The Surprising Thing about God's Christmas List

Nutmeg-flecked eggnog rises in sweet slow-moving waves to my tongue. I smile with closed-lips and mull it around my mouth. On this last day of December, our Christmas tree still sparkles red, green, orange, pink, despite olive green rigor mortis setting in.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Anne, Creative Commons, cc license

You probably saw glimpses of it this Christmas too? The delight that breaks across faces in smiles and gleeful laughter. It hovered in my eight year old's eyes this first year that he remembers choosing and giving gifts of battered candy bars from his Halloween stash.

"Dad will like this candy, right?" he had asked earlier, with pensive eyebrows raised, wrapping paper poised.

"Dad'll love anything you give to him, bud," I assured him.

And then on Christmas morning, Daniel and his brother passed out the presents, reading Daniel's handwritten recipients.

"Mmmm, thank you, Daniel," Mark grinned to him, and Daniel sighed happily.

This week, a grey charcoal plastic bag arrived by mail. Twenty-one year old John snatched it up eagerly after work.

"Morgan! Come see your present," he yelled to his sister downstairs.

Squeals and shrieks followed. Morgan bounced up steps and stood with arms out, wearing a t-shirt specially ordered for her. "They're my favorite characters," she said, pointing them out to us.

And this desire to study loved ones, to wonder about and seek out gifts that will please them and be for their joy is what captures me this week, because I saw it in God too. 

The words caught me as I traced finger across Bible pages and smooth-rolling gel pen across my journal. Words in the Bible book of Hebrews describe the Godhead pausing to study his people, reflecting on the best gifts to give them, and then moving with joy and delight.

The image stopped me, and my pen stalled as well. Could it be? Did God stop and reflect when choosing gifts for us in the same way that we wrestled and reflected on the presents we wanted to give loved ones around us?

I re-read it, seeing the words, "distributed according to his will." Will: having to do with desire, having an opinion, reflected in something you wish, rather than not wish; connected with "This is what I choose, want, decide, desire." According to his will, the Holy Spirit looked at us, knew us, and chose what presents to give us -- for our delight and his glory. 

I underlined it and pulled my journal nearer to reflect on it and talk with my God. "You are alive and active, God-Spirit, and you willed, desired, wanted to, had opinions about which gifts you gave me. Thank you! Help me continue to hone and use them for your glory, for others' good, and in humble joy each time." 

God has thought about you and deliberately chosen gifts for you. As 2017 strides in, join me in remembering and reflecting on what this means for you and me, will you?

And the delight that crosses his face every time we enjoy our gifts, it must be brilliant! 

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What is it For You?

Mondays are my favorite days.

Photo Credit: Marie Coleman, Creative Commons cc license

Dropping Morgan off at an academy, I pull away from the curb and head to a nearby public library. Two stories of a book lover's dream are encased in floor-to-ceiling glass windows. World-origin coffee beans bulge in burlap bags on the floor beside the coffee shop's entrance, and just entering the whirring room makes me inhale and smile.

With a medium-sized Burundi dark roast coffee and my bag of notebooks, pens, and notes, I get to study for hours. These last few weeks, in between writing sessions, I have been flipping through Old Testament and New Testament Bible pages, combing through commentaries, and pulling out related resources. I have eight speaking/teaching sessions coming up, and preparing for them, teaching them, and praying for those events fill me with joyful delight. Digging deep into God's word and looking to illustrate His truths in relevant, exciting, and applicable ways fills me with excitement, and I discover that I'm the one who is learning these truths anew each time. Our Artist God's words are like that, coiling up active and vibrant at every mention.

Packing up my journal, Bible, notes, and papers partway through the morning, I pause to pick up Morgan on her study hall. We return to the library, find a quiet table and study again, lapsing into silence as we both scrape pen against lined paper. An hour later, she is back in class, and I'm alone again on a rickety table, turning pages, grabbing my pen, and asking God for wisdom as I sink deep into study.

