The Stealthy Ninja Christmas Angel {Christmas traditions}
We did it last year and it was a blast!
{12 Days of Christmas: As a family you pick another family or couple or single person, perhaps who has gone through a hard time or could just use encouragement, or just whoever God places on your heart. (This would be an awesome way to build a bridge with an unbelieving family in your sphere of influence!) You secretly put tiny gifts on their doorstep for the 12 days preceding Christmas (1 candle, then the next day 2 packets of hot cocoa, then the next day 3 of something, all the way to the 12th day giving them 12 of something like fresh cinnamon rolls on Christmas day).
Each day you include a verse or something encouraging that goes along with the gift. The point is not to get complicated, but just to have fun thinking creatively about one other family and encourage them from God’s Word. It’s helpful to pick someone who lives near you since you’ll need to go by their house every day for 12 days! You can reveal who you are at the end or keep it a secret, depending upon the situation. Just a little idea to spark creativity as we learn to love our neighbors and celebrate the greatest gift–the Giver Himself.}
This past year, we chose a super-fun family (that always helps), who lived a few miles away. Christmas morning it was such a joy — we pulled up around 9am and their whole family came bounding out onto the front porch to “catch” us (we wanted to be caught at this point) and we all laughed ourselves silly recalling all the ways we’d sneaked around their house, how they’d wanted to catch us, and how they couldn’t figure out who it was. (They’d made a list of suspects!) They’d left pumpkin bread out on the porch and a note for the “Stealthy Ninja Christmas Angel.”
So, if you’re game for an adventure, do a bit of pre-planning, enlist the help of your family, and have fun doing a little secret-blessing this year.
You too can be a stealthy ninja Christmas angel. {Thank you, Alice Schwartz for sharing this idea with us last year! And thanks, all, for reading!}
PS I know the “official” 12 days of Christmas are technically after Christmas. You get the idea. It’s more fun to end on Christmas day!
If you still own your Norton Anthologies … (this book is for you)
It’s 3am. Do you know where your Norton Anthologies are?
And that, dear friends, proves that I’m an English-major nerd. It’s true that I still have mine, the phone-book sized volumes with Bible-thin pages, filled with English or American Literature, lugged around by English students causing four years of backaches and just as many headaches.
We loved them, we hated them. We read them.
And if you did, here’s another book to read. Old School by Tobias Wolff. 
My mother-in-law slipped me her copy and I justified breaking my fiction-only-on-vacation rule by reasoning that this book was borderline great American literature.
And it is. So good. Why? I can’t even tell you. That’s how good it is. I’m not even smart enough to condense it. But I’ll try:
The setting is an elite prep school in 1960, and the narrator is a half-Jewish scholarship-student (a lower-class outsider) who learns to mimic the mannerisms of his privileged classmates in order to fit in and gain acceptance. More than anything he wants to be a writer, but he cannot write the truth until he first learns to tell the truth about himself.
The author, Tobias Wolff, is a master. The protagonist he’s created is ingeniously flawed; in fact, we may as well be reading our own thoughts when we read his. The themes of competition, pride, and pretense cut to the heart of our image-obsession and veneered society. Wolff also does a knock-out job of critiquing Ayn Rand’s novels. Again, something I’m not smart enough to do but appreciate him doing!
The best part? Nothing works out perfectly, and yes this is perfect too, because the final picture Wollf paints is one of grace. He ends with these words:
“Surely the most beautiful words ever written or said: His faither, when he saw him coming, ran to meet him.”
So, if you’re looking for a bit of fiction and you recognize the names Hemmingway and Frost, this book is for you. And if you hate it, no sweat — you’re always welcome to borrow my Norton Anthology.
{Thanks for allowing me a little English-nerd fun … bless your day!}
His and his generosity toward me.
{Two years ago Jeff revealed a secret to me, from our way back college-ministry days, way before we were married or even an item or even liked each other (even before he broke my heart!)… Enjoy!}
We were donation-supported college-ministers, which meant you had no idea how much money you would make each month, but you did know it wouldn’t be much. I lived on about $500/month, and that included rent. Well, in the process of learning to trust God for my finances, this one month I sensed Him leading me, very clearly, to commit to supporting some missionaries to Brasil $25/month. It wasn’t a lot, but it was for me, especially on top of tithing the10% of my small income.
So I committed to it. The next month, I received my paycheck and my heart sunk. It was less than my rent. Now I knew God stretched dollars, but this just didn’t add up. I had to pay rent and didn’t have enough money. And I had committed to these missionaries!
So that morning I went for a long walk, cried, and prayed to God, asking Him to provide. I very clearly sensed God leading me to write the check to the missionaries FIRST.
Before I worried about rent, I was to write the gift check first. So, I went to class (I was in a one-year Bible/ ministry training school at the time), and during a break sitting there with shaky hand writing out that $25 check. Ok, Lord. (I still had told no one about my money situation.)
From class I went straight to our college-ministry staff meeting. I was discouraged and near tears, but didn’t want to share with them why. God kept just putting on my heart to trust Him in this. I kept quiet. About halfway through our meeting, our administrator poked his head in and asked me to come into his office. Oh dear, what had I done wrong?
