Hark! My Christmas Letter

Photo Courtesy of Sarah Whelchel

By now our family Christmas cards are reaching their addressed destinations, and, for another year I found myself unable to write a Christmas letter that sat well enough in my heart to be included.

What did I write about before?
Why can't I bring myself to write something which sums up our year and shares our lives?
How can someone who has so much to say (LOL) find no way to say it?

In recent years, when I try to compose such a letter, the words feel trite, or boastful, or redundant. So, I just stopped sending letters, and resolved to send a photo card with a Christmas greeting in hopes that it would be enough.

But today, I found myself filled with a message that I needed to share. The message started with a few lines in a very well known Christmas Carol, "Hark!" the Herald Angels Sing:

Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King !"

In the form of an infant...helpless...exposed; the God of our Creation laid aside His due glory and came to earth. 

He came so that He could die...so that WE no longer would have to suffer that same type of death...

He came for US, the sons of earth...He, the one true GOD, came so that we may be born again in his SPIRIT. 

He came so that we could be free from our bondage to sin over and over an over again...He came so we could be made holy and have a close, personal relationship with Him. 

Hark! Listen! PAY ATTENTION!     

YOU  DO   NOT WANT TO MISS THIS.

In the Old Testament, God resided in one place...the Holy of Holies ... and ONLY the most High Priest could even approach Him! But NOW...because of Christmas, because of Easter...because of BIRTH, DEATH, RESURRECTION and ASCENSION... we have GOD with us every minute of every day...COMPLETELY accessible as a HOLY GHOST. 

AMAZING...He is always with us.

SCARY...He is always with us. 

OVERWHELMING...He is always with us. 

So, THIS is my Christmas letter...because what WE did this year is nothing compared to what HE did this year.

Oh, how He loves us.

Merry Christmas!!! 

Set the Table

I rise to another day,
I set my sights on you,
Their voices try to shout me down,
Try to break me through and through.

My mission here before me,
I set my sights on you,
Their words fly as hurled spears,
And they pierce me through and through.

My day leads me into war,
I set my sights on you,
Their taunts are vicious stones,
And meant to leave me black and blue.

A new day and another room,
I set my sights on you,
A table set by you for me,
In the presence of foes so true.

So Much More To Her

She is music,
She is belly-laughs,
She is group-hugs at bedtime...

"Let us pray..."
"Can we chat?"
and "Talking about that..."

She dances through sadness,
Through anger and fear,
She cries when she thinks
that no one is near...

She is too much food in her mouth at one time.
She is skipping the heavy parts on Full House at night.

She is Peppa Pig,
She is Olivia,
She is iCarly and Victorious.

She is so much more than we could ever know,
What her Creator stored up within secret troves.

Goggles

I am ever so grateful for the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired (WCBVI), and for the Pre-school-6 Year conference that they put together annually here in Wisconsin.  Over the years, I think we attended four conferences and enjoyed each of them and gained something new every time.

I specifically remember one presentation that my husband and I attended in which we were given a pair of goggles to wear that simulated a vision impairment close to that of our daughter's.  It wasn't the perfect simulation of her vision, but it had a couple of key things:

• A hemorrhage in one eye, which our daughter did not have, but the hemorrhage occluded the vision from that eye, and our daughter can't see with her left eye

• 20/200 vision in the other eye 

Seeing things "the way" she sees them was startling enough, but the session director then had us attempt to complete various tasks.  If I recall correctly, I was supposed to put together a cabin out of Linkin' Logs.  I recall having to turn my head so I could use just my right eye to read the directions and find the pieces, because only the right eye was "working".  I found it incredibly difficult to adapt, and I started to get a headache because my right eye was working so much harder than my left eye.  I grew frustrated and tired.

My husband also participated in this same session only it was the hour after me, so we didn't have a chance to debrief before he went into the room.  He wore a pair of simulation goggles and completed a task as well.  He recounts a thought-provoking experience that he had while performing his task.  My husband was concentrating on what he was supposed to be doing, when suddenly someone came up behind him, without warning, and wiped his nose with a tissue.  Wow!  Brilliant!  How many of us would do that to our children without thinking about how alarming that would be? 

I realized, after that particular WCBVI conference, that it's important for me to try to see the world through my daughter's eyes.  When she's tired or frustrated, or when a task is more difficult for her than I think it should be, I remember my experience with the goggles I wore that day; the goggles that gave me a whole new perspective, and a healthy respect for everything my daughter DOES accomplish without grumbling or complaining.

You can check out the various low-vision simulation goggles at places like http://www.lowvisionsimulators.com/, or look at some of the vision simulation activities at http://www.perkins.org/resources/scout/vision-and-blindness/simulation-of-vision.html.  

Don't we all wear our own pair of goggles everyday?  We never really see every situation the same way that others see it, because we have our own individual interpretations based on our life experiences. Maybe Tennessee Williams said it best:

Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see ...each other in life. Vanity, fear, desire, competition-- all such distortions within our own egos-- condition our vision of those in relation to us... That's how it is in all living relationships except when there is that rare case of two people who love intensely enough to burn through all those layers of opacity and see each others' naked hearts. (accessed 2/13/14 at http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/290058-nobody-sees-anybody-truly-but-all-through-the-flaws-of)

Are You Still Watching?

We don't have cable television nor do we have Direct TV...satellite, any of that...We just have a monthly subscription to Netflix and we love it!

There are no commercials with which to contend, and I can watch whatever I want whenever I want it! I also love that Netflix will stop after it's shown you three straight episodes of a show and will say, "Are you still watching?" You have the option to hit CONTINUE or go back to the menu.

