Emmanuel

Well, I definitely lived. We purchased a new mailbox post for our neighbor and before we could get it put in, he had already installed it. My father was gracious about the scratch and has even offered to let me borrow the truck again. My brother found a wheel for us in a junk yard for a very reasonable price and helped me get it installed. The front end has been checked and aligned and all seems well. We got out of this mess for much less money than we had thought and through it all God has been very near.

And so the waves roll back out to sea.

My heart is so full of the Advent of Christ right now. I never cease to be amazed that God, the one that could just speak animals into existence, lowered Himself to take on human flesh for eternity. I love Isaiah 9 and the picture of Him invading the oppressive darkness of a sin infested earth. He is the light and where there is light there is no darkness at all!

During our first Advent reading this year, someone pointed out the fact that God separated the light from the darkness as if they were somehow existing together. Praise God they have been separated. Now darkness flees at the first moment light is introduced! And so He came, fittingly in the dark of night, and He became The Light of the world. He overpowered darkness.

A lot of my childhood was plagued by darkness. So much so that there are huge chunks that are only vague misty fears. There are parts that I feel I don't really want to remember. And yet God!

I am asking Him to be Emmanuel, God with us, in my family this year. I am asking for His Advent in my heritage and history. I am begging Him to come and drive out the darkness of the secrets and sin. I am scared to death.

I have learned in my own home that things look a lot better in dim light. A multitude of housekeeping sins can be hidden with the lowering of the blinds. I know that if He chooses to honor my cries this year it will be painful for us all. We have put many years and so many good memories between those years and these. There is a new generation that has no idea. Yet I know that the pall that hangs over our family will never leave until our lives are fully exposed to Light and cleaned up completely. Healing will be incomplete, guilt will be a weight around our neck and the stench will continue to snake into the lives of the innocent generation. They will become tainted without realizing it as the sin is allowed to seep into the next generation.

So I beg. I sit in the dark den and stare at our tree. I soak up the physical light and beg for the eternal light. I offer my comfort and my reputation as a sacrifice for the healing of those that don't know or can't ask for it. I long for Emmanuel.

I also have been surprised by a humility that has chased me. A chance to embrace the depraved state of my life instead of presenting a shiny front to the world. Reminded that I am wretch, but I was captured and made His treasure. He saw me in my raw and naked estate and I found favor in His eyes. Compassion filled His heart as He saw not just the beaten wretch that foundered in sin, but the quirky, silly, serious, thinker that He created for just a time as this. He has lifted me from the pit and set my feet on solid ground.

Please consider reading the following passage from Ezekiel 16. It is a story, not only of Israel, but of me and my wonderful romance with the Prince of Peace:

On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

" 'Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, "Live!" I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare.

" 'Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.

" 'I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen.