#14-8: Christmas Hope!
Posted by: virginiaknowles <virginiaknowles@...>
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The Hope Chest with Virginia Knowles
#14-8: Christmas Hope!
December 2011
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Dear friends,
Here it is December again! Am I the only one with mixed feelings about
the holidays? On the one hand, I really
love the Christmas season once I get into it, but I often get so overwhelmed by
everything that needs to be done, especially on top of the usual stuff a mom’s
gotta do in a household and home school of several children. With a touch of ADD, I already have a hard time keeping things together. I also don’t like hype, whether it is
commercial or religious. Keep it simple
for me, please! I'm going to try to do most of my shopping on-line this year since running around
to stores is so time-consuming.
Wednesday morning, while I was taking Thad to the airport to see his sister in Texas for a
few days, he suggested that we sing some Christmas carols in the car. Good idea! Singing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “Joy to the World” put me in the Christmas spirit at least a little. I actually
felt like hauling out our Christmas decorations, so the next day I went to our storage unit and pulled out the bins. I couldn't find the artificial tree I bought last year at Salvation Army. I texted Thad to see if he knew where it went, and he said maybe he had given it back to Salvation Army after Christmas because it was so bulky. 🙂 Oh well, at that price we can afford to donate our old one and then pay more money to a worthy charity to get a "new" one. Back to Salvation Army, but they only had three scrawny trees. Next stop, Goodwill, where I found a nice seven footer for $25 in the box. However, when we got home, we found out it was missing its stand. I figured I could wedge it into a regular tree stand and I was able to find one -- back at Salvation Army again -- for $2.99. Then back home to wrestle with helping Naomi and Micah assemble the tree. Not exactly as romantic as going out to the woods in a sleigh to cut our own fresh tree, but it is beginning to look a bit like Christmas! I'm hoping to have the house
looking totally merry by the time Thad gets back.
He’s certainly done his part with the house projects lately. Since our second daughter Julia got married
and moved out last month, six of our eight remaining children have switched
bedrooms. Daddy was in charge of
painting walls, cleaning carpets, and moving furniture, and he did a wonderful
job with some help from the kids. Now if I can just get all of the miscellaneous stuff put away that got shuffled around the house during the transition. Oh, and catch up with the laundry. I don’t
have time for an extended kid-by-kid report right now, but they are all doing pretty
well, and I’m so thankful for that.
Looking ahead to holiday chaos, I guess I’d
better reread my own poem, Invitation
to Stillness, and article, Beating
Holiday Blues and Stress, that I wrote last
year. It has certainly been a
challenging and bittersweet year for our family in so many ways. My Facebook status on Thanksgiving, which equally
applies to Christmas: “My heart is with those who are in the
broken places this holiday season. At
times like this, it is good to lay aside an expectation of jubilant feelings
and fancy celebrations. We can just focus on a quiet gratitude for simple
things: a heart that can feel, a mind that can think, a mouth that can bless,
hands that can work, putting one foot in front of the other step by step, and a
God who is there even in the hard times.” You may also wish to read my brief blog post The End, The Beginning, and the In Between, which I wrote after reflecting on a passage from Ecclesiastes.
<img src="http://g.christianbook.com/g/product/6/636290.gif" alt="The Christmas Miracle Of Jonathan Toomey With CD -
By: Susan Wojciechowski
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This also reminds me of the beautiful picture
book The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski (illustrated by P.J. Lynch) that I just
found at my favorite used bookstore, Brightlight. Though I've heard people rave about this book for years, I had never seen it before. I appreciated
the message that kindness, hard work, beautiful things, family memories, and the story of Christmas can go along
way toward healing a hurting heart. I read it to the kids last night and they loved it, too. I've just have to add it to my blog post, My Favorite Christmas Books. Two of my favorite blogs have been talking about Christmas books, so here are the links: What's Your Favorite Holiday Read Aloud? at Simple Home School and Favorite Christmas Read-Aloud Books & Holiday Links by Sheri Graham.
