I was in latent labor with my youngest for almost three weeks. I went into the hospital over labor day weekend because I felt like I was in labor. They sent me home, but it scared me enough that I decided to stop going to work an hour from my home and midwives lest I be that girl who gives birth on the side of highway 400. Besides, this baby was coming any second. My baby came on her due date three weeks later, September 20th, only because I went into the hospital still contracting, but not seriously, and refused to leave until my midwife broke my water against her better professional judgement. Thankfully I did not blog through all of this. My Facebook posts from that time are pathetic enough.

There is this thing that people say to you, when you are hugely pregnant and completely miserable. They smile at you and say, “well, no one stays pregnant forever!” Which, I suppose is true, but it still makes you want to smack them. How, do they know you aren’t going to be the first? But of course, you aren’t and then you have this hilarious one year old toddling around and you laugh at the whole thing. It becomes a one-up story for the times you are at parties with other moms,” oh yeah, I was in labor with that one for three weeks!” Hilarious! You forget how hard that waiting was, just how much work it is to wait for something you are completely sure of.

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Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

We lost my grandfather this last Tuesday. My sisters and I will be singing “Blessed Assurance” at his memorial service this coming Saturday. We are mourning the loss, but my family has a peace about it that can only be described as supernatural. Death has a way of bringing you face to face with your beliefs.

Do I really believe this? Do I really believe that the God of the universe came down as a baby to give to the world the gift of eternal salvation just 33 years later by his death on a cross and resurrection from the grave? Do I really believe that my grandfather’s belief in this story, my belief in this story, ensures that I will see him again?

Turns out, I do.

Angels, descending, bring from above, Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

I do, and I believe that the universe has been echoing this story of mercy for as long as it has existed, from the birth of babies made the standard way, to the northern lights Margaret Feinberg wrote about in her new book Wonderstruck. She writes beautifully about these echoes and whispers. (I had no interest in ever seeing those until I read the first few chapter of this book.) I have been hearing these echoes and whispers this week as I hold back the grief until I can get out of my classroom and with my extended family.

Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

It is a hard reminder that we live in a fallen world, death. But even as I tell the students who have caught me crying that it is sad, but happened the best way possible I can feel the twinge in my spirit. This was not the original plan. And I hear the echo, you will get to see him again. Not just him but my grandmother on my mom’s side we called Grammy, my great grandmothers I only have the faintest memories of, my cousin Rachel. We will be together one day.

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So we wait. Watching and waiting, our postures spell out the hope that we have. We look above, knowing that there is something more. It is a posture I have seen in the bodies of the people who have lost the most. They also have the most to hope for.

Lately, this waiting feels like work. I often think of hope as a light and fluffy word, but there is a deep weight to the truth of its promise. There is a work of a heavy burden getting ready to push its way into this world. It is hard, it is slow, it is painful. But this world is not forever, no one stays here forever, which is as beautiful a sentiment as it is a terrible one.

Sometimes hope is delightful, but often it is hard, and painful, waiting for something you are completely sure of. But then, it is here, it is beautiful and wonderful and perfect, this thing that you hoped for was more than you imagined and the waiting fades into a distant memory.

When I tell you about my childhood Christmas adventures, when I tell you about the way we would open our presents and hop in the car on Christmas day, heading to up-state New York just in time to get hit by a snowstorm somewhere between Cleveland and Buffalo, when I tell you of the two packed houses, the 6 teenage girls in one room and the piles of presents we affectionately called “the mother load” a product of two ridiculously hard working and generous Grand parents, do not let me forget to tell you about the cookie porch.

My Grandma must have baked for weeks, because every single year their screened in porch was covered in delicious homemade treats. Pie crust cookies from my Grandma’s mother’s recipe , molasses cookies, and the standard chocolate chip. Home made caramels naked and covered in dark chocolate, peanut brittle, butter brickle, and homemade fudge (with and without walnuts). There were fancy cookies like the chocolate ones covered in fudge, a maraschino cherry hidden in the middle, and sugar cookies wrapped around an Andes mint with a mint chocolate drizzle on the top.

The aunts would come and add to the bounty, peanut butter cookies with a Hershey kiss pressed in, or clumps of Chinese noodles and peanuts covered in a mixture of melted butterscotch and chocolate chips. Some family members called them cockroaches, but my grandma insisted good farm girls like her called them haystacks. My mom always brought the sugar cookies in various shapes with colored frosting lines and squiggles. We all made sure we were up for breakfast the day that Aunt Julie’s gorgeous stolens made it into the oven. We hoped we were lucky enough to get a bite of that super gooey center.