I don't know about you, but I'm sure you have things that make you come alive. What passions, dreams, or life-goals simmer beneath your day-to-day life? God sculpted and made you unique, placing skills, talents, and his giftings inside you. You were made on purpose, and the world needs you. When and where can you slip away to hone those? What stirs inside you?

And worship needn't always look like piano, drums, and vocalists -- although I love those times too. Worship can look like pen-smudged hands whipping fast across a page, grinning maniacally at God's goodness; or a horticulturist's muddy knees as she lifts weary eyes up to her Artist God in thanks; and a daddy's third trip into a plaintive toddler's bedroom, fifteen minutes past bedtime. Worship looks like a caregiver's gentle patience; your work on repeated loads of laundry; your scrambling to fix a nutritious supper at five-thirty pm; or sleepy prayers in the dark of night. Worship can be daring to write out that story God has been whispering to you to write; and worship can be taking your turn in infant nursery on an early Daylight Saving's Sunday.

Take a deep breath. Ask God to confirm what's bubbling up inside you even now, and then step out. I promise it'll bring a rush of joy.

Hi! As my Speaking Bureau and I plan this next 2016-2017 year of speaking and teaching engagements, please let me know if I can save a date for you and your church, MOPS group, women's event, retreat, conference, or camp. I love getting to know women, and would love to rekindle a flame in your walk with God, in your marriage and family, and in your sphere of influence. Check availability by emailing douganemail@gmail.com, or peek through my speaking topics and testimonials here.
 

Of Oil Swirls and the Painter's Canvases

Remnants of Korean Steak Wraps spread sesame oil and soy sauce in brown swirls beside romaine lettuce leaves on two plates still on the table. Minced garlic and ginger hang fragrant in the air.

Photo: Megan Myers, Creative Commons cc license

My husband's voice slips out from seven year old Daniel's bedroom, reading a bedtime story aloud. Daniel sniffs and coughs, reaching for his handkerchief, a re-purposed cloth napkin.

"Mom, what makes colds go away fast?" he asked wearily a few minutes ago. 

"Sleep, buddy. Lots of sleep. Let's have you go to bed early, okay?"

He's brushing his teeth now, and a sentence from my daughter's AP Drawing class has been running through my mind this evening.

"Create an entrance to the picture for the eyes to travel to the subject," states her Art Principles handout. "The eye should travel in a circuit from the subject to the secondary subjects before leaving the painting. Do not place an obstacle in the picture which prevents the eye from going beyond it." 

And it's funny to have an art concept speak wisdom into my life, but I can sense a deeper truth from it in relation to my walk with God. This concept that I want the observer's eye to scroll right to the subject is something that reverberates truth in me. I desire for people glancing in my life to find their eyes directed to the beauty of Jesus. 

So, Morgan's art principle is on repeat in my brain, and I find myself reviewing all aspects of my life. In my attitudes, am I pointing viewers to the beauty and transformative power of my God? In my stories and the words that I choose to describe my life, my marriage, my family, and my sin struggles, am I pointing to God's restorative grace and his unstoppable love?

Just like a painter or a sculptor chooses what to paint, where to highlight, and what to bring the eye to, I choose how I perceive and receive my world and attitudes. This color-swirled, majestic canvas of our lives is a gift and masterpiece still being finished by the Master Artist. I desire to have each curving Van Gogh-like flourish draw the eyes to our Artist God.

It reminds me of a verse I've been thinking about this week from my Bible reading in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Paul is writing a letter to some believers and he says, "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path so that our ministry will not be discredited."

It reminds me of the art principle about placing no obstacle in the picture which prevents the eye from moving on. Then Paul racks up a seventeen-item list about all the ways he and his co-workers are striving to make right choices, but he ends with this thought: "We have spoken freely to you and opened wide our hearts to you."

And I think this is the way we draw the viewer's eyes to the Subject each time. We speak freely, striving honestly to have clean hands but admitting when we've stumbled, and we point always to the beautiful work of the Artist God in us. He gets all the credit. 

