juncture.

I am imagining a scene where the crowd is worshiping together, singing the words together in choir form. And when they come upon the word Selah, they pause, perhaps a harpist continues, or a few begin to sing from their heart in their own words back to God or some may silently wait, taking a cleansing breath or two until the musical director gives the downbeat to continue on as a choir.

Traditionally, the word Selah was strategically placed in order to stress the importance of the preceding passage, to pause and reflect, to weigh or determine the value of that passage.

So too, finding rest in God alone, requires us to pause and reflect, to create an interlude in our day, a time out from activity, from our active minds, to take a breath and orient ourselves back to God.

An interlude. Time out. Take a breath. Rest.

Ahhh…Selahhh.

While I have had this conversation many times before, this time was different – for me. I was slowly coming out of a season, a long one, where I was struggling to like my church. I was no longer apologetic, hemming and hawing over the fact that yes, we do have great worship here at VCCR and we have some of the most awesome homegrown worship songs around. Hidden in this rather small church (200 or so) in Cedar Rapids Iowa.

So I confidently told this person that typically 3 out of 4 songs done each week are homegrown, written by David, John, Kate or Rodney. This person was awestruck at the beauty and the giftings we had within this place called Vineyard Church Cedar Rapids.

And their passionate response fueled a fire in me that lasted the rest of the day. And spilled into my week.

A fire of yes.

Worshipping with homegrown worship songs is an incredible weekly experience. Our worship here is catalytic. It serves to bring people into the Presence of God which causes change in their lives. Our songwriters are gifted with a heart of worship, with talent to create. We have treasure that so far is rather hidden. But it is still treasure!

A fire of thankfulness.

Appreciating the gifts that God has given us here in this place. Redemptively remembering stories where people came into this place and the Lord physically and/ or emotionally healed them in the midst of worship.

A fire of confidence.

Knowing that we don’t have everything functioning according to what a church should have. Knowing that we are lacking in certain areas of serving our community. We choose to look for and find the good instead of wallow in our losses and lacks which breathes confidence in who we are, not so much what we have or have not yet accomplished.

A fire of satisfaction.

Settling for God’s enough. Realizing that satisfaction is not resignation to our disappointments but a peace that settles in our hearts burning away regrets. A determination in looking and finding God’s enough. His enough is thriving, is alive. His enough is full of treasure and surprise. After all, His enough fed thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes.

And with all of these wonderful things, the ultimate in looking for and  finding the good is fixing our hearts and our lives on the One who embodies all good. For the Lord is Good with a capital “G”.

So what about you? Tell me your story where you paused long enough to look for and find the good.

Over the past 3-5 years there have been too many disappointments, hope deferred, too much giving power to those who have left – to their likes and dislikes, etc. My thoughts some days were consumed with their parting words, their parting shots at us, the pastors of this church. Some were my friends, some not as well known.

The cumulative effect of trying hard to help, trying hard to please, trying hard to minister to some of these people took it’s toll.

I found myself in a place where I realized that I didn’t like my church.

The one I have given most of my time, energy, and resources to.

The one Marty and I planted with such hope and zeal some 13 years ago.

The one where I had fun in the beginning getting to know and train up people to lead.

Yep. That one.

So here I am in May of 2011, getting ready for our first ever Sabbatical. Ten weeks of a much needed rest. A break from this church that I was supposed to ‘like’ and didn’t like anymore.

When suddenly God…

Used an autistic child named Dylan to interrupt our service, our church as usual. The one I no longer liked.

Dylan was a guest that day. So was his mom. She chose to sit right up front. Dylan decided to ‘preach’. Out loud, up front, moving and mimicking Marty as he attempted to teach.

Marty, after quite some time at this attempt, realizing that the people were riveted on Dylan’s ‘preaching’, decided to draw attention to what was happening.

He realized that God was in this interruption. This ‘elephant in the room’, (not Dylan) the God -timed interruption, had to be addressed. Hearts were on the line. There was an opportunity here to allow God to touch our hearts as we were being interrupted and stretched.

So as Marty brought autism front and center, to the platform, the tension in the room seemed to melt. Hearts seemed to be softened.

Let’s listen. What is God saying to us right now?

I began to look around the room and realized that all of our regular attending families that had children with autism were present. This doesn’t happen very often as it is very hard to pull the family together and physically get to church when you have an autistic child.

God gave me direction as I listened to Him. He said to bring all the families with autistic children up front. Then call all the men that were fathers or grandfathers up and ask them to bless these children, their families.

I then asked others, women, mothers, children to come forward and surround these families as pillars of prayer, holding them up in their tiredness and hopelessness.

And the people came forward. Men, women and children surrounded these heartbroken, weary families.

