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This is for You

This was one of those weeks that you just hang on and close your eyes until it’s over.  Kind of like Rockin Roller Coaster, maybe just not quite as fun.

It’s Christmas morning in our house tomorrow, which means all the gifts under the tree and wrapped, plus all the stocking stuff.  (My mom knocks stocking out of the park, so I’m not sure why the rest of us even try.) That coupled with life group activities, shopping, Christmas concert performance, 1,089 make-up lessons of all sorts, planning and throwing a unit Christmas party (yep…planning and throwing all in the same week) and packing six people and gifts to fly south for two weeks. Oh and trying to finish chapters and keep the school train on track.  Insert long winter’s nap here. 

I imagine your schedule is similar to mine.  Here are two ideas for you as you plug away at your list.

First: a gift idea

My friend Katie is a sweet newlywed and new Army wife.  She just published her first book! This would be a perfect stocking stuffer!  Need something for your hard to buy for niece or mother-in-law? This is it!  

This is For You: This poetry and prose collection walks through heartbreak, deep love, spiritual brokenness, and the joy found through redemption. It is intended to bring rest, comfort, and hope to tired souls.

Support a small business.  Support a military spouse.  Support a budding writer. All in one!  Buy it here!

 

Second: an app to organize your shopping

The Christmas List  App

There is a reason this is the #1 shopping app in the US!

My Christmas list used to look like this:

Now it looks like this: 

This app keeps track of the gift ideas, what I’ve purchased, my budget for each person, my overall budget, what items have been wrapped/shipped and what still needs to be purchased.  I can email ideas straight from the app too, which is handy for grandparents.  My favorite part is that it archives my list each year so I can remember what I purchased for people!  I love it!  Worth the few dollars it costs!

AND – I can password protect it so that little eyes can’t see!

Get it here!

Happy Shopping!

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“and the soul felt its worth”

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
’Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth

O Holy Night is always a favorite, especially with the right person singing it (Josh Groban or Celine Dion preferably). I never truly caught these lyrics until just the other day:

’Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth

The holidays for most people are a joyous time of celebrating and sharing memories with family and friends.  However, for many people who is simply not the case.  The holidays are a painful time that can magnify the hurt they manage to keep under wraps during the rest of the year.

Last year, Chad spent his third Christmas away from our family.  (Technically four though…because one year he deployed the day after Christmas.  Seriously, who schedules that?  Christmas barely counts if you deploy the next day.)  I went home to be with our families for the holidays.  While I participated in all the scheduled events and enjoyed the celebrations, just under the surface was a hole in my soul.  My husband was on the other side of the world fighting a war.  He missed our son’s first Christmas.  For Addison it was the fourth Christmas in nine years that deployments had taken her dad away.  Nothing feels normal or right when you are surrounded by family and friends on the most joyous day of the year and there is a huge hole in your heart.

And I held it together…most of the time…except that one time.

Decorating my parents’ Christmas tree is always a thing.  When we lived close enough, our family, my brother’s family and my parents always decorated it together, just like we did when we were little.  Ann Murray’s Christmas tape (no joke) playing in the background, my mom handing out ornaments, and my dad moving all the ornaments to the top of the tree from the bottom where the kids have piled them together.

Last year, somehow, I missed it.  In the hustle and bustle of the evening, I needed to feed Jake and put him to bed and the kids got excited and it just happened.  I walked downstairs, ready to decorate the tree and it was done.  See, it would be the only tree I would decorate that year because we didn’t put up a tree at our house since we were in Georgia for seven weeks.

In the grand scheme of life, it doesn’t matter, right?  But goodness in that moment I felt alone and forgotten (every emotion is amplified during a deployment and 24 rounds of mastitis!).

Later my dad found me and asked something like, “You ok?” and the wall of emotional fortitude crumbled.  He held me and just let me cry.  He didn’t know what it was like to have a husband gone at Christmas, but he was my dad.  He knew me and he saw me and that made all the difference.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
’Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth

The Christmas story is matchless in that the Creator knows His creation so well.  God saw our need and went to the greatest lengths to rescue us. “For God so loved the world” feels so familiar that we often forget its meaning.  “For God so love the world makes all the difference.

When we are truly known, we can be truly loved.  My dad’s love and care that night comforted me so deeply because he saw me in my mess of emotions and loved me through it.  I didn’t keep it all together.  I wasn’t “strong” as army wives are often labeled.

But what is so amazing is how much more my heavenly Father loves me, far beyond what my pretty amazing earthly dad ever could.

To be fully known by God – all my mess and brokenness and junk – and yet fully loved is a life-giving treasure.  Our souls can feel worth, not because of anything we can do or muster, but because God places such incredible value on us.  He sent His Son to be wrapped in human flesh to physically show us our worth.  As Ann Voskamp would say, His “unmatchless, unstoppable, unrelenting, unconditional love.”

Don’t miss it this Christmas.  Don’t miss His love. Don’t just sing the songs and give the gifts and hustle your way through the holidays.  Relish His love for you.  Share it with others.  Share it with someone who may have a hole in their soul this holiday season.

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Noonday – What We Love Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!

I’m sure you, like me, are in the midst of checking off your Christmas to do list. Of course a huge part of that list is buying gifts.  Gift buying can be fun and exciting, but it can also be overwhelming and stressful as the days tick by, the list grows and the budget shrinks.

On Wednesdays this month, I want to pass along some shopping ideas and resources that I hope will be helpful.

I love giving gifts, but hate the idea of giving people something that may get tossed in a corner and never used.  I try to think of practical and unique gifts whenever I can.  I also try to support local businesses and friends as often as I can.  Target and Amazon do get a lot of my budget, but I would much rather give to a small business owner, buying a unique and lasting piece to give, rather than a gift card that will be used and discarded without much thought.

First up is Noonday.  This jewelry and accessories company is all about empowering the lives of women all around the world.

Noonday’s story:

Jessica Honegger launched Noonday Collection in 2010 after she connected with Jalia and Daniel, talented jewelry designers in Uganda who dreamed of using fashion to create dignified jobs in their community. Jessica hosted the first Noonday Trunk Show, selling Jalia and Daniel’s jewelry in her home to raise funds to adopt from Rwanda. Women fell in love with the style and story of Noonday Collection – and Jessica began to dream bigger than a fundraiser.

Jessica soon partnered with Travis Wilson, a friend passionate about social entrepreneurship and experienced in building businesses. Both Travis and Jessica had spent years working in Africa and Latin America. Together they dreamed of starting a business that would alleviate poverty through entrepreneurship. This dream became Noonday Collection, a business that uses fashion to create meaningful opportunities around the world.

Need a necklace or bracelet? Buying it from Noonday supports a local business in an impoverished nation, rather than lining the pockets of an already wealthy American company.  The pieces are beautiful and high quality!

My dear friend Dylan just become an Ambassador with Noonday!  In our West Point community she was the in-demand babysitter and now she is a wife and mama herself to a sweet baby girl.  Ambassadors like Dylan not only help support their own families by selling Noonday products, they help share the message of Noonday and support local artisans from around the world.

Follow Dylan on her FB page or check out your own Ambassador!  Let’s support local businesses doing good things this Christmas season!

 

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