I walked in and sat down, “Yes?”
“Well,” he responded, “I don’t know why, but you just received an $800 gift from an anonymous donor.” My jaw dropped as my eyes filled up with tears. What?! I had never received $800 in a whole month, ever! Let alone as a BONUS! Let alone as an anonymous gift at the very MOMENT that I needed it. I thanked him profusely, took my check, and beaming from ear to ear went back to the meeting, holding my secret kiss from God safely in my pocket.
I’ve always said I’ll carry that story with me all my days. God has provided in lots of “bigger” ways I suppose since then, but that was such a vivid example to me, during a season when I was single, longing to be married and “taken care of” by someone, that God was to be my provider.
—
So yesterday at small group I told that story again. I’ve shared it several times over the years, and it seemed like an appropriate time. Afterward we drove home, talking about various things, went to bed, life going on as usual.
But then this afternoon I received an unexpected text message. From Jeff. It read:
“I have a confession. I know who gave you that check. But they had no idea what your circumstances were.” Again, my jaw dropped. What? Really?!
Tonight as Jeff walked in the door I stood looking up at him, hands on my hips, and smiled.
“It was YOU?”
He grinned. “I just thought it was time you should know.”
The story is still as amazing, because Jeff had no idea how in-need I was at the time. He just felt it was the right thing to do. Little did either of us know at the time he was simply giving to his other half!
How like God to not only shower me with His love in such a tangible way, but to even use my future husband to do it. To show me that even when I felt alone and vulnerable, He was using a co-worker brother in the Lord, who would become my husband, to care for me. It still amazes me.
Now I’m not in awe of the anonymity, but of how cool God is, how creative, and how great His love is for us. Thank you babe, and thank you God, for that first check you gave me, and for all the paychecks ever since. 🙂
{Thanks, friends, for reading.}
Why brokenness is a blessing …
“Nap time, babygirl! Come here, please.” From across the room I could see her stiffen, prepare to protest. I gave her fair-warning. “Make a good choice. Will you say ‘yes’ or ‘no” to Mama?” There was no need to remind her of what a ‘no’ response would earn. She knows.
She stiffly, and slowly, walked over to me. Her mouth said yes and she made her feet move, but her face and demeanor were “no-ing” all the way. I picked her up, took her to the potty, and told her to go before her nap. She sat down, didn’t go, said she was done.
Outwardly obedient but deep-down defiant.
I took her into her room for the rest-time routine. Rock, snuggle, sleep. I pulled her up on my lap in the rocking chair, but she pushed away. Again, silent, but stiff as a board and at arm’s length. I carried her over, crawled under the quilt at her side. She lay still for a moment, then a mischievous look came across her face.
“I need go potty.” I knew it. Kids will use anything to control. To defy. I was choosing this battle and wouldn’t lose. She’s beautiful, but manipulation is not a beautiful quality when it’s all grown up. I kissed her cheek and looked her in the eye.
“No. Mommy already told you to go and you didn’t. You’re not getting back up.” She fussed again, insisted she has to go, begins to pitch a fit. I think to myself how I don’t want to change wet sheets.
But I’ll change her sheets in order to change her heart.
“No.”
Her eyes widen as she realizes it’s a lost cause. She can’t win because I won’t budge. And almost visibly, right before my eyes, I can see the cracks, then the crumble. I can see her break.
She’s broken. She sobs.
And almost in the same breath-sob she reaches both arms out, wraps them around my neck.
She clings hard, pulls me close, and cries,
“Mama, I wan’ keep you.”
She wants to keep me. These are the words she uses at night when she longs for me to linger. She squeezes me tight round the neck and holds on, says she wants to keep me. Won’t let me go.
I, of course, don’t pull away.
I draw her even closer into my arms.
She’s soft. Pliable. She rests, relaxed in my arms. I hold her, my arms all the way around her little body as she rests in her bed. Even though I’m crouched over, quads burning, I stay there, my head on the pillow next to hers, kissing her cheeks.
Within two minutes she’s sound asleep.
That’s me, I think. That’s me.
Why often do I stiffen, proud? Willing my feet and mouth to say yes to God but protesting no within my heart? Every time I choose myself, my own way, I push Him away, hold Him at arm’s length. He seeks to rock me gently, I stiffen and push Him away. He draws near to hold me. I talk to Him perhaps but my prayer is still just grasping for control. But then something jolts, cracks, crumbles.
This is how we break. This is why brokenness is a blessing.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Ps. 51:17)
Of course He won’t! Of course He never will. The same way that I hold my broken-spirit daughter, envelope her completely, engulfed in my love until she falls sweetly asleep. Until she rests in my love.
Why do we push Him away? Our pride, the God-repellent, it stiffens within us, incites us to rebellion, but we must make it bow. Must make our feet and mouths and hearts say “yes” to God.
Then, no matter how far away He feels, He will envelope us in His love and let us rest secure. And resting secure we discover the truth:
Brokenness is the only path to wholeness.
—
{Praying blessed brokenness–and wholeness–for you and me today. Can you let go and rest in His arms? He loves you so!! Thank you for reading.}