Nancy

The Christmas Swap

December 21, 2017 by Nancy 16 Comments

I drove away from an annual Christmas Cookie Swap delighted with my tin filled with a variety of delectable cookies. Especially since I had taken chocolate crackle cookies made from a recipe I never tried before. I literally had to scrape the pan to get enough dough to make the 4 dozen cookies requested. Some were small, some were large, some were overdone. Fortunately, powdered sugar covers a multitude of sins, right?

But now! Now I was driving home with seven-layer bars, frosted sugar cookies, Napoleon hats, lemon wafers, rum balls, and so much more! It’s hard to pat yourself on the back while you’re driving, but I was definitely pleased—and grateful to my gracious friend who decorates her home beautifully and hosts this event each year.

With new confidence in my ability to make such an astute and excellent exchange, 4 dozen powder-coated crackle cookies for a tin full of baked delicacies, I began to wonder what else I should swap this Christmas season.

The first thing that came to mind was that maybe I could swap out my need to be heard, and to be right, with a willingness to really listen to what other people have to say. This could sweeten up my attitudes, and so be a good and a healthy swap.

I’d also like to swap out pessimism for optimism. There are events and changes in this world that give me reason to be discouraged, but there are also blessings to be found in every situation if we look for them. I want to be less like Eeyore and more like Tigger! That would be a mighty fine swap.

Always, I endeavor to swap out fear for faith. Concerns for friends and family members, and some of the choices they make, can lead me to fear the worst. But faith overcomes fear. God is still on His throne. He still cares. He still loves. There’s no question faith is the better deal.

I want to swap out darkness for light. There’s an abundance of evil in the world and despite our best efforts to keep it out, some might still seep under the doors of my home. I don’t need to invite it in. This season, I swapped out contentious news reports for schmaltzy Christmas movies. That was a soul-healing swap for sure!

All of these exchanges, as good as they are, may just be temporary however. The most enduring and amazing Christmas swap is the exchange God made with us. It’s clearly spelled out in a familiar Bible verse, John 3:16 (KJV): For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He sent His Son, Jesus, in exchange for a world of sin. He swapped forgiveness for failing. He traded the eternal for the temporal.

My prayer for those who have not yet swapped out a limited life for an eternal one is that they will do so this Christmas by believing in Jesus Christ. No judgment. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All need a Savior.

Our powdered-sugar coated, temporal lives for His pure eternal one. What a miraculous, life-changing Christmas swap!

Thankful Living

November 22, 2017 by Nancy 12 Comments

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.—Psalm 100:4-5

We live in a society that makes it easier to grumble than to be grateful. We have to move someplace we never really wanted to live, and so we grumble. We are disappointed that the political candidate we support isn’t elected, and so we grumble. Daily aggravations can produce grumbling as well: scheduled visits are cancelled, we have to wait for a doctor’s appointment, we look forward to a meal only to be faced with a surly server. All these things and more give us opportunities to grumble.

We even feel justified in our grumbling, don’t we? If we come from the misguided assumption that life should be fair, then grumbling is a given. But what if we change our assumption and our thinking? What if we begin to look, each and every day, not for reasons to grumble, but for reasons to be grateful? What if we could establish a habit of thankful living?

Ann Voscamp wrote a book titled One Thousand Gifts which began as a challenge from a friend to write down 1,000 blessings in her life. Ann’s list far exceeded 1,000 blessings once she opened her eyes to all that was around her. Can we do it? Can we begin to look for opportunities to be grateful rather than opportunities to grumble? Certainly keeping our eyes on God is a good place to start. Ann wrote in her blog, “We will give thanks to God not because of how we feel, but because of who He is.” Let us give thanks.

Can we do it? Can we even convert a life of habitual grumbling into a life of thankful living? With God’s help, and by keeping our focus on Him, we can. Certainly not all of us are grumblers, but all of us can be more aware of the blessings that are ours.

The older we grow, the more blessings we have in our blessings accounts. We enter into a life of thankful living when we spend more time remembering our blessings than fretting about what we don’t have now. For example, those of us blessed to be parents and grandparents can easily find ourselves wishing we could spend more time with those we love, but just the very existence of those people in our families is a blessing, isn’t it?

A woman having breakfast with her husband at a restaurant entered into a discussion with their waitress and found out the waitress was excited about leaving to visit her grandchildren the next day. “How old are they?” the woman asked. “They are six and eight,” the waitress replied. “How long has it been since you’ve seen them?” the woman inquired. “Oh, I’ve never seen them,” the waitress answered. Certainly that puts having to go weeks or months without seeing those we love into perspective, doesn’t it?

