Daily Gratitude Year 7- Day 341: Today, I am grateful for joy leaks.
"When you choose joy, you feel good & when you feel good, you do good. When you do good, it reminds others of what joy feels like & if just might inspire them to do the same."
In other words, joy leaks. It can't be contained. It has a positive impact on the world. It is really as simple as that.
We can choose to be selfish or we can choose to be generous. We can ignore the needs around us or we can be part of the solution. We all have a choice.
What will we allow to fill our hearts, our days and our heads on this day? What fruit will we bear this Christmas season.
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! -Galatians 5:22-23
Today, I am grateful for joy leaks.
Daily Gratitude Year 7- Day 340: Today, I am grateful for favorite Christmas songs.
How do we choose our favorites?
Some are traditional favorites like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" & "Oh Come, O Come Emmanuel". Others are songs from classic vinyl albums in my parents collection like "Jimmy Dean's Christmas Card". Madrigal memories come to mind, too. The list is only beginning to form in my mind.
There are popular music songs like "Do You Hear What I Hear" that take us back, yet seem fresh and new when spun by a new artist. I love them all. Amy Grant's Tennessee Christmas album has been a favorite most of my life. For King and Country make my soul sing with their Christmas music. Where do I stop? I love them all. The season between Thanksgiving in Christmas is too short for all the music I want to savor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPcA4bQjWFw
Can you feel the energy of the season in the songs? The urgency and the joy are full. This is the time to pause and reflect on the power, the majesty, the miracle, the humility, the majesty and the gift. We have so much to celebrate.
How can we help but sing? The angels could not resist the urge to sing:
"Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, "Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”" -Luke 2: 13-14
I adore all the different kinds of music at Christmas.
Today, I am grateful for favorite Christmas songs.
Daily Gratitude Year 7- Day 339: Today, I am grateful those who shoot for the moon.
George Bailey sees things a little differently when he takes a look at Mary with new eyes. This exchange between George and Mary captures the promise, the energy and the magic of young love.
"You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down." -George Bailey, It's A Wonderful Life
This scene never gets old. George has big dreams... and little ones, too.
The hopes and dreams of youth are special. Even more special is when hopes and dreams are patiently tended until God... in His time... unfolds His best for our lives.
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life." -Proverbs 3:12
Even when life isn't exactly "wonderful"... there is good. God is good and faithful every step of the journey. We can have big dreams and little ones, too.
Today, I am grateful those who shoot for the moon.
Daily Gratitude Year 7- Day 338: Today, I am grateful the humblest tasks can be beautiful.
This quote tugged at my heart today:
"The humblest tasks get beautified when loving hands do them." - Louisa May Alcott. Little Women
Changing a diaper. Wiping the drool from an aging loved ones mouth. Taking out the garbage. Zipping a child's coat. These are humble tasks, but when performed with love, they become beautiful.
What acts of help and hope can we offer today? Kindness is more intentional than accidental... but when the behavior is repeated, it becomes reflexive.
My Mama's side of the family had certain ways of doing things. We just shared a Thanksgiving meal and we followed the patterns we learned from our Grandmother and our mothers. The children and those who needed help were served first. The men followed the children. And finally, the women filled their plates. I don't know if it was learned from the German influence on the Guttendorf side. I do know it was that way things were done and no one questioned it. There are many humble tasks performed with love when families gather for holiday meals.
I think of Mary on the night of Jesus's birth. This act of love from the weary hands of a new mother:
She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. -Luke 2:7
She wrapped him in strips of cloth and placed him in a wooden manger for a bed. Can we even begin to imagine such a night in a stable? Wrapping the child to protect him from the evening chill and to make him feel snug and safe. Mother's still swaddle babies, but in our country most deliver in far more comfortable circumstances.
It must have been a moment of beauty and awe as Joseph watched Mary perform her first simple acts of mothering. I imagine that moment was forever imprinted on his heart, too.