Another recent FB status is a quote: "To laugh often and love much; to win the
respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the
approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to
appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave
the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a
redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung
with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have
lived—this is to have succeeded." I found this (with slightly different words)
on a poster at Michael’s and looked it up on the web. It was mistakenly attributed to Ralph Waldo
Emerson, who wrote something similar, but these words were written by a lady
named Bessie A. Stanley. See more on
that here: http://emerson.tamu.edu/Ephemera/Success.html
Do those thoughts tug at your heart? You can do something about it for Christmas! Our church's Sunday School kids put together over 200 Operation Christmas Child boxes. It's probably too late to do that, but you can still donate to the organization to expenses. Harvest of Hope with Partners International has an on-line gift catalog of items you can order to be sent to impoverished people around the world. Piglets anyone? Or how about medicine, or school supplies, or clean water, or therapy for a disabled child? There are plenty of options to fit your budget and get your kids involved!
In this spirit of missions to the Third World, I just wrote my 2011 Advent poem, "Christmas in Malawi, Christmas in America" which you will find below.
After that, there is a Christmas book review, a new reflection on "A Strong Hope" from Grace Based Parenting, and an
index to all of my Christmas articles, educational ideas, poems, and recipes.
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You live in a house in Nsanje without electricity
You walk or ride a bike to the other villages
Though you are getting older and weaker
And have been in the hospital just this year.
Yet you are also able to take a bus to Blantyre
To use the Internet to send me an e-mail
To buy Bibles and hymnals or pick up my care
package
(I will send you some money for your
ministries
And your favorite peach tea and some
Christian books soon.)
In your note, you say you want poems, my poems,
For blessing and encouragement.
This is your poem from me, though it doesn’t
rhyme.
You write, “Wish
you all the best of Christmas day!”
And I wish you the same.
You are in Malawi, where the land is
Drought dry, dirt poor, primitive
With shepherds and farmers eking an
existence
Much like the Holy Land in the time of
Jesus.
I am in America, where it is not like that
at all
(At least in my neighbhorhood).
I am in America, where I have a van
And electricity for my own computer and my
Christmas tree lights
And clean water and abundant food.
The simple gifts I send will not erase all
your peoples’ poverty
But I still say “Wish you all the best of
Christmas day!”
Because Christmas is not in the stores but
in the stories
The stories of Yesu Khristu (whom I know
as Jesus Christ).
He said: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because he has anointed
me to preach good news to the poor.”
And at his birth the
angels sang:
“Peace on earth, good will to men!”
"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” Isaiah 52:7
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"A Strong Hope" from Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel
Welcome back to my series of reflections on the book Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel! I thought the quotes above would provide a great introduction for this chapter called “A Strong Hope.” It’s the start of the Christmas season as I write this, and hope is certainly a relevant topic at the moment. Hope is often hard to come by, even as the holiday music serenades us in the shopping mall and advertisements promise us a jolly life if we only buy their shiny stuff on sale. My own kids are working on their wish lists right now! In the midst of the holiday hoopla, despair and disillusionment can creep in and take over not only the “world out there” (with wars, human trafficking, poverty and other social maladies) but also our own homes and churches. I know. I’ve been there. It’s a black hole. And yet Jesus Christ came to bring us hope—for the peace and presence of God, for our future in eternity, and for building communities of faith with others in the here and now. I could use a good strong dose of that hope right now.
“One of the first things we need to understand is the role that helplessness plays in building a strong hope into our children. Their early ability to trust us in the areas where they are helpless to meet their personal needs weighs heavily in their ability to ultimately trust God as they grow older… If he can’t trust the adults in his life when he is helpless, why should he assume that he could trust in a God he can’t see—especially if that trust in God is preached to him by the parents who failed to help him in his time of need?”
Feeding is a profound metaphor for our spiritual needs, too. Jesus knows we are hungry and thirsty. “I am the bread of life!” and “I am the living water!” are two of his most poignant promises to those who come to him, whether it is the woman at the well, or the hungry crowd of thousands on the hillside, or a 21st century family in the suburbs.
