Birthday fun

Here are a few pictures of Max's birthday celebration at school. We took cupcakes, chocolate on chocolate, Max's choice. He wore a birthday crown and Maggie and I stayed for the morning with him. He enjoyed being the center of attention! Later that evening we had friends from church over for dinner. After dinner and presents Max and their son Matthew played on the wii, it was a lot of fun. For desert we had brownies with mint chocolate chip ice cream. Maggie made her way around the room sampling from everyone's bowl! I think Max had a good birthday and enjoyed his day.

Happy Birthday little man!

Six years ago my amazing Max came into my life, and everything changed! I was in love from the first moment. Over the years we've had our challenges, tears and many joys and I know there are more to come. He is a delight and I am so blessed to be his mommy. I'm excited to see who God has created Max to be. As his personality and character develop I see God's fingerprints. I know that Max is "God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Eph. 2:10) My prayer as I parent Max is that Chris and I will partner with the Holy Spirit in revealing what God's purpose for Max's life is. I'm excited to see what his spiritual gifts are and how he has been equipped for glorifying God. I can't imagine my life without Max's enthusiasm and energy. His love for people convicts and inspires me and I think I've met my match in conversation!

wii

Our family is officially addicted to a new toy! We got a wii for Christmas as our family gift. Thankfully Max goes back to school tomorrow or else I wouldn't get anything done, he likes to have a partner and that's what we've mostly done together today. Maggie is hysterical copying what we're doing. I give her a controller that's not connected or a cell phone and she pretends like she's playing. She waves her arms around and makes the appropriate noises! It's pretty funny!

Gingerbread House

Max and I decorated a gingerbread house together yesterday morning. We had so much fun together making this sweet creation. Do you see the snowman in the front?! That was Max's clever idea. Maggie was sleeping while we decorated and woke up just as we finished. She wanted to get her hands on all that candy!

Favor

Exhale, inhale, as the Son's breath of life passed into his creation's lips his fate was sealed, his appointment with death was secure. His infinite hands held our fragile lives, as well as his own. Why did he choose to sacrifice? He could have avoided such heart ache and agony, his own death, by not creating. What a mystery that he should still fashion Adam from the ground, taking detailed care with this most special of his creatures. Would you have followed through with such a plan, would I? Why did he do it? Perhaps it was for a joy we can only guess at, "for the joy set before him (he) endured the cross, scorning its shame." [Hebrews 12:2] What is that joy? I can only imagine, joy must be born in perfect love.

That wondrous, fearful, beautiful night love was born. Never had the prize been so close or pain so near. The prize is you and me. We are who the Son came in pursuit of, relentless, determined. The sacrifice of love, planned ages ago, was near completion. The silent, Bethlehem night was the beginning of his human trek, the first step of sacrifice. Angels sang glory, God's glory, it was finally with man. That night he graced our kind with such favor, the favor of becoming one of us, one with us. Love poured out.

Longing

Life just isn't what I had hoped. I flung that jagged statement out to Chris recently. "What do you mean", he asked. "I guess I'd hoped this world would be more like the next one than it is," I responded. To which he replied, "that doesn't make any sense." Which of course it doesn't, although maybe it does. Even as Jesus is transforming me on the inside, the outside world is still decaying. I feel fettered by time, disappointed in relationships, limited by finances. Something deep within me leaps at the hope of these words found in Romans 8:19-21, "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." What can that possibly mean, what will we be like when we're finally "revealed"?! Can you imagine the song creation will sing when it is "liberated from it's bondage"?! Colossians 2:3-4, "your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." These words echo the deep longing of my heart. You see, I don't think my soul has ever lost the deep imprint of the garden, even though I personally have never been there, it knows it was meant for something more. So maybe I should know better, that this broken, groaning world can never satisfy me, but there is part of me that's always looking for a glimpse, a clue of what's to come. Part of me feels at moments, that my heart really is somewhere else and it resents being chained to a home that's not it's own. I rebel at the limit time puts on cultivating relationships; longing for the day that hours don't matter, busyness doesn't encroach, clocks no longer rule because there is an endless supply of time. My blog title, Beck Far From Home, reflects those feelings and longings. It's not just that I am far from what I am familiar with as my earthly home. It's more that I feel distant from my true home, a place I've never been but will recognize instantly.