And we open wide our hearts to you. Thank you, friend, for this online or email friendship, for this pointing to the Artist God together. I appreciate you and would love to get to know you more.

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If You're Waiting & Wondering Where the Excitement Is

Photo: Ted McGrath, Creative Commons, cc license

Sliced onions sting my eyes, and a salty scent of "pork eggroll in a bowl" rests heavy in the kitchen. Flecks of shredded carrot scatter my youngest's plate and the table where he sat. Lego noises and boy sounds echo in the living room.

Spring in Minnesota looks like red-winged blackbirds and rust-colored robins swooping in to join the black-capped chickadees and blue jays at the feeders. Snow's sandy residue leaves grass lawns matted and pebbly, but more and more green strands of slender grass slip through. The air is fresh, warmer, and Midwesterners bounce expectantly out of doors, trailing dog leashes, running gear, and even the occasional shorts and sandals in defiant glee and shivers.

I've been reading Holley Gerth's book, You Were Made for a God-Sized Dream: Opening the Door to all God Has For You, and just received Jeff Goins' hot-off-the-press book, The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do. Pencil in hand, I've been underlining Gerth's book and making plans for this summer, determined to zealously protect disciplined chunks of the day to work on this new book project when my school duties are done.

And throughout this week a Bible verse has grabbed me in a way I've never seen before. I was familiar with the first sentence in that paragraph and the next sentence there too, but had never put them together. In Second Timothy 1:6-7, I read For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you... and the next sentence adds a curious twist, For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. 

There are topics and things that excite you, I'm sure of it. If we could grab hot coffee and sit around my scuffed, map-laminated cherry-wood kitchen table to talk, I know that we would get to them. Those topics that make your eyes shine and flash, and your voice raise in pitch excitedly; those passions, dreams, and favorite hobbies that make you come alive. It might be an innovative idea you have for work, or your plans for a summer garden, your secret dream to adopt, your love for decorating on a budget, or your love of writing and learning. And I know that God has shaped you uniquely. Anything that brings him glory and makes you come alive is something he carved deep inside of you. He invites you to use that, to dream excitedly about those possibilities, and to step out obediently into using those gifts, talents, and passions for him.

Whatever it is, God invites you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you. And, knowing our many hindrances, he answers the very next words from our mouths: For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.

For me today, this means to set a plan to start writing three-five days a week this summer (if not now), and it means I need to go talk to one of my teens and his mom who are hurting.

For you today? What's he telling you? Nothing else will bring such joy than stepping into whatever he has next for you. And I'd love to cheer you on from the side.

And It's In You Too...

Photo: Martin Beek, Creative Commons, cc license

Photo: Rodney Campbell, Creative Commons, cc license

Yellow, black, and white goldfinches flit and dart about the sunflowers. In the mad jungle of ragtag red, orange, and yellow sunflowers, a crowd of goldfinches has moved in. With circus precision, the finches hang upside down, bobbing on the gangly stalks, thrusting hungry beaks into the flower. Limbless, their beaks strip petals, tear away the center fluff, and burrow for each seed. In tireless one-by-one fashion they duck and pull, duck and pull. A tiger tangerine and black butterfly saunters past, catching my attention out the window, and the splashes of color and audacious life woo me.

In the last two weeks I am finding myself drawn into, walking alongside, and wrestling with several authors, as I read their books. In Micha Boyett's Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer, I imagined myself picking up a coffee mug and sidling into her San Francisco flat or standing with her on California playgrounds as she studied the essence of prayer and delved into Benedictine monk disciplines. Micha pondered intimacy with God, wondering how to best walk face-to-face with God through the laundry piles, dirty dishes, and toddler tantrums of a mother's life. She asks bare naked questions to the Creator about her worth and her desire to live a grand life for God, and what that ultimately looks like. Her discoveries ring with calm peace and freedom that move me into my next book.