As parents, we need to be aware of our children’s real life needs, so we can come alongside and offer loving nourishment and help. They will certainly need leadership and encouragement in their spiritual lives. Otherwise:
“They have no idea how to find the way, know the truth, or gain the life… Passivity when it comes to their spiritual life signs their death warrant in advance. Few find their way through to God on their own. They need loving parents enthusiastically leading the way.”
“Fortunately, children don’t stay helpless forever, and eventually they become old enough to feed themselves, groom themselves, communicate clearly, and even stand up for themselves. Their minds develop well enough to think inductively and deductively. Our mistake is when we fail to relinquish our control over these areas once children have gotten to where they can handle them on their own. Parents who run their children’s lives and make most of their decisions discourage them from individual thinking. This can damage their ability to learn to lean on God. It also confuses their ultimate choice to put their hope in God and could mislead them into thinking that God likes to keep them hopeless, too.”
God does not isolate us from worldly traps that could bring us down. He wants us to become mature enough to function around them and not be influenced by them. He doesn’t want us to remain as spiritual infants, fed only on milk, though that is where we all rightly start. “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:14)
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)
So as parents, we must transition from protecting our children to preparing them. We give them more options, knowing that they will make some bad choices and learn from them.
“Eventually they’ve got to stand on their own two feet. God gives us their childhood (especially their teenage years) to let them practice making decisions under our roofs. Simple logic would say that if children are going to struggle and make bad choices, it’s better that they do so while they remain involved with loving parents to help them through it. When parents don’t let them practice, children often overreact to the freedom when they go to college or go out on their own. Unfortunately, those mistakes can do greater harm to them (and to others). Grace-based parenting is shrewd about helping children grow up and develop independence before they are sent out on their own.”
“Now, there’s one more area where God wants to use us to build their hope, and that’s when God chooses to solve their problems in ways that wouldn’t be of their own choosing… In these types of scenarios, they are hoping for a physical miracle, an intellectual epiphany, or a relational windfall to suddenly make everything right. The God we trust in doesn’t always deal with these problems in ways we expect or hope for. Sometimes He answers our pleas with answers like “No” or “Wait” or “Later.” When He does, it’s because He is working to make us better and stronger and to draw us closer to Him. He has a bigger plan that this setback fits into. Children need to have a hope in His love that enables them to trust in His character while walking down these painful corridors of their lives. For the child facing these crises, the grace that has surrounded him, the love he’s been shown, and the character of the parents who gave him that grace and love provide a natural springboard for him to rest in God’s final answer to his pleas. It helps him hope when everyone else would give up.”
- Children develop a strong hope when they know their parents recognize their God-given abilities and liabilities and turn them into assets for their future. (Dr. Kimmel applies the Proverbs 22:6 verse “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” as meaning we should not only train our children in God’s ways, but discover the individual way our children are created and called to be and equip them for success in that. We also need to determine what their specific weaknesses are and help them to overcome in those areas. They are not mini clones of us!)