Clearly, their belief is, "We'll make this convenient in that we'll start three episodes in a row without making you do any work...BUT, we also know that you don't want to fall asleep and then miss an entire season of a TV show, so we'll stop at three and make YOU decide if you're ready to go on.

I wonder what life would be like if God would stop progressing our LIVES whenever we tuned out on him.

I think I would still be 10 years old.

How OFTEN do we fall asleep and STOP WATCHING God?.

How OFTEN do we have God running in the background while we're doing other things, and suddenly we are three episodes in and have missed the story?

We have so many distractions in our lives these days: social media, sports, games, family...all of them CAN be good, but all of them can become idols that pull us away from God and take a position of utmost importance in our daily lives. 

ARE WE STILL WATCHING GOD?

Here's the irony in my writing, and COMPLETING this particular blog post...it's been sitting in my drafts folder for three years. THREE YEARS it took me to finish something that I had thought about writing. I'm a little surprised that when I logged into Blogger, there wasn't a pop-up window that would say: ARE YOU STILL WRITING?


Written in response to The Write Prompts

Where Am I?

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.” (Isaiah 30:15)

I know, I kind of disappeared. 

It was two days before Halloween. Our message series at church was Gods at War and it focused on all the things in this world that suck us in and distract us from the one true God. I was also in the midst of reading the book Goliath Must Fall by Louie Giglio, and God was speaking clearly to me about the pain and anxiety I was feeling as a result of wasting my time scrolling through social media. 

Social Media had turned into a Giant for me. It had become an idol in the sense that I allowed a large chunk of my "spare time" to be swallowed up by it. I was no longer reading. I was no longer writing. And, quite honestly, I was feeling bullied for my personal beliefs. 

Everyday I woke up and I let that Giant taunt me. I made excuses for why I NEEDED to stay on Facebook; people want to see Evie, and people need my positive stories and encouragement. But I'd "walk out" into Facebook-Land and find MYSELF being taunted and brought down by the negative narratives being slung around me and at me. I would go back and read and re-read and wonder how the world had gotten so sideways. But that's exactly how Satan wanted me to feel-confused, hopeless and overwhelmed. 

I got brave enough to finally say, "Enough is enough. There is more to this life than posting a picture of this event, or sharing a funny comment that Evie made. If this had happened even 12 years ago, no one would have heard me tell this story other than the friends who I see every day and the family who calls me on the phone. And that would have been perfectly fine!" 

I had already deleted the Facebook app off my phone a year ago, but still used it through Safari. I decided to delete my history so it wouldn't be something easy to pull up and then I committed to NEVER checking Facebook on my phone again. If I have pictures to share, I can put them on Instragram and share to Facebook through that. I also set up a 1 hour time limit of social media on my phone. Little did I know that also included text messaging and Facetime! 

But, guess what? Since doing that, I have decreased my phone use 33%. I have only come close to my social media limit (including texting) 3 days in the last month. My anxiety is down, and my connectedness to the people around me is up. I don't even charge my phone through out the day because the battery rarely runs low! 

So, to sum up, I only check Facebook once a week, if even that because I only do it when I work on my laptop. If you are looking to get a message to me, you can send it through Messenger. 

I thought leaving Facebook would be difficult, but it has been nothing short of miraculous for me. I thought maybe I'd get more active on it again after the first of the year, but, honestly, I don't miss it, and I don't think I want to! 

So, Where Am I? I'm back to being me. 

Reno

Biggest Little City in the World,
     Blackjack dealers, Wild Horse wranglers,
     A thoroughfare to Burning Man and Nation's Automobile Museum;
Windy, Wild, Waking,
Land of Hot August Nights;

They tell me you are hookers, gangs and casinos,
     and I have seen the headlines, so I know.
And they tell me you are desertland, and
     I relish the lack of moisture in the dry desert air.
And they tell me you're a has-been, and I say:
     I have seen it in the movies
     painted as the Mos Eisely of Tatooine.
And having answered so I look at those
     who kick dirt at my city, and I give
     them back the dirt and say to them:
Come and show me another city resting resplendent
     within a ring of mountain ranges,
     resilient and relentless.
Abiding the angst of dire droughts and furious
     floods, her people rally for their
     neighbors and restore their principality;
Tender as a mother soothing her child to sleep,
     protective as a soldier guarding his sovereign state
     against the world,
Revealed,
Emerging,
Growing,
Returning,
Ascending, abating, advancing,
Through the desert dust, bright lights
     on alabaster cityscape, dazzling with
     flashing brilliance
Through the perilous panes of possibility
     dazzling as young dames dazzle,
Dazzling even as diamonds dancing on the
     kept blue waters of Tahoe,
Sparkling and dazzling that through those waters flows the lifeforce of ages -
     decades of dreams and daring emigrants,
          Dazzling!
Dazzling the windy, wild, waking dazzle of the Dauntless, unfaltering, unshrinking, proud to be the
     Biggest Little City, Blackjack dealers, Wild Horse wranglers, thoroughfare to Burning Man and           Automobile Museum to the Nation.

Inspired by Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago

The faucet hasn't dripped in months...

Nori and Jinx at our hotel at Lifest

Five months have passed,

We've seen it snow,

We opened gifts, 

We miss you so.

We took a trip, 

To Disneyland,

Jinx got his shots, 

He's not a fan.

We used the last,

Of your "tummy" meds,

So Jinx wasn't sick

In his travel bed. 

But I miss the way,

Your head would kink

To lick water

From our bathroom sink.