Comfort and Joy

Comfort and Joy

 Psalm 27:13-14: "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

My life has come in seasons. There were the seasons of my childhood, seasons as a young rambunctious adult, seasons as a wife and mother,  which I will always cherish, though some memories now are painful. But  now I have, hesitantly at first, begun a new season.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” – Ecclesiastes 3:1

 

Most people find comfort in traditions and the familiar. I once did so myself. In the not so distance past, my life would have been so terribly different. Thanksgiving Day would have begun a season of constant entertaining. My table would have been spread with various southern traditional dishes. My granny's cornbread dressing would have the place of honor, as we all would gladly trade you a turkey for piping hot servings of her dressing. When she added oysters to it you would have a fight on your hands for the last spoonful. 

As a child we had family Thanksgivings in Alabama with my dad's extended family. There was always turkey for days.  My aunts would cook enough for our small army of extended cousins and more. We would have turkey sandwiches and turkey salad and turkey and turkey, until you just couldn't take one more mouthful of turkey.

 Christmas Eve was always with my mom's family and there was always more turkey and Granny's famous dressing. After we had hastily torn into all packages, my granddaddy would gather all the wrappings (you had better hope you had not left a small piece in the mix) and outside to the fire pit he would go. There were always great aunts and uncles dropping in along with second and third cousins galore.

Christmas day was with my dad's family. This day was always a little more interesting, as there was inevitably  the possibility of discord among the three siblings. Just as you never knew what you would be unwrapping from under the silver tinsel Christmas tree with red, green and blue spotlight, you never knew what the mood would be like.  Despite my grandmother's best efforts and my grandfather's earnest prayers, the entertainment value depended entirely on the level of sobriety of my father's siblings and their spouses or significant others.

On Christmas Eve in our home, it was always a tradition that we got to unwrap one present from under the tree. We would spend hours shaking the gifts, turning them in every direction, trying to guess what each shining and bow laden package could hold. All in preparation for deciding which gift to open before bedtime. My mother always made Christmas special. Every pair of socks even got their own fancifully wrapped box. Bows!! My mother was big on bows! Not the peel and stick kind either, every package had a curly tail, homemade bow hopelessly imprisoning it. They were beautiful, but enough to exasperate a child bent on tearing into gifts expediently.

Christmas mornings my brother and I were up bright and early to see what Santa had left under the tree. Daddy would always make waffles, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and biscuits. Both sets of grandparents would come to visit and see all that Santa had left.

 Once I married, new traditions were made with my new family. My husband, children and in-laws always camped in the mountains of North Georgia during Thanksgiving and Easter. Christmas was always a time when my mother-in-law completely out did herself and from Thanksgiving to New Year's there was always some form of entertaining. 

When my oldest son was born, we began a tradition of purchasing a Christmas book and an ornament to go with it, then each night leading up to Christmas, we would read a book and hang the corresponding ornament on the tree. Each Christmas Eve, my father-in-law would read the Christmas Story from one of the Gospels to us before exchanging gifts.

My only daughter entered this world in a dramatic and climactic way on New Year's day of 1999. She being the only girl in a family of male grandchildren, we quickly adapted our traditions to include special birthday recognition for this child the doctors told us we would never have. (and yes, she is just a little spoiled from it). From the beginning, birthday traditions for each of the children included a family party and a party with their friends. Extravagant? Yes. Necessary? No. Cherished? Yes. Just as were each of the children we were blessed with. Children whom man said were impossible, whom I almost lost my life for in each delivery, yet God specializes in the impossible does He not?

Now the traditions only serve as reminders of a once beautiful life. A life that no longer exists and thoughts of repeating the same traditions no longer bring comfort to me. The "ghosts' of the past linger around every corner. In An Affair to Remember, one of my favorite lines used to be when Debra Kerr would say "Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories." For a while now, I have thought that selective amnesia would be a merciful gift from above.

 My oldest son has married now and lives in Nashville. My daughter is at that age that she wants little to do with anyone except her friends and my youngest son, mercifully, has very few 'normal"memories of what our once "perfect" life used to be.