Perhaps, he shared a cup of water with her for refreshment after her labor and delivery. Or, maybe he fed her some bread. Love can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Today, I am grateful the humblest tasks can be beautiful.
Daily Gratitude Year 7- Day 337: Today, I am grateful Mary said, "Yes".
In this advent season, Mary always holds a special place in my heart. The scriptures clearly define her as an ordinary girl.
Francesca Battistelli's "Be Born In Me" is one of my favorite Christmas songs. It was written by Nicole Nordeman and it brings to life and to light the power of Mary's "Yes".
God had been silent for 400 years. Never absent but quietly keeping His hand and His eye on his people. His timing is always perfect, but in this case, God would wait for a "yes" from Mary.
God would not control Mary and Joseph. He invited them into the adventure that would change their lives and the world. It takes my breath away. Truly! This awesome story that we revisit each Christmas never grows old.
"And it came to pass..." Finally, the time was right. Two ordinary people would be the humans to receive, raise up and relate to this God-child from birth to manhood. They were not holy... but they would raise up heaven's promised Messiah. Mary was the first one to say "Yes". She submitted to the Holy Spirit and God's will for her life.
She would conceive a child in the strangest way. No one believed her in the beginning. People talked about her behind her back through the pregnancy. She would wait until after the birth of Jesus to become a wife in the most intimate way. All her childhood dreams of love, wedding nights and marriage were shattered. Did she feel special... or heartbroken?
It probably depended on the day. How many dirty looks and hushed whispers did she receive at the market or water well on a daily basis. People gossiped then as they do now. She must have felt shattered at times, but out of her broken dreams grew a heart strong enough to raise "God with us". I can only imagine it, but this video helps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7ClXvC1HVM
"Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her." -Luke 1:38
An ordinary girl with an extraordinary heart.
"Lord, help each of us to be more like Mary this advent season. Give us the courage to say "yes" to your best in our lives... even if it scares us. Help us to honor you with our "best yes" in all we do. Thank you for coming in such a humble way so that we might know you as our Savior." -amen
Today, I am grateful Mary said, "Yes".
Daily Gratitude Year 7- Day 336: Today, I am grateful the stars were made to worship.
There is something powerful in this worship song.
If the stars were made to worship so will I
If the mountains bow in reverence so will I
If the oceans roar Your greatness so will I
For if everything exists to lift You high so will I
If the wind goes where You send it so will I
If the rocks cry out in silence so will I
If the sum of all our praises still falls shy
Then we'll sing again a hundred billion times.
- Hillsong, "So Will I"
I think the scriptures reflect God,s delight in the stars he created and placed in the heavens. When it came time to announce the birth of the Messiah... the Savior of the world... He used a star. The star rose in the sky and the magi followed it to find the newborn King.
"“Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” -Matthew 2:2
"When they saw the star, they were filled with joy!"-Matthew 2:10
When they saw the star... they were filled with joy! Are we filled with joy, too?
Take in the winter night sky. Feel with awe the size of the universe. Remember His star and the humble stable where our Lord arrived.
If the stars were made to worship, so will I.
Today, I am grateful the stars were made to worship.
Daily Gratitude Year 7- Day 335: Today, I am grateful the wonderful One.
This is the first Sunday in advent. This scripture was in a devotional I read today and it stuck like glue:
For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity--the man Christ Jesus. -1 Timothy 2:5
There is only ONE. The Holy Trinity is kind of a hard concept to grasp, but that does not make it any less real. Father, Son and Spirit... they are three and they are one.
The Father created us for a real relationship with Him. Adam and Eve broke his heart with their arrogance and disobedience in the garden. Stubborn humans that we are... we continue to want to do things our way. Pride and arrogance still get in the way of our falling into step with our King and Savior. Yet, He is patient and waits... ready to defend us before the Father.
"And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” -Matthew 1:21
Yes, His name is wonderful counselor, He will save his people from their sins.
Today, I am grateful the wonderful One.
Daily Gratitude Year 7- Day 341: Today, I am grateful for joy leaks.