- Children develop a strong hope when their parents lead them and encourage them to live a great spiritual adventure. (One of my favorite phrases about life and parenting is “the grand adventure” so he instantly has my ears on this one. What he’s getting at is that our goal shouldn’t necessarily be “the safe life” for our kids. Over-sheltering leads them to be critical of others, and naïve about the dangers they will face. Life is inherently risky. Will they be ready? Not to mention that Christians are called to risk their lives for the gospel anyway, whether they are foreign missionaries or not. Yes, we should be shrewd. We don’t throw a defenseless child to the wolves. But we do teach them to rely on God, to discern good from evil, to make wise choices, to deal with the inevitable dangers. Much of what we do as Christian parents is a reflection of our middle-class suburban sensibilities. Parents in Third World countries don’t have our options, yet they can still raise spiritually savvy children who can withstand whatever cultural pressures and socioeconomic circumstances they encounter. Speaking again of over-protective parents, Kimmel writes, “These protected environments don’t allow a system of spiritual antibodies to develop within the character of the child. This produces a generation of people who must within a spiritually sterilized environment in order to survive. These are nice systems that produce nice kids who marry nice kids who go to nice churches and hang out with like-minded friends. Meanwhile, the lost people in the world around them continue in their doomed condition. In these environments, there is little spiritual adventure. God is nice, Jesus becomes a plush toy that we cuddle, and we become irrelevant.” I cried when I read Kimmel’s analogy of the ship that never goes past the harbor entrance. That’s because of a simple quote my second daughter taught me when she, at age 19, traveled by herself to spend three months in the remote (and very hazardous) mountains of Bolivia: "A ship in harbour is safe, but that is NOT what ships are built for" (William Shedd). I know I linked these in the post for last chapter, but here they are again: A Ship in Harbour is Safe..., and And They Are Strong and Bold... (Girls and the Grand Adventure) and Come With Me Here. Those who have children in public school may wish to read Going Public: Your Child Can Thrive in Public School by David and Kelli Pritchard. I just received my copy yesterday, so I haven’t read the whole thing, but what I’ve read so far is very good and very stretching. I am still home schooling several of my children (as I have for 20 years) but also have two in public school.
- Children develop a strong hope when their parents help them turn their childhood into a series of positive accomplishments. Equip, equip, equip! I often tell my kids, “I am here to help you succeed!” But I need to follow through more with this for sure!
Kids won’t always win. They also need to learn to lose gracefully, to get past their failures, and to try again. Parents make powerful cheerleaders when the going gets rough. And when we are discouraged in parenting, we need a little cheer of hope to keep us going, too:
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:7-9).
There are six more chapters in this book. I hope to write about them soon, but for now, I’ve got some work to do on my own harvest!
You can read my previous posts on this book here:
Chapter 1: "Why Well-Meaning Parenting Falls Short"
Chapter 2: "The Truth Behind Grace"
Chapter 3: “A Secure Love”
Chapter 4: "A Significant Purpose"
Grace to you,
Virginia Knowles
http://www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com
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- Beating
Holiday Blues and Stress - A
Bittersweet Advent - A
Simplified Christmas - Christmas
Gift Tips from Shopping to Shipping - Jacob's
First Chanukkah - A
Little Creativity & Joy: Honey Apricot Chicken, Snowman Pillows &
Inspiration - Christmas
Memories - War and
Peace
Celebrating with
Children
- Family
Advent Night Ideas - Advent
Adventure Unit Study for December - My
Favorite Christmas Books - Great
Gifts Kids Can Make for Others - Obfuscated
Christmas Carols Quiz
My Advent Poems
-
Christmas in Malawi, Christmas in America
- The
Story Did Not Start with a Stable and a Star - Shepherd's
Tale - The
Paradox - Invitation
to Stillness - Corpus
Christi - Grace
Will Lead Me Home - Candlewick
- Psalm
to Sweet Jesus - Rhapsody
in M
Great Art, Music
and Poetry by Others
- Christmas
at Providence - Handel's
Messiah & National Gallery of Art - "A
Christmas Carol" by Josiah Gilbert Holland - Third
Sunday of Advent: "What Sweeter Music" with Paintings by Giotto - Come,
Oh Redeemer Come (How to Carry Advent into the New Year) - Christmas
assignments 2009 (lots of art and music for my middle school co-op
students!) - Christmas
assignments 2008 (even more art and
music, along with Scripture readings, writing assignments and more. - "Christ
Came Down" poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti -- and a High School Poetry
Critique and Analysis Essay
Recipes
- Christmas
Brunch and Dinner Menus - Chocolate
Chip Cream Cheese Ball - Wassail
- Hot
Chocolate for a Crowd - Homemade
Cranberry Sauce
Other Christmas Sites
- All About Jesus
Christmas Celebration -- an older site full of fun activities for kids - Snowman
Soup instructions and printable gift tag
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Visit my web site at http://www.VirginiaKnowles.com