My daughter and I have done our best to work around the echoes. In our new home, there is very little there to remind us of our old life. Each bedroom is decorated a little differently than our old home. From the colors on the walls to most of the furnishings we have surrounded ourselves with new memories. Furniture has been replaced or painted, the once rustic trappings of golds and jewel tones have been traded for modern tone on tone grays with pops of colors. 

The keepsake ornaments that we once enjoyed unwrapping and reminiscing over each year, have been carefully and lovingly, crated awaiting the day when I pass them down to the children. Traditional decorations of burgandys and golds, and the rustic decor from other portions of the old house have been traded for funky and fun, bright reds and greens. The only ghost of Christmas past evident now is in the one tree that stand majestically in the corner of its new home.

It is in the new and unfamiliar that I find my comfort now. God has entered me into new seasons of my life. For years now, He has spoken into my spirit that He is doing a "new thing". Most people find change as hard to accept. I have learned to embrace the unfamiliar with a renewed passion. 

When the Lord first began to reveal His purpose to me, he began bringing into my life new people and opportunities that never would have happened before...doors that no man could open and no man could shut. From social media to church, connections through a brief relationship, connections through music; all Divine appointments that just a few shorts years ago, I never would have dreamed possible.

As I began to surrender my will to the will of the Lord, he began speaking to me that I had a much higher purpose and a much higher calling. He replaced my heart of stone with a longing to serve others. There are a couple of areas of missions work that I feel an incredible draw to and I will tell you, it can only be Divine.  Just this week, God revealed to me a part of my next season. Through connections that can only be described as divine, I have begun to see some of the promise unfolding. 

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.   And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.   Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.”  Ezekiel 36:26-28

In our past lives we were not wealthy, but we enjoyed much. Last December we left the only home my children had ever known. It was not luxurious, but it was better than many people will ever see.  We vacationed several times a year, we traveled almost weekly singing, we ate out a lot, we socialized continuously. During the years that I was on the road every weekend, we had a maid. (Man, I miss Miss Lily! ). We had decent cars and every trip to the store yielded something that really was just a want and not a need. This transition has been the hardest for my daughter most of all. Being only 15, she had a routine and she liked it, she had traditions ingrained and was not quite ready to be kicked out of her comfort zone. My children were privileged. My family was privileged and yet we did very little for others.

The Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, my daughter and I had an opportunity to be of service and to let her see that as bad as we have had it over the last couple of years, there is always someone who is worse off. So we bundled up with coats and mittens, extra socks and multiple layers.  We made the trek to downtown Nashville to the Jefferson Street Bridge in our warm car with the heated seats. We, along with those that we have claimed as "our Nashville Church Family",  listened to be given our instructions. There she and I witnessed as a community of civic organizations, churches and even an entire football team, including cheerleaders, came together to serve Thanksgiving dinner to more than 150 of Nashville's homeless. The sight was deeply humbling.

I stood at the front while awaiting instructions and spoke to a friend of mine with whom my family group used to sing on occasions. As he and I discussed the events of the night, my daughter came walking up to me with an odd expression on her face. After re-introducing her to Steve, (she had not seen him since she was three), she made the comment "mom, most of these people look just like us". With a knowing smile, I spoke back to her "honey, there are all God's children just like us." Steve then said to her, "Chrissi, the thing to remember is, we are all just one poor choice away from living under a bridge." That moment was priceless. In just a couple of hours, in a new and different experience completely foreign to my once self-absorbed, self-serving family a new way of thinking entered our souls. In this cold, dirty, dreary place so far removed from our little warm living room, gratitude and servitude sprung forth like a blossom in springtime.

18Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past. 19"Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.  Isiah 43:18-19

It is opportunities like this and others that have presented themselves in the last couple of years, and the Lord continues to open doors as he guides me into a deeper walk with the Holy Spirit and into more service minded ministry. He is calling me into something bigger than myself, something to better the lives of others. Something to take, and I think keep me, out of my comfort zone into the unknown realms of servitude. It calls me like a Siren's Song, though not to danger but to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord and Savior, to reach out to those who are the "least of these". While I may not have worldly treasures to bestow, I do have two hands to serve, two feet to go and a mouth to tell them who Jesus is. So I fully embrace the changes, the unfamiliar, and I look forward to the next adventure the Lord leads me to.

 “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:13-14