Emily P. Freeman's book A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live is one I am only halfway through. She tiptoes into life's passions with gentle questions, finally stripping aside any excuses, apprehensions, or hesitations from the full life God wants us to live in him. This Artist God who created crackling fire and ice, who calls the stars out by name each night, and who spins galaxies in motion, holding all things together --This is the Artist God who designed us, who crafted and molded us in unique ways, and whose perfect plan is to see us experimenting with and using the skills and passions he placed in us for his glory. And the art that splashes out of us in a million little ways isn't really about us. It is his glory and beauty reflected, refracted, and ricocheting out of us, in a million darkness-shattering ways. Emily intrigues me, calling out gentle tears. She declares that art isn't only swirled paint on canvas, or words curling up a page -- although it can be-- art is whatever brings us most fully alive and what is screaming to come out of us, the image-bearers of the Artist God.

Emily whispers, "As a fellow image bearer, I want to whisper wake up words into your spirit, where your life is joined with God's. Wake up to the life of Christ within you and see how he wants to come out. Wake up to your unique calling and live out the truth of who Christ is and who you are in him. Uncover the art you were born to make. Release the art you were made to live" (Freeman, 36).

"...You were designed to reflect the glory of God" and you were "made in the image of God for a purpose" (Freeman, 36, 37).

Yellow and black goldfinches zip past my window, alighting on the caramel and crimson flowers. There are only two of them now, bold males in black capped heads who pause to see my movements in the glass above them. The flowers sway in silence for a moment. Their art drips from them, decadent colors on tiny plum-sized birds. God's extravagance seems almost wasteful, and yet it refreshes and inspires me. Our Cosmic Artist paints with limitless colors, creating in endless ways, urging us to follow suit.

What Captain America and Superman Knew But We're Still Learning

Right after a tall red-faced Star Wars Darth Maul glowered down at me and growled, I jumped, and you would have too, to see his teeth bared at such close range.

Photo Credit: The Conmunity, Creative Commons, cc license

In a crowded comic book convention this weekend, my daughter and I passed countless Supermen, Captain America's, Doctor Who characters, and Star Trek klingons. Children and grownups sported long red capes, strode confidently in calf-high boots, and twirled plastic battle axes while shopping for comic book paraphernalia.

While I flipped over books to check printing companies and asked authors about their publishing journeys, my daughter was the real reason we were here. With a shy confidence, she turned pages in artists' portfolios, asking them questions on art techniques and leaping at the chance to show them her own sketches.

"I brought them with," she replied quickly when an anime artist suggested she show her work to people in the industry. "Can I show you?" Pulling off her blue backpack, she pulled out a manilla folder with her favorite sketches inside. She stood silent as two different artists flipped carefully through her work, pausing at some pieces to comment and linger.

For hours afterward, she skipped excitedly from the feedback they gave and from the intoxication of being surrounded by artists who love to draw and capture art in pens, pencil, and paints.

"I need to stop and draw," she declared at one point partway through the conference. "This just inspires me, and I need to draw." We scrounged up two chairs at the back of a loud panel room where contestants in costumes waited for their turn at the microphone. Morgan balanced her art pad on her lap, already tracing orbs onto the page, early starts of human anatomy.

And you have this too. It may not be with pencils and Japanese anime forms, but there is something you do that brings you such joy that you hunger for it. Siphon you away from it for long enough and it compels you to scavenge a place and a time to dive in.

What is it that calls to you? What hobby, talent, skill, or passion rumbles quietly underneath as you work your jobs, make supper, and drive from errand to errand? What do you look forward to today and this week?

Beware, my friend, because the television will call, and the tiredness seeps in, and it is always too easy to mutter slowly, "I'll do it tomorrow."

Don't put it off. Don't listen to the excuses, to the tired voice lulling you to easy comforts. Start now. Warm up your favorite drink, pull up your chair, and begin.

Because most likely, that thing that calls you, excites you, and is lingering silently there beneath the surface is something amazing, given to you by the Master Artist himself. Don't put it off, don't sink into the couch with another rerun episode. Pull out the paints, or the sketch pad, or your dremel tools. Click on that latest article or book piece you've started, and begin. It hums in you, pulling you.

