an advent

It's dark at suppertime, now.  We've woken a few mornings to frost in the backyard, and the star on the silo is lit (although we need to replace some of the bulbs).

This is the season of Advent, when we prepare to celebrate the arrival of the Christ child, Jesus - Immanuel:  "God with us."  The term "advent" means a beginning or arrival, and there are many new beginnings in our lives right now.  Not all of them are of our choosing, but this one is:

In all the busyness that seems ironically inherent to this season, 

I wanted to carve out a small spot of peace this year.

So we decided, last night, that while while we eat supper this month, we'll turn off the lights, and burn candles instead, and sit quietly before we fill our plates, listening to an Advent reading or Scripture.

There's nothing inherently wrong with shopping for gifts, or rehearsing a nativity play, or decorating, or baking or sending out cards.  But activities can get in the way, sometimes - block our view, distract our focus, and rob us of peace.  Somehow, turning off the lights slows us down and tunes us in to the wonder of waiting for the Light to shine in the darkness . . . .

May you be blessed this Advent season 

with the quietness of heart that only comes 

from the Prince of Peace.

Day 1 of 90

Today is the first day of the Advent season.

Sugar had remembered, and gotten down the two Advent calendars yesterday, so today at breakfast Lil' Snip got to open the flap with a "1" on it while Spice read to us from Luke about the angel Gabriel coming to Mary.

I printed out Ann Voskamp's beautiful Jesse Tree ornaments, and copied some devotional readings to go along with the ornaments.

And somewhere in the evening hours, after a deliciously unseasonable day of t-shirts and raking leaves and making angels out of discarded hymnals, a challenge came my way from a distant young cousin of my Farmer - to read the Bible in 90 days.

Intrigued (and yes, convicted by her mention of time spent on facebook!), I printed out the plan and said I'm in.  I showed it to my oldest girls, Sugar (who loves to compete) and Spice (who loves a challenge).  They thought they'd like to try, too.

Starting now.

It took surprisingly little time to read the first day's chapters, once I'd re-mastered the trick of sticking to a single task (which was surprisingly hard).



Here's a few of the gems that stood out to me:

~  The order of creation (Genesis 1):  light (but not sun or stars yet), sky (got its own whole day!), division of water and earth, plants, sun, moon, stars, sea creatures, birds, animals, man.  [although Genesis 2 has God creating a man first and afterward planting a garden and forming animals and birds, and then woman].

~  God, bitterly regretting that he had made man (Genesis 6:6).

~  That it was Abram's father Terah who first struck out toward Canaan (11:31) but stopped short and settled in Harran.  [also, was the land of Canaan named after Ham's son Canaan, who Noah cursed?]



Care to join me and my girls, anyone?  A three-month journey through God's story to us, to rediscover, perhaps, who He is, and why He so deeply loves us . . . ?  (And beautifully timed to coincide with Advent, the season of waiting for a Redeemer)