One man who never had the opportunity to be a father, gave a testimony in tears, confessing that he was one of those getting really irritated that a mother would let her child interrupt the sermon but when Marty began to explain the situation, that autism was involved, he began to weep, God began to change his heart. So he came up front to publicly apologize to Dylan and to his mom for his attitude.

This ‘elephant in the room, God-  timed interruption’ seemed to be the ticket to my road to recovery. My road to beginning to like my church again.

As a swell of satisfaction permeated my heart, something bigger than my ability to recover this liking and loving thing again was taking place.

There was a feeling of satisfaction. That’s the word I was hearing. Satisfied. Ahhh…I could feel some release from the angst that seemed to be with me every time I entered our church.

And then over the next couple of Sundays, God broke in with moments of satisfaction. It was a deep feeling, a sudden in-breaking. Homegrown worship songs that touched and began to heal our hearts, a new sense of community rising from the ashes of God’s dismantle. Ahhhh…

And then it was time to start this 10 week journey of sabbatical rest.

And I started the journey with a grateful heart…

Like: I’m a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me.

Or: You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right, but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.

Oh bother…

Perhaps too much thinking can get in the way of creativity when it comes to writing and spelling?.

And the way Pooh Bear spells, why it’s so unlike the way I was raised to spell.

Every word, precise, used in the ‘right way’…Oh the thinks I ponder and the spellings I spell when I try this hand at writing, at being creative.

After all, what does it matter to me or my readers if I spell honey, ‘hunny’. To my rather rigid mind, it does bother me, but to my creative imagination, it looks and feels quite nice to write ‘hunny’ for I feel a bit more giddy and less thinking about the thinks I am pondering.

Yep, a bit more Pooh Bear in me should help unleash that creative imagination which I know is deep down there somewhere.

Through my years of aging, becoming wise and protective in my thoughts and my speech, choosing my words with more restraint sometimes than with wisdom, I have inadvertently placed boundaries around this thing called imagination.

Imagine that?

The very thing I have been asking God to expand in me, I have been protectively building walls up around it.

My imagination that is. The ability to creatively think outside the box.

Oh it sounds soooo fun to be able to write and think that way. Yes, that’s what I desire. But and there is a big but in the sentence, I am afraid to let God have the boundaries, the parameters that I’ve set around my imagination.

Oh bother!

Pooh was cool about who he was.

Pooh Bear wasn’t befuddled by too much jargon. He was simple.

And creative in his approach to life in the woods.

He would scratch his head a lot and think aloud. Yes, aloud! Whether there was an audience of one, two or none. Didn’t matter.

He hemmed and hawed and hummed and hmmmed his way through the hundred acre wood. Pondering and imagining all sorts of adventures.

His imagination oft times led him into trumped up troubles and worries that were quickly dispelled by the appearance of Christopher Robin on the scene. With his ‘silly old bear’ Christopher Robin would try to remedy the situation.

Now I am not really comparing my brain to a bear, especially an imagined bear but I do love the character that AA Milne let us in on, which was a big part of his own imagination.

Perhaps a sprinkle of carefree and somewhat crazy but loveable thoughts that are ‘thinked’ out loud, can set this old imagination free.

Pooh says: Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.

Oh bother!

For more info on CPRR Blog Talks and to join us on our BLOG TALK journeys, visit www.callandpurpose.org or visit my blog @ www.sandyboller.wordpress.com

There have been wonderful mile markers for our family as we have added two new birthdays to our growing list of family celebrations.

We continue to add to the years of our marriage (36 years today!) and now celebrate this summer another first of many wedding anniversaries to come for our son John and his wife Andrea.

Celebrations, remembrances, milestones as our grandkids continue to grow up. As our grandbabies continue to move into toddlerhood. Amazing stuff we get to participate in as we put away the more mundane activities and trade the day for family celebrations.

But wait. Every summer for our family will be full of these same celebrations/ remembrances/ milestones. And more to come. The sabbatical we are taking this summer from our normal duties isn’t the reason that we get to participate in our family stuff.

So why does it seem much more like celebrations, much more like remembrances, much more like milestones, much more fun, much more anticipation of such events?

Today, I have had a discovery moment. I realized that this sabbatical has caused me to stop and take a look around, to take in the moment, the moments and to not just appreciate them but take the time to enjoy them. These times have become more kairos ( time as expectation) than chronos (time as duration).   This gift of sabbatical which has been recuperative and restorative has brought to the forefront the more important moments, those kairos moments, where I have desired to take the time out for remembering and for celebrating.

Marvelous! Marveling over these things… I have been marveling at God’s gifts to our family all summer long.

This is the discovery moment where I found my ‘marvels’.

You see, I had nearly lost my ‘marvels’.

Really now, don’t you mean ‘marbles’? Well, yes sometimes I feel like I have lost my marbles. But I really do mean ‘marvels’. That ability to marvel at something. Taking the time to allow God to show you something.  Or taking a moment to pause and consider something that just may have been overlooked in the past.

Another way of putting it is this: Have you lost the ability to be astonished? To be surprised? To consider an event or a season with awe?

The ability to be astonished…hmmm. The other day as I was pondering on this I realized that over the past couple of years I have nearly lost that ability to marvel, to be astonished, to be surprised by God, to hold on to His joy in the moment, in the going.

I nearly lost all my ‘marvels’. And losing the ability to marvel has nearly cost me my ‘marbles’.

I had been on a treadmill of endurance, just enduring the day, the week, the season without taking the time to really appreciate, to fully enjoy those moments. Life had been beating me down in more ways than I realized. Until I took the time to step out of the traffic for a season, this summer sabbatical season, and take a long loving look at God above everything.

Can you relate?

When was the last time you stood in awe, in astonishment, marveling at God’s handiwork, taking a look at His hand in your life and the lives of your loved ones, stopping and considering moments full of meaning?

Take the time today to put into practice what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 46:10:

Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.

For when we find ourselves in the place of stepping out of the traffic of life and taking a good long look at Him, we will see the marvels of God! (v.8)

We will have found our ‘marvels’. And along with finding our ‘marvels’, perhaps we will recoup a few lost ‘marbles’!

For more info on CPRR Blog Talks and to join us on our BLOG TALK journeys, visit www.callandpurpose.org or visit my blog @ www.sandyboller.wordpress.com

As Marty and I have embarked on the “new to us” adventure of bike riding, I had not thought of it as a hobby. Oh, biking will be good for us at our age. We need some regular exercise. Or perhaps this will help our aging joints and growing waistlines…And on and on.

I hadn’t let myself off the hook that I simply wanted to ride a bike for pleasure, for fun.

Until today.

As we took on another wonderful Cedar Rapids trail, which started with a few inclines, ie. hilly for us novice riders, I began to realize that I didn’t need a reason for biking, I just needed to ride for the fun of it. For pleasure. A hobby!

There goes that word again. Hobby. I have a hobby. Hmmm. Hobbies should be fun.

I always wanted to establish a hobby. But with many starts and no finishes usually due to not being able to afford a hobby and/or losing interest after just one try, I would give up.

One time some 20 years ago I started to cross stitch. I say I started, because each time I actually finished a piece, I didn’t have the money to get it framed and stretched.

And then there was the time I tried knitting. I began by making a scarf. It became a looong scarf as I didn’t remember how to finish it off. I think I still have that sucker stored away somewhere.

But this biking thing seems to have life and vibrancy and fun to it that some of the other hobbies didn’t have for me.

I have lived here for 21 years and am just now discovering all the beautiful trails we have at our doorstep. Most of them are paved which is my kind of trail.

These trails are hidden treasures.

Today we came upon a bridge, cattails blowing in the wind, a river, streams, ditch lilies, farm fields fresh with the smell of (no, not manure) soybeans and much more. Our eyes feasted on both rural and residential all on one trail, with a pond or two thrown in the mix.

A hobby in the making. Biking for fun. Need I say more?

And so I am getting old, well older as my mother would say. I might as well admit that to myself. And that is the hardest part – admission to one’s self that something obvious is happening but a part of me doesn’t want to let it sink in.

And yet as I wrote a few months ago in my blog titled  A Two Dimensional Life, God breaks into our present in order to show us how to live each day fully before Him rather than allow the past regrets and/or the future worries to conquer us. As we get older, we tend to lean more on that past/regret side and need to watch ourselves closely so that we don’t fall prey to living a one or two dimensional life.

It isn’t easy to live in the present when you desire for certain things to fall into place. Yet at the same time you know there are promises still waiting to be fulfilled and time seems to be running out, or we seem to be running out of options and gas!

So today, at this juncture, I can only enjoy this day, knowing in my heart that it is pregnant with futurity and that only the Lord knows what lies ahead, when promises and dreams come to fulfillment and how they come to pass under his redeeming thumb.

So, yes Lord. I choose to live today for that day. I choose to trust You as best I can for now that You will answer my prayer for this year – that You show me ways to experience joy and bring joy to others, that unique gifting where past and present collide into witty acts of purpose.

And that: I not stay more buried in my losses than aware of my gains.”(Joan Chittister – The Gift of Years)

She goes on to say: A blessing of these years is the transformation of the self to be, at long last, the self I have been becoming all my life – an oasis of serenity in a world gone sour on age, the very acme of life.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says: Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. (Message Bible)

So today I choose to believe that the best is yet to be. I choose to live in the present, to enjoy this day, this April 18^th birthday day!