Living In This Moment

Thanks to the ease of a laptop, I'm writing this post from my warm and cozy bed, buried under not one or two, but four blankets. The dark night sits still and quiet outside my window, the ground submerged under a foot thick covering of white, and the temperature has taken a dip below the zero mark. It is both breathtaking to the eye to see such pristine beauty and cruel to any exposed inch of skin that tries to stand outside for more than a few moments. Winter has taken firm hold of my Kentucky home.

My week began with an unexpected holiday from my office, two days our doors remained closed due to this recent change in weather. My children have traded an entire week of school days for card games, all means of electronic device entertainment, breakfasts at ten and bedtime at eleven. They've sprinted out into the snowy back yard more than once to build forts and make snowballs, and in return, my kitchen floor is littered with layers of wet clothing, hats, scarves and gloves from their treks outdoors. Cabin fever has started to stir within them, so much so that a trip to the grocery store was a welcome outing. Anything to release them from the same set of walls they've been staring at for days.

I've scrolled through my Facebook feed and seen pictures of snow men, snow angels, and kind hearted neighbors that have shoveled driveways so my friends could get out to the road. Updates were quick to spread when the local school systems finally gave in and admitted defeat on Wednesday, calling off classes for the rest of the week.

It's not surprising when the temperature drops this low and your wheels are spinning as your trying to leave your house in the morning for work that people start wishing for Spring. Just as it comes as no surprise that when the temperature begins to rise towards triple digits and staying indoors to avoid a heat stroke is your only option, people will begin to wish for Fall. I get it, really, I do.

But, part of me reads through these words of wistful thinking, of this living in what is next on the calendar and just wants to press a halt button. Can't I just breathe in the slower pace that winter brings before I leap to the next season? Can't I enjoy thick, hearty stews for dinner with crusty bread, earthenware mugs of hot coffee snuggled under a blanket on my couch, college basketball and warm sweaters before we skip off to Easter? I need this fast paced world, with its telescope lens always locked on the horizon, to just let me breathe.

Please stop, world. Please, just live now. Right now. This moment.

God gave you this day. And, not just so you could look out your window and ponder just how miserable the weather is, or how much you long for what tomorrow holds. Today is not a day for waiting for the next holiday, the next vacation, the next item on the to do list. Today is a day for living - to see and to hear and to taste and to feel and to love and a million other unexpected blessings He has planned that you weren't even aware of when you opened your eyes. Not tomorrow's gifts, but today's.

While there may be moments today that we find ourselves longing for tomorrow, take a minute to embrace this very real truth:

"This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24

A Light in the Darkness

“The people who walk in darkness
    will see a great light.
For those who live in a land of deep darkness,

    a light will shine.
³ You will enlarge the nation of Israel,
    and its people will rejoice.
They will rejoice before you
    as people rejoice at the harvest
    and like warriors dividing the plunder.
⁴ For you will break the yoke of their slavery
    and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders.
You will break the oppressor’s rod,
    just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian.
⁵ The boots of the warrior
    and the uniforms bloodstained by war
will all be burned.
    They will be fuel for the fire.

⁶ For a child is born to us,
    a son is given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
    And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor,^[c] Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ His government and its peace
    will never end.
He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David
    for all eternity.
The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies
    will make this happen!

Isaiah 9:2-7, NLT

            This summer my family and I took a trip to Mammoth Cave. Over the years, we’ve visited several times and we always try and take a different tour of the caves. This year, our tour had us stop deep beneath the ground and take a seat on a bench while our guide gave a brief talk about the cave we were in. As part of this talk, he asked us to silence all electronic devices, making sure they couldn’t light up, to not make any noise, and to keep any children with light up shoes from moving their feet. He warned us that he would be turning off the light, but he would be right by the switch and would turn it back on in a few moments.

            He flipped the switch, and suddenly, we were surrounded in complete darkness. Not the kind where your eyes finally adjust to the tiniest amount of light in your bedroom at night and you can make out shapes, no, in this cave, there was no sound and no matter how many times you blinked, the world was completely black.

            It was unnerving to be in such a place. It was as if that darkness had a tangible weight, like a heavy blanket pressing down on me. My eyes kept blinking as my ears actively searched for any scrap of sound. Every part of me was struggling to try and find some tiny bit of visibility that it could latch onto, anything to help me escape this deep, sinister void.

            As I celebrate the Christmas season, I like to contemplate where the world was back when that tiny baby was born in a manger. About 400 years had passed since the last prophet of the Old Testament. The temple of Jerusalem has been rebuilt, but it had never reached the glory and splendor of its original days. Rome was the controlling political power, and even the Jewish people were divided into groups like the Pharisees and Sadducees.

In the opening verses of this passage, scripture reads, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine.” (v.2) Maybe, just like I felt that day sitting in that cave, Israel felt like they were sitting in a dark and dreary world that was suffocating them. Here were the promised children of God bruised and weary, but no matter how hard they looked, no matter how much their souls longed to see it, their hope still had not come. Not until the day, the very moment when Christ was born.

God had foretold of a coming Savior; he would be called, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (v.6) Oh, how the people must have longed for His arrival! Their history was colored with being captured and exiled, placed under one ruler after another, surrounded by idol worship in foreign lands. How many mouths in prayer were whispering, “Please Lord, send the promised one”?

Maybe today, in a modern world where we are governed by worldly rulers and where we may feel like the Church is divided by differing opinions, maybe we feel like we too are living in a land of deep darkness. At times, it feels like all the chaos of this world, all the despair and anger and brokenness can overwhelm me, and I too cry out, “When will this struggle cease? When will we find peace?”

I was talking with my daughter just the other day about her Sunday School lesson. She was explaining their bible story was about a prophet, and how what he said would happen came true. We talked about how, when God tells His people He will do something, we can trust that it will come to pass. So, maybe this Christmas I can remember that God was faithful to send a “child born to us, a son is given to us.”(v.6) Many years have passed since that night in Bethlehem, but God is still faithful to keep His promises. As weary as I may get from the troubles of this life, I know that this is indeed temporary and that God is still in control. May Christmas be a time when my faith grows stronger, and I rest in the trust that the remaining verses in this Isaiah passage will, in time, come to be as well:

“His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!” (v.7)