Christmas
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more10 Ways To Celebrate Christmas Morning {regardless of what’s under the tree}
On Thursday, December 22 nd, 2011Ten Things to Do on Christmas Morning ...
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morewhen your Christmas stretches you …
On Wednesday, December 21 st, 2011A ll day long, I pray to be a womb for God. On the way to town in the morning, I whisper it to Father, “Come dwell in me, Lord. Come dwell in me.” When we come home from errands and appointments, to crusty bowls still on the table and the entrails of scarves and mittens and boots flung everywhere, I remember. And I pray it in earnest, as I pick up, put away, the wor...
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moreWhy You Need to Go Look at the Stars Tonight {and become One of the Wise Men}
On Tuesday, December 20 th, 2011It’s after midnight. And he’s driving down the middle of an empty country road when he just flicks the headlights right off and the black isn’t black after all. “Look at it!” I whisper it out the passenger window. The bowl of milky moon’s spilling over snow sleeping fields. “You could drive the whole way home without the lights on.R...
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more3 Gifts You Really Need to Open Right Now: Love Comes Down {video}
On Monday, December 19 th, 2011Come to the manger… and find the Cross in Christmas. Will you open your present early this year? Our gift to you… Scroll to double bar PAUSE symbol, located above the date, and pause the background music. Then, click PLAY button on the video & begin to open your gifts! If you can’t view the video, click here… Share video with friends Come. Come to...
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moreWhat the Real Beauty of Advent is all About…
On Friday, December 16 th, 2011‘Advent, it becomes a time of self-examination. “Put the desires of your heart in order, O human beings!” as the old song sings…. God wants us to always be w...
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moreThe One Thing Your Christmas Can’t Afford to Be Without
On Thursday, December 15 th, 2011I walk out of a Christian women’s conference in mid-December and step oblivious right over a cross. I’m a woman rock hard and blind. A woman who forgets her own face, oblivious to the appalling miracle of rain that becomes wheat, bread in the mouth that becomes grace in the veins. Of God taking my place when my sins are that I keep taking His, and honestly, I would have jus...
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moreHow in the World to get Ready for Christmas?
On Wednesday, December 14 th, 2011It’s on the day I forget to buy toilet cleaner in town. The day the man at the gas pumps says it’s just around the corner, what they’re forecasting will be a green Christmas and he looks up and asks, “So… are you ready yet for Christmas?” And I choose to smile instead of hyperventilate, to keep breathing and believing, and that’s the da...
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moreWhen Christmas Gets Radical: Whose Birthday Is It Really?
On Wednesday, December 07 th, 2011I t’s been over ten years of nothing under the Christmas tree here. Strange, the way children teach men.:: It was dark, I do remember that. Bedtime. Smoothing back hair, kissing foreheads. One round moon hanging large outside the window, an ornament dangling off stars, decorating the night. I had gifts to wrap. So, pull up the blankets. Prayers. And the...
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morePlanting Seeds of Kindness & Straw for the Manger {A Family Advent Activity}
On Thursday, December 01 st, 2011Power plays and big takeovers, it’s the way the world and Wall Street turns. But God, when He comes, He shows up in this fetal ball. Just this seed unfurling, impossible power contained in the small. The beginning of December, that is what I set out on the counter: a bowl of seeds. Through Advent, through all the waiting days, waiting for the Bread of Heaven to come down, we ...
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moreHow the Wait till Christmas can be Weightless
On Wednesday, November 30 th, 2011Steam rises from loaves of holiday bread cooling on the counter. The snow keeps coming down. Checking off the to-do lists in late afternoon: lay out disthtowels to wrap the bread loaves up in, tie with sprig of cedar, a bow of raffia — gifts for the neighbors, the mailman, the farm vet. Hard to wait for loaves to cool....
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moreThe Real Biggest Greatest Give-Away Ever {What if We Renamed Christmas?}
On Tuesday, November 29 th, 2011When they ask for a story, I pull up blankets and cover them with words. I pluck words out of thin air, the only way any story comes — the way the Word came. Something from nothing, a gift handed down. “Once upon a time…” This will be one of those stories— a possibility. “Once upon a time, there was a baby.” “Was I the baby? Is this a...
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why there really is hope for your new year’s resolutions
On Thursday, December 30 th, 2010It seems an unlikely, but strangely right, place to spend the final hours of Christmas. While the planet twinkles in the glow of trees circled with plates piled high in shortbread and fruitcake, stacks of unwrapped love, and perfectly imperfect family, our Christmas night has us far away from it all. Far away in a barn. Sows grunt, piglets root and nuzzle udders for milky war...
