Lilley in the Light

How does a weary world rejoice? There’s a church in town with these words posted outside declaring the theme of their sermon series this Christmas. It’s not our church, but each Sunday as I read this question on the way to our own church, I wonder how I would answer that. There’s a myriad of ways to rejoice and I’d love to know how this beautiful congregation of fellow brothers and sisters rejoiced, but today I smiled as we drove by because of one new and unique way our community rejoiced this Christmas Eve: baptisms. It felt non-traditional, and yet absolutely right.  We witnessed the transforming light and love of Jesus in the lives of 4 men baptized. They stood up there with trembling hands, quaking voices, tattooed arms, teary eyes, pounding hearts, and hope-filled souls as they shared their testimonies. Stories of bitterness and drugs, military deployment and combat, poor choices and time in prison. In their darkest moments, Jesus found and rescued them. How appropriate to bap...

        One day my son had a complete meltdown. That kind that has no good solution. From the kitchen, I heard the angry screeches ramp up in his room. The details of it are fuzzy to me now, but I’m pretty sure he was trying build something using the nuts and bolts from his wooden  and  plastic set which unfortunately did not fit together. I had tried to be patient and run through the list of normal parenting strategies- explaining how they didn’t fit, offering suggestions of how to make it work, pulling out a different toy to divert him. These obviously fell short.  And so did my patience. I finally decided we needed a change of scenery and some fresh air. Honestly, this move wasn’t just for his good, but because I was about to lose every last shred of forced calm and could feel my volcano of anger rising. So before I exploded, I drug his screaming, flailing body down the stairs and out the door. On the way I muttered a prayer, “Please, giv...

Hurry- the carbon dioxide in my heart toxic, invisible, deadly. Lord, rid me of striving and perfection that feel attainable only by the rushed pursuit of endless activities.