And we are eager to see it. Even better, your Artist God is watching, smiling, and flipping through your portfolio.

(Linking with Ann in thanks. For those from Living Faith Church, stopping by for the immediate gratification post, please find that here. Thanks. All are welcome!)

Underneath the Mom Hat... It Stirs

The sun sinks behind the bustling farm supply store to my right, and pink twilight stains treetops outside my deck window. A moment more and the pink is gone, with navy clouds tangling in the trees.

Kenny G's sax trills, and quiet settles over my home. Four-year old sleeps, my teens have disappeared downstairs, and I steal moments.

The stillness seeps in. Once the clamor of dishes and bedtimes pass, we all -- moms and women everywhere -- grab something and sink deep into cushions, quiet, and calm.

For me, tonight, it's a smooth-rolling gel pen and paper to scroll across. Writing wells from deep within, an outlet for me.

What is it for you tonight? What speaks quiet rejuvenation for you?

Carved from an Artist's hands, we all have subtle ways we create--perhaps without even knowing it. I know people who spill art by slicing and dicing savory dishes; by baking hot bread for family; by snipping and stitching fabric or wielding hot glue guns; by freezing beauty through 35 millimeter film and pixels. Others create with splashes of vivid pigment; swirls of oil on canvas; precision pen and inks; or breathtakingly tender moments on a couch with preschoolers and stories that kidnap imaginations. Artists weave words; stamp cards; graphic design; lilt melodies; run with graceful abandon; bring life from gardens deep; and lovingly build up the people near them.

Whatever art stirs in you, friend, steal moments to meet it. 

Ignore the dirty dishes, the scattered toys, the disheveled bedroom for a few minutes. Stop. Quiet yourself. Look up to the Artist who made you, and then create art: on paper, canvas, sheet music, in your home, and in the people around you.

I love hearing from you. What speaks quiet rejuvenation to you today? What art stirs in you? (Those in email can click here to join the conversation.)

Linking with Ann at A Holy Experience to thank the Artist, and with Emily in a Dare to Love Yourself.

Forested Parking Lots and Crowded Adventures

They barely fit into the five seater Saturn now. Long legs, broad shoulders and gangly arms elbow gently into each other, as my teens settle in comfortably. Their preschool brother is close by in a generational blue tufted car seat. 

This Saturday, I was squirming excitedly in the front seat, and they were tucked in snugly in the back seat as we drove off to get our Christmas tree.  It’s tradition to race through the tiny lot of a local family owned hardware store, deciding upon the perfect tree.  It takes imagination to see past the sparse sides, and the occasional mangled lower branches to see a tree’s potential. This one? That one? Our family paced the tree aisles, sniffing the pine sap, and fingering the fir needles. 

A black felt hat fell over my toddler’s eyes, as he ambled through the parking lot forest with us, curious about this adventure.  We took some cheesy family photos in the lot beside our chosen tree, already imagining its true beauty.  A battered hand written sign over the exit urged us to cut off the bottom two or three inches of the tree so it could soak up sufficient water to stay fresh all season. 

My husband and oldest son stood on either side of our car securing our tree to the top with twine. Their sizes and frames are so similar now. 

At home, while the tree warmed up and the preschooler napped, I twisted green wire around cinnamon scented pinecones for a natural tree ornament. The smells of pine and cinnamon filled the house. 

 Later, Christmas carols serenaded us while our family of five circled the colored lights, suspended pine cones and cinnamon sticks, and wrapped the tree in tiaras of wooden red balls. 

God has whispered to me this week since …

…of fragrance. Am I softly exuding an aroma that is pleasing and points to the Source?

  For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. (2 Corinthians 2:15) 

…of the Artist’s ability to see past my sparse sides and mangled edges to the true beauty and potential that I can be once he entwines me with His light and beauty. 

…of having my hard impervious edges cut off so I can soak up life-giving Water each day, so I’ll stay alive and vibrant. 

What about you? Floating fragrance, disguised potential, or a need to soak up fresh daily water… what is God most whispering to you today?