I still love snow days as much as I did when I was a student and later as a teacher. A snow day seemed like a gift of a morning of quiet, one in which I didn't have to rush and press like most mornings. Snow days are simply days when time stands still, and what is on the calendar no longer matters, where peace on earth seems tangible in the moment upon awakening to snow covering the world like a virgin white blanket - when all is calm, all is bright - that is, until the traffic turns the roads to ugly grey slush and the rat race picks up its pace once more.
It was on one such morning before Christmas this year that God used the anointed words of Anne Voskamp in her book The Greatest Gift to slow my world -weary spirit this season. Her words took me above the anxieties over things that many in the world would call blessings to have such things to worry about. Blessings - to have the means and energy to have a Christmas dinner for 19 people in my small group - to have over 60 friends to send cards to - to have a car that only needs an oil change (but needs it NOW before our Christmas trip, in the midst of packing and preparing) - to have the means to buy presents (even if they did need wrapping and I've discovered I can no longer sit on the floor to do so!) I certainly needed to be reminded yet again of another of Anne's books, One Thousand Gifts as I dare to let the gifts I've been given allow the Giver to fade into the background of my life and the details of the world become the focus of my life.
But God has used the newest creativity of this soul sister I don't even know personally to touch my earth-bound spirit with her new book and to remind me that this world is NOT all there is!!! We forget in His Sovereignty that He allows the darts of the devil - be they minor annoyances or grave tragedies - to remind us that He is God and we are not - that we must remember He works ALL things to good those who are called to His purpose (Rom. 8:28)- yes even the worst atrocities we see on the news of what's happening in this dark world.
We cannot begin to see past our pain to understand His ways - or see that hate crimes or cancer or kids with dehibilitating special needs can possibly be used to good. But we can look at Paul singing praises in jail and the apostles joyfully telling the good news in the face of martyrdom, or Corrie Ten Boom or Joni Tada Erickson writing books about how faith got them through prison camps or becoming a quadrapalegic. Only now in reflection can we see how the awful suffering of those followers speak volumes still, years and centuries later - proclaiming the power of God's glory that can take the weakest humans through the most terrible storms.
THAT is the gift we needed to have unwrapped this Christmas, one that won't be forgotten like the wrapping paper now long banished to the trash and the decorations shoved back into their boxes, one that will be used every day and hour of the coming year. How pitiful to take a gift of unestimatable worth and let it get jostled to the back of our lives - letting it get lost in the shuffle of the trinkets and baubles and busyness of our lives. For here we have no lasting kingdom. We journey to heaven where we're fully known ...the words from an old hymn that came wafting through the cobwebs of past hopes to remind me I can have that hope today.
Yes, today - in these uncertain times - with the world growing smaller - and nuclear weapons attainable to more powers - and dissension and hate and division - and Democrats, and Republicans and Liberatarians so sure their views are right that they can project the future even in the complicated nuances of economics and trying to make sense of history and the current news - and judge others who don't see the forecast as they do.
To be sure, there was bickering among the apostles causing these verses to be written for our edification: Titus 3:9 - Avoid foolish controversies... and arguments and quarrels about the law because these are unprofitable and useless and 2 Tim 2:23 - Have nothing to do with stupid arguments because they produce quarrels. The Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct... They even complained about how others were preaching the gospel but Paul tells them in Phil. 1:17-18 - The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely...But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.
Perhaps God allowed this world to be so complicated that even His followers would have cause to disagree - and so He allows all of the differences and viewpoints and grey areas whether in life or theology or politics to give us cause to have our love and faith tested because then His glory will shine more brightly against the darkness of dissension and chaous.
This is where in the dark of a winter morning Anne Voskamp's words cut thrugh the clutter and maddness of the world's cacaphoney and spoke to my heart - "We read the world's headlines and wonder: If there's a God who really cares, He'd look at this world and His heart would break. And God looks to the cross...and says, "My heart did."...Gen. 6:6 tells us (after God started over with the flood) that "His heart was filled with pain." And Christ comes like an ark, like a cradle over floods. Every flood of stress is an invitation to get into the ark of our Savior. Every flood of troubles remakes the topography of our souls, making us better or bitter...Jesus claims those who are wandering and wondering and wounded and worn out as His. He grafts you into His line and His story and His heart and He gives you His name, His lineage, His righeousness. He graces you with plain grace. ...Is there a greater gift you could want or need or have?...Christ comes right to your Christmas tree and looks at your family tree and says, "I am your God and I am one of you, and I'll be the Gift and I'll take you. Take me? This is the story that's been coming for you since the beginning. And you could wake on Christmas to only grasp that you never took the whole of the Gift. So now we pause. Still. Ponder. Hush. Wait. - for the Gift who was pierced for you, wounded, who unfolds Himself on the Tree as your endless, greatest Gift.
And so on this quiet morning, I stop to check that I will not have entered the new year with the greatest gift left unopened. But that, as I return to the cold, noisy, annoying hassles of living, that I remember I have a Gift, the greatest Gift, singing to my soul: silent night, all is calm, all is well in the midst of it all.
Silent morn, holy morn
All is well, all is calm.
Round yon world though noisy and mad
Has come a gift to make us glad,
Walk in heavenly peace. Walk in heavenly peace.
Silent heart, holy heart
Stop and still, midst the mess
Of racial strife and different views
Of how to deal with the worldly news,
Walk in heavenly peace. Walk in heavenly peace.
Silent words, holy words,
Stop and think before you speak,
Silence words of judgement and scorn,
Speak only words that from His are born.
Walk in heavenly peace. Walk in heavenly peace.