Paul wrote his letter to the Christians in Philippi, the Book of Philippians in the Bible, while he was in prison in Rome. Certainly Paul had much to grumble about. He was falsely accused and unfairly imprisoned. Yet the Book of Philippians is known as the book of joy! In spite of his circumstances, Paul was able to write a message of joy because of the certainty of his faith in Jesus Christ. His joy and gratitude were based on the eternity he knew was waiting for him, not on the prison cell around him.

We can have the same attitude of gratitude that sustained Paul. We can experience the joy of thankful living by focusing on all that God has done for us—and on our eternal life to come. As Thanksgiving comes this year, let us say along with Paul, “I thank my God” (Philippians 1:3).

(Excerpted in part from The Hope of Glory, Volume Two, publication date TBD.)

The Art of Thankful Giving

November 9, 2017 by Nancy 10 Comments

As Thanksgiving arrives this year our gratitude for what we have seems to run deeper than ever before, doesn’t it? As we look at all the blessings God has placed in our hands, we come to the realization that thanks giving may not be enough. It is rather “thankful giving” that best expresses our gratitude.

I hope to carry this attitude of thankful giving beyond Thanksgiving all the way through the Christmas season this year. While our shopping and wrapping may be scaled down as we focus even more on what matters most, I’m still extremely grateful to have the means to give something to others—and to have others to receive what I give.

Billy Graham said, “God has given us two hands—one to receive with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for sharing.”

The realization that He has chosen us to be such channels of giving is sometimes humbling and heartrending. One Christmas season my two oldest granddaughters saw princess outfits they loved at a store at the mall. The frilly dresses were ridiculously overpriced, but being the indulgent grandmother I can sometimes be, I went back a few days later and purchased both.

As I was writing out my check the tears started to well up in my eyes. By the time I grabbed my bulky package and left the store they were freely flowing. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I was able to buy gifts for my granddaughters when I knew there were many grandmothers who weren’t able to do the same.

A friend of mine is haunted by a news report she saw. A grandmother in Afghanistan was lying on a dirt floor, too weak to get up and tend to her six grandchildren who sat on the floor around her—their parents unaccounted for. Only God can reconcile the disparity between that woman and those of us who will be able to purchase and wrap gifts for our children and grandchildren for Christmas this year. Certainly the love in her heart is no weaker than that in ours.

“Freely you have received; freely give,” Jesus said (Matthew 10:8 NIV). It truly is more blessed to give than to receive, and sharing what we have received with those we love may be the greatest form of gratitude. This year let’s make an attitude of thankful giving the invisible “add-on” to every package we wrap.

Time for Some Fall-da-ra!

October 16, 2017 by Nancy 26 Comments

I know the word is really folderol, or falderal, and means foolishness or nonsense. But when I used my version to describe a neighbor’s wonderful display of all things autumn at her house we both laughed—so I thought I’d spread the joy!

Actually fall decorations aren’t nonsense, they are delightful and meaningful. The most lavish displays of fall-da-ra I’ve seen in my lifetime are in East Tennessee. Visiting my home state in October, and driving through Pigeon Forge to Gatlinburg and on to Cades Cove in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I saw more pumpkins, scarecrows, dried cornstalks, decorative corn and gourds, hay bales and mums than I knew existed. Every street corner, business or residence has a fall display each year, and many rival a Macy’s window at Christmas time in terms of creativity and abundance.

So what motivates us to do this kind of fall decorating? Why do I have three tubs of fall decorations myself, and take great delight in setting out autumn leaves, pumpkins, and all things orange, red, and gold? The tradition actually has very deep roots. Anyone who has farmed or been around a farm knows the activity and celebration that accompanies the harvest season. Once all the hard work is done, the hay is baled and in the barn, the produce is picked and canned for winter, then it’s time to party!

Neighbors in farming communities still come together bringing fresh-baked apple pies and squash casseroles to share. Tables are decorated with mason-jar bouquets of the last blooms from the garden. There might even be a square dance to the tune of a fiddle or two—all under the glow of a big orange harvest moon. After all, in some areas of the country neighbors might not see one another again until the spring thaw. Time to celebrate!

As for the even more meaningful part, harvest is mentioned throughout the Bible. After the great flood detailed in Genesis, God promised Noah: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Gen. 8:22). In Exodus 23:16, God named one of the three feasts He expected the Jewish people to celebrate the Feast of Harvest. “Celebrate the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field,” He said.

