Dreaming

Read Psalm 37

Long ago, little girls were very good at pretend. Plastic dolls and dress-up clothes and microphone spoons were their props as they rocked and twirled and sang, dreaming of what was to come. Time marched on, and the little girls grew. The props fell away and new ones took over–diapers and blankets and pacifiers, only the babies weren’t plastic this time.


The mommy-girls smiled as their babies grew, and one day they noticed their little baby-girls rocking and twirling and singing, practicing their future. And the mommies remembered their own dreams. Some smiled at the power of a dream, recognizing their former toys as their current tools, and whispered, “Dream on, sweet child.” Other mommies suddenly remembered a tucked away dream and dusted it off with excitement. But some mommies barely breathed, surprised that forgotten dreams now remembered hovered with the scent of unrealized longing.

Seeing the Fog Lift

Read Psalm 121


This morning I have a cold. The fog is rolling over the hills and just now at noonish the sun is just hardly coming through the mist. I've had the regular morning of pulling two toddlers out of a billion different disasters and instructing older children in chores and homework. It's emotionally exhausting.

My second born son was going through the typical second born syndrome of saying life isn't fair and how come the first born gets to do things he doesn't do and how come life is just generally unfair. . . Robert very graciously took him to work with him today.


Not sure that is a second born syndrome after all. But maybe a human syndrome.

Presents/Presence

Read James 1:19-27


You can't fool them, you know.

Two pudgy hands cup left cheek and right, turn your face to demand your eyes laser lock onto hers, and she whisper-stomps "Mama, you're not listening...!"


Technically, you’re right when you coo, “Yes I am, honey, I can just do two things at once,” because you did hear her; but she’s right because you weren’t listening.

Silent Night

The phrase repeats itself over and over again in his mind:


Silent night, holy night,
Stille nacht, heilige nacht.




Father Joseph Mohr, Parish Priest

It's the first line from a poem this young Austrian priest had written two years before. Now he can't get the phrase out of his mind. "Silent night, holy night."

The Christmas Guest (Saturday Special)

It happened one day near December's end

Two neighbors called on an old friend

And they found his shop so meager and lame

Made gay with a thousand bows of green

Merry Christmas!

 ^1-5About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.

Light of the Whole World: The Shepherds' Story

Posted by Andrea from The Jesus Story Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones

Read Luke 2

God was like a new daddy--he couldn't keep the good news to himself. He'd been waiting all these long years for this moment, and now he wanted to tell everyone.

...Now he was going to send a big choir of angels to sing his happy song to the world: He's here! He's come! Go and see him. My little boy.

Now where would you send your splendid choir? To a big concert hall maybe? Or a palace perhaps?

God sent his to a little hillside, outside a little town, in the middle of the night. He sent all those angels to sing to a raggedy bunch of shepherds watching their sheep outside Bethlehem.

...God must have thought the shepherds were very important indeed, because they were the ones he chose to share the good news with first.

The Gold and Ivory Tablecloth

Read Matthew 1:17-24






by Howard C. Schade
Reader's Digest Article, 1954



At Christmas time men and women everywhere gather in their churches to wonder anew at the greatest miracle the world has ever known. But the story I like best to recall was not a miracle -- not exactly.





It happened to a pastor who was very young. His church was very old. Once, long ago, it had flourished. Famous men had preached from its pulpit, prayed before its altar. Rich and poor alike had worshipped there and built it beautifully. Now the good days had passed from the section of town where it stood. But the pastor and his young wife believed in their run-down church. They felt that with paint, hammer, and faith they could get it in shape. Together they went to work.

Saturday Special: A Social Network Christmas

This video is an artistic take on how the story of the nativity might have read had a social network existed at the time of Jesus's birth. Follow this historical period as it unfolds as a digital narrative. This vignette is great for highlighting the truths and circumstances of our Savior's birth in a fresh, unique way. 

Blessed Be the Name of The Lord

This is an oldie from my personal blog. I wrote it back in 2008 when I had two children. I can really see how time has flown since the baby I was snuggling fresh from her crib is a non-stop talking 3 year old now. The days can seem long and it's easy to think that time isn't passing at all. Perspective is good and I am thrilled to see the blessings as I look back through the years. God gives and takes away. Please read Ecclesiates 3 about a time and purpose for everything. “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).

-- Alysun



A Time To Rock

The baby was squawking from her crib and I entered her room to get her. Mandy is a very loving girl and I always expect a hug after her rests. As usual, she wrapped her chubby, baby arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder. It had been a busy and frustrating day, so I sat down to enjoy the love in the funny colored, peach rocking chair with ink on the arm in the corner of her room. Even as she lay on me, I observed many different things I should be doing: there was the bottle of milk that lay upside down on the floor dripping hours old milk, 2 boxes of baby clothes begging to be organized and put back in the closet, a laundry basket full of folded sweet girl clothes needing to be put into drawers, and there was Emma who burst into the room with a look on her face that said, "What are you doing giving love away to my sibling and not me?"