Merry Christmas, world. (:

I think my favorite part about Christmas is definitely Christmas Eve service: and I've especially enjoyed it at my church the past two years.

I love to sit in the balcony - where we always do - and look over the edge to see the a thousand tiny lights filling the whole room with a beautiful glow.

I love watching as the choir members come down, and light their candle from the advent candles. And for awhile it's just 3 or 4 little lights making their way down the aisle. But slowly, the light starts to spread. And as we swing into another verse of The First Noel, it spreads more. Until, by the time we have begun Silent Night, the whole room glows.

And you think.

One light. That's all I am. Not enough to pierce the darkness myself. But when we join together with thousands of other lights and hold them up high: look at the difference it makes.

One of my friends posted recently about Christmas - and how it doesn't feel quite so Christmassy this year.

The past couple years have been especially so for me. It might be for lack of church family, the fizzling out of traditions, or the fact that presents aren't quite so exciting as they used to be.

I think it's the lack of anticipation.

Christmas is all about anticipation. The preparation, the planning. Shopping, wrapping, finding something just right for someone and keeping it a secret for the whole month.

My friend and I like to get each other presents for our birthdays and Christmas. But half the fun of the presents is the fact that we taunt each other to no end about what it is. We drop each other casual hints, random hints, irrelevant hints, and send each other intentionally blurry pictures of it. They aren't generally very big presents, but we always find ourselves in delightful anticipation of whatever it is that is to come.

The birth of the Messiah was an anticipated event for years and years. Prophets wrote about it and scholars studied it. The Israelites waited and waited for the promised Messiah to come and save them from those who oppressed them.

Last year, my family started celebrating advent - something we'd never done at our old church. But our new church did, so we tried it out. I always thought advent was just counting down till Christmas - but it's so much more than that.

Every night, we read a section from our storybook: a historical fiction about a young boy and his adventures as he learns about the coming Messiah and eventually gets to meet the child who will be His Savior.

The amazing thing that I loved about this was the anticipation. The focus wasn't on the presents, Christmas day, or whatever it was we were getting. The focus was on the coming Messiah. That a Savior would soon be born during their lifetimes.

And it brought into a different light the anticipation of Jesus' birth and the beauty of it. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be there, in the stable, when Jesus was born? To read the Torah and to wonder when this Messiah would come?

The days until Christmas are filled with the waiting and anticipation of discovering the contents of the packages under the tree. But Advent is about the anticipation of Christ's birth.

Which....is what I love about Christmas.

1 2 1

Just off of I-5 onto 45th street, there is almost always a homeless man standing on the side of the street with a sign.

We drive into Seattle every week for church, and each time, my heart goes out to these people on the streets - and yesterday, there were about 10 of them crowded just off the street where we exited.

"Wow, dad, look at all those homeless people. I wish I had twenty H2O bags to give them right now."

Let me go forward a little now, and tell you another story before I tell you about church.

After church, we went to Pike Place Market to get a few gifts for some friends. Dad dropped mom and I off, we found a store, made our purchases, and then went outside to wait for dad where he told us to. As we were waiting, browsing through a clearance rack set just outside the store, a voice, calling to passing shoppers, caught my attention.

"ANYONE GOT A DOLLAR SO I CAN SMOKE SOME POT?"

I turned to look at him from behind the clothes rack. I've never heard homeless people shout such things to people. But there he was, with a sign I couldn't quite see, calling out to people to give him a dollar so he could smoke.

Now I really wish I had one of those H2O bags to give out.

Almost just as soon as I had noticed him, another guy came walking along down the sidewalk, tapping random people on the shoulder.

"Hey, do you have any change so I could get some food?"

Most people said no and hurried on - swinging their designer-store purchases in their bags. I so desperately wanted to give them something besides money. It saddens me how people can just walk on...keep moving...like they weren't even there. Because behind that sign, under the dirt, messy hair, and torn clothes is a person, created in the image of God, just like me.

Then dad drove up, and we got in the car and left. Later I kicked myself for forgetting that I had 5 Gospel tracts I had put in my purse just that morning, thinking to myself, "I should always have these, because you never know."

We passed shoe stores, designer clothing stores, sports gear stores, and so many more. And I kept thinking...How can we have so much when these people right in our midst have so little? And not only do they have nothing, they don't have Christ.

Now let me go back, and tell you about church.

We had a short message from a 90-year old man named Phil Smart, as part of the service they call "Witness to the Working of God", where someone comes up and tells you about a ministry they serve in and what God is doing in their lives and in the lives of others through their ministry. I don't remember all of it, but his testimony was very inspiring. Most people I talked to afterwards said we could have just ended the service right there.

One thing he talked about was a little card that was in our bulletin. Here was what the front of the card looked like:

He explained that there are 24 hours in the day, divided into 8-hour segments. The first 8 hours are for school and work ("or retirement, but I don't like that", he added) and the second 8 hours, right next to it, are for sleeping; resting up for the work you have to do. And then, the last 8 hours are for you to do however you please. Then, he told us about the 8 different pains that people have in the world, and how we should use those 8 hours to reach out to people. He told a very touching story to go with it, but if I try to repeat it, I'll probably ruin it. But it was inspiring.