Years ago I had the chance to see Claude Monet's painting Water Lilies in person. I was astonished! I had seen the painting many times on calenders, prints, mugs, etc. I was unaware of the inadequacy of those reproductions. When I saw the original I was unprepared for the contrast, it took my breath away. The painting was enormous taking up a full wall in the museum, the colors richer than I imagined, the texture produced contrast and lighting only perceptible in person. I sat and stared for a long while, amazed it it's beauty. I imagine our liberated, redeemed world will be the same way. It will be familiar, identifiable in the same sense I could identify Monet's painting, I had seen it before just not in the way it was intended to be seen. I know deep inside that one day I will experience our world as I was intended to, as it was intended to be. "If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

These musings appear to have nothing to do with Christmas. However, at the heart they do. If it hadn't been for sweet Jesus coming our world could never have been set free from it's curse of sin, any more than we could have been. Just as the maiden waits in the enchanted castle to be awakened by true love, the world was sleeping under a spell waiting for it's Prince to come. And he came, full of truth and love, sacrifice and power, he came to break the curse. He burst upon the scene one silent night and nothing has ever been the same. He answers the longings.

Wonder

I watched The Nativity Story last night, or maybe I should say I cried my way through it. I've been touched by the wonder of the incarnation in a new way this year. It's left me asking so many questions.

As I watched the faces of Mary and Joseph on their journey of wonder, I felt like I was stepping into the moment as it unfolded. What emotions and fears does a young women experience as she faces the disapproval and ridicule of neighbors, friends, family? Yet in all of history she's peculiar in that she experienced the repercussions of unwed motherhood, while being innocent. How hard must that have been. Even she must have had moments of confusion and doubt while herself knowing the truth. What did the ensuing conversations with her mother, her father, Joseph look like? How does the God of the universe go about choosing a suitable mother for... himself?! Only by his unparalleled grace could she rise to such a task!

Then there's Joseph, his character must have been so strong. During the movie I think I liked watching his expressions best. You can see his face reflect his disbelief and hurt, then wonder at the truth, worry over his inadequacy, fierce determination to protect, tender love for his unusual young bride, and then the unbridled emotions of joy, relief, awe at meeting this little Savior that he would help raise. He must have wondered what it all could mean.

The birth of any baby is a transforming, mind boggling experience. But this, how can we ever begin to understand the importance of what our God did for us. Somehow, when I ponder such a mystery, I feel like my celebration of this amazing event is so inadequate. I can't fathom such determination. That God would satisfy his desire to love me by joining me in my sufferings, taking on my own guilt, turning his wrath from me to his very own darling Son. All for me, a betrayer, once his enemy. What kind of love is this? It almost frightens me when I think of it. I know it's for his own glory, but surely there are less messy and painful ways to glorify himself, apparently though this was the best.

And then there's the baby. As a mother I've sat for hours staring at the soft lips, round cheeks, delicate fan of dark lashes of my sleeping babies. Listening to the gentle sighs of their peaceful breathing, I've held my breath in wonder. Where did they come from?! How could I be so blessed. How much more miraculous and wonderful a God Child. How did he go about combining his infinite, uncontainable self with his limited, fragile creation? I will never know, but I will always be amazed. Was the Son aware of his new confinement? Did he know why he was there? Could Mary and Joseph tell there was something unusual about this baby? Or was he in appearance just like all the other babies born that night? A baby born in common circumstances, to common parents, in a common little town, yet greeted in a most uncommon way with angelic choruses, uncommon starlight, uncommon kingly visitors. What a combining of humble and glorious! Isn't that how it is for us. God takes our humble, simple selves and unites them with his holy, glorious self. And it was possible because of a baby, fully God and fully man. Wonder!