As with most Biblical themes, the harvest is carried through from the Old Testament to the New Testament. So we read in Galatians 6:9: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Why have some fall-da-ra? To celebrate hard work completed—that we truly do reap what we sow. To acknowledge God’s abundant blessing in our lives and prepare for the upcoming season of Thanksgiving. To remind ourselves that it’s never too late to live a productive life from which others can glean something useful.

So pile up the pumpkins, make a centerpiece of multi-colored mums, light the spice-scented candles, set the cobbler on the counter to cool. It’s fall. Time for some fall-da-ra!

Grateful for the Golden Days

September 21, 2017 by Nancy 14 Comments

In places that experience a change of seasons it happens every fall. As the days grow shorter, they seem to take on a golden hue that bathes and blesses us. I don’t know how sunlight can change color, but it clearly does. These are the golden days, and we need to embrace them and bask in them before the snow flies.

Life has golden seasons, too, doesn’t it? Several couples we know are celebrating their 50th Anniversaries this fall. My husband and I are in a second marriage, so we laugh that we’ll have to be wheeled into the activities room in assisted living if we make it to our fiftieth celebration—we’ll be 90 and 91. “Look, honey! There’s a cake!” one of us might exclaim.

Which doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate that these are golden years for us, too–and we thank God for them. A recent tragedy experienced by close friends reminds us this could change any time. But as of today we both have our health, the time and inclination to engage in activities that bring us joy, and ministries that make life worth living. We have more family members geographically close than ever before, and we love getting to spend time with them. In our own way, these are our golden years, and we are glad we know it.

I find myself wondering how to spend these glorious, golden days of fall however. What could I do to celebrate all things golden besides binge watch episodes of “The Golden Girls”—which is never a completely bad idea by the way. Maybe I could buy some goldfish to entertain the cats. I’d love to go gallivanting with a litter of Golden Retriever puppies. Or pluck a golden pear from a tree. Or listen to a golden oldies station on the radio and reprise some dance moves from the 60’s and 70’s! Or better than all that, perhaps I should look for golden opportunities to make a positive difference in the world—even to live out the golden rule.

What about you? How will you celebrate these golden days of autumn? Even if life has thrown some crises your way, can you look for the golden aspects of each day? Can you find some time just to sit on a park bench and let the warm autumn sun reach down into your soul? A quote seen on Pinterest read, “These are days we dream about when the sunlight paints us gold.” Yes! The glorious days when the sunlight paints us gold. Let’s live them fully.

One Is Enough

August 28, 2017 by Nancy 18 Comments

Readers who follow my blog posts know that I wrote one in late June titled “Where Have All the Hummers Gone?” Except for one reader who joked that she thought I meant the behemoth, gas-guzzling vehicles, most wrote with sympathetic sentiments about my dearth of hummingbirds and sent helpful suggestions about how to attract some.

In this my last word on the hummingbird (well, for this season anyway), I’m happy to report that I have one! For three months I faithfully watched that forlorn feeder, changing the nectar often. I even tried different varieties of feeders, but no visitors arrived. Finally I saw the familiar, precious silhouette of a hummer early one morning in mid-July. I’m delighted to say that he (and I’m just assuming it’s a he) now visits in the first light of dawn each day. And I have learned to be ever so grateful.

Those of you who enjoy a plethora of hummers dipping, diving, and buzzing around your feeders may wonder how I could seem so content with just one, but it’s all a matter of perspective. Because he always arrives during my morning quiet time, it’s as if the Lord sends him as a special blessing on my day. One is enough to deliver this blessing. One is enough to bring me joy. One is enough.

And there are other lessons to be heard from hummingbirds. I had lunch with a friend a few weeks ago, a friend who lives in a canyon south of town by the mountains and has to fill her feeders several times a day. She commented that the rufous always comes around to chase all the other birds away from the feeder, but then never drinks himself! “Isn’t that just like people?” she mused. “We think we want what somebody else has, but we really don’t need it!”

Another friend texted to tell me her feeder on the west side was buzzing with nine hummers at once. I was pleasantly surprised by my reaction when I realized I wasn’t the least bit jealous! I could have been, but I wasn’t. Instead I was truly happy for her and relieved to know that at least hummingbirds were alive and well somewhere. Anyway, I have one. And one is enough.

Maybe part of my contentment comes because we had the opportunity to go up to the mountains twice this summer and I got to enjoy the hummingbirds there. Or maybe it’s just the old adage that “you don’t miss what you have until it’s gone” at play. I really missed having a lot of hummingbirds, so now I’m content with my one little buddy.

So drink deeply, tiny friend. My offering of nectar is all for you, and I’ll see you in the morning.