Next he showed us the other side of the card:

Each of the letters represents the 8 pains, he said. The Hurt, the Hungry, the Homeless, the Unemployed, the Young, the Old, the Illiterate, and the Drug users. And the way that we reach out to them, he explained, is One-to-one.

After this, we had the sermon, which was extremely inspiring. Here are some things I gathered from it, in light of a lot of other things that I heard in various messages during the past week or so.

How would Dorothy live once she got back to Kansas? How would the scarecrow live with his new brains; and the tin man with his new heart? In the same way, how will we live, with our new life in Christ - the grace, the forgiveness, the joy that Jesus has given us? We should live the life God created us to live. Love as you want to be loved. You can be you, and still reach out to a hurting world - use the gifts God has given you. Respond to God's grace like the scarecrow would to his new brain.

Don't tell them what they should believe. Tell them what you believe.

Do you feel called to full time ministry? The answer is - yes. Jesus calls each and every one of us to be full-time lights for Him. Whether it's serving others through an organization or right around you - we should always be looking for an opportunity to bless others.

Just think what you could do to change a homeless person's life. A simple act of kindness could make their day - show them they do matter in the world, and most importantly, that they matter to God.

Sunday Stories

I've always wanted to do a series on my blog, and I'm pleased to announce one I've been trying to come up with a name for for a long time.

Okay, so it's a bit of a cheesy name. I might change it later. Anyhow, the hope is that I'll make a post on Sunday (or Monday) about things that happen in church...something I learned, something I loved, something that I found amusing. Anything, really. To start off, I wanted to post the lyrics to a hymn we sang today. It really was the only decent part of the service, because we had someone else preaching and he really wasn't all that good. :P

It's called "Day by Day and with Each Passing Moment"

1. Day by day and with each passing moment
strength I find to meet my trials here;
trusting in my Father's wise bestowment,
I've no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
gives unto each day what he deems best -
lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,
mingling toil with peace and rest.

2. Every day the Lord himself is near me,
with a special mercy for each hour;
all my cares he wants to bear, to cheer me,
he whose name is Counselor and Power.
The protection of his child and treasure
is a charge that on himself he laid:
"As your days, the strength shall be in measure,"
this the pledge to me he made.

3. Help me then in every tribulation
so to trust thy promises, O Lord,
that I lose not faith's sweet consolation
offered me within thy holy Word.
Help me, Lord when toil and trouble meeting,
e'er to take, as from a father's hand,
one by one, the days the moments fleeting,
till I reach the promised land

And now it's over.

Thanks for your prayers on Saturday. I could tell people were praying for me because I stayed somewhat emotionally sane and actually almost enjoyed myself.

There were 2 rounds, and the top 3 from each round would advance to the final round. We got 4th. But our other team (we had 2 teams) placed 1st and then got Silver in the final round! Trinity got Silver as well. (they had 2 of each award, gold, silver, and bronze)

Afterwards we trooped off to Panda Express where for lunch, and then home, where I discovered we were randomly having friends over for dinner - which was very fun.

All in all, it was a good-ish day. I had a lot of fun, and it was great to see people from my old church. But I am also extremely glad it's all over because the stress, work, and emotion I put into it, not to mention lots of other things - was...stressful.

Here are a couple pictures...

Corwin, me, and Jackson

Our awesome, very posed huddle picture
I'm laughing because I was trying to get Jackson to be serious, but he wouldn't. :P

Nancy (our coach), Amy, Tim, Sarah, and Jabber (the bird)

Nancy, Sarah, Tim, Amy, me, and Jackson (wearing Nancy's medal :P) (Corwin had to leave)

Christmas things...

One of my favorite things about Christmas is church. I especially am beginning to love advent - the candle lighting, stories, and all. Our family has been reading "Jotham's Journey", which is an advent story, and I LOVE it. It's so well written and sometimes we purposely skip a day so we can read two the next day because we can't stand the cliffhangers! =P

Last week we sang "Zither Carol" at church. I LOVE this song. I think the congregation really enjoyed it too.

This week our handbell choir played background music. I absolutely LOVE handbell choir. It's so much fun!!

I love this picture. These are the biggest bells, which Raymond and Jared got to play. The smallest ones are about half the size of your hand. [whereas these are about what, twice the size of your head?? =P]

Our little flute trio! I absolutely love our flute group. It makes me happy. =)

Katy and I just learned 4-in-hand about 2 weeks ago. 4-in-hand is where you have two bells in each hand [as opposed to one] and it's really tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, you feel reeeally smart. :P We had a lot of fun playing and learning together as you can probably see....

Geneva Hall was decorated beautifully - all the trains everywhere and trees and decorations. I loved it.
The train tree

For at least this year, my favorite part about Christmas is definitely church. All the special music, decorations, candles, advent...I love it. =)