In the corner, on the floor you would find a bag with a couple pounds of gummi-bears. Everyone ate them; but they were their for her oldest grandson. I remember the taste of frozen gummi-bears melting in my mouth. I have the fondest memories of sneaking out to the porch with no shoes on to dance on the frozen ground, hopping from foot to foot, as I frantically searched for the treat I was craving before my toes went numb.

There was more than enough for everyone to have their fill for a week, and get sent home with a heaping cookie plate. When I tell you about the abundance of God’s love at Christmas, make sure I use the metaphor of my grandma’s cookie porch.

My Version of Cockroaches Haystacks

Some salted peanuts, some chinese noodles, some butterscotch chips and some semi-sweet chocolate chips.

1.Melt all the chips together in low heat on the stove. when everything is stirred and melted stick your finger in their and then lick it to ensure it is delicious.

2. Dump the peanuts and chinese noodles in and stir it all around. Ensure delicious-ness.

3. Remember you were supposed to put wax paper on your counters. Clear the counters and put the wax paper down. Over estimate the space you will need.

4. Spoon clumps of the goodness in the pot on the stove onto the wax paper. Wait for it to harden and cool. This part takes a long time. This part is my least favorite.

I don’t have exact measurements because it doesn’t matter and it always comes out delicious, my kind of cookie.

This post linked to the cookie exchanges of Leanne Penny and LoveFeastTable. Check them out, this was fun!

When the opportunity presented itself I jumped at the chance to be on the blogging team for The Exodus Road, but when the emails started showing up in my inbox it took me a few days to open them. I had never committed to a blogging schedule like I did in my first Advent post, and I really wanted to stick to it. Plus, my grandfather was in the hospital on the way out of this world, finals were coming up and I hadn’t written anything for them (which is sort of what I get paid to do) and the Rooster no longer believes in sleeping through the night. I do not have time for one more thing, I told myself. Maybe in the New Year.

Those weren’t the only reasons I shut myself off. The reason I wasn’t even opening the emails was simpler than that. I did not have room in this brittle heart of mine for one more sad story, one more set of statistics about how terrible our world is. I’ve got enough going on over here thank you very much. Besides,i t is Christmas and now is not the time for a story about bondage.  The readers that I do have want magical happy Christmas land. I cannot blog about sex trafficking.

WARNING: Do not blog, the Lord will use your words against you. I may have written earlier this week about God showing up in the mess. God shows up in the greatest of disasters, in the cold and the hopeless places God brought hope. And that is what the Exodus Road does. They bring hope.

It is sick and twisted to think that a woman would be in such a dire situation that she would sell her daughter. And it is worse to think that someone would come along and buy that girl and turn around and sell her virginity for $600. I don’t want to know that this not only happens, but there is a system set up to allow this to happen and there are people in this world who are getting very rich off of selling people.

The Exodus Road not only seeks to rescue individual girls. Girls like Sarah, who scribbled a note and placed it into the hands of investigators, but they also seek to make it super easy for law enforcement to do raids and collect evidence that will shut the trafficking organizations down. If the traffickers can’t make any money because the risk of getting caught is too high and the clients are scared, they stop the trafficking. No profits no point.

The Exodus Road has been doing some really great work and is seeking to build a whole cabinet full of resources that they can hand out to all the different groups in the area fighting this darkness. The Exodus Road is bringing hope to the hopeless.

I’m not sure where my place is in all of this, but I can feel the Lord turning my heart toward this cause. There is a contest going on between the new blogging team and the person who raises the most money will get to go and see all of this first hand, but when I prayed about doing that, the Lord told me “not yet.” Seems it is a season of waiting all over the place. So how do I join in on this hope?

1. I will be praying for the Exodus Road team.

2. I will be keeping up with the stories they send me and prayerfully sharing them with you.

3. I registered my credit cards with Pure Charity and will donate my free money that I pick which charity to donate to,  to The Exodus road.

This is my candle in the darkness. This is me saying this matters. Won’t you join me?

(Seriously, register for Pure Charity. I am ashamed I didn’t do it sooner and the money I stole from these charities by not getting around to it is currently haunting me. Just sign up.)

This December has been unreasonably unseasonably warm. I was sitting on the porch discussing my grandfather, the life he led, the ways we will miss him, with my sister when dusk came. I was surprised it was getting so dark so fast. The weather tells me it is early September. The sunset has other plans. I went inside a little disoriented and looked at the clock on the microwave. Surely I missed bed time…nope, just that time of year. Simply not enough light in the day.

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When the term “modern-day prophet” crept into my thoughts so did the sounds of the street-preachers I have become familiar with. First there was the guy my dad was friends with. Brother Richard used to pray for healing over the phone if he called the house and we answered, sick from school. I don’t remember meeting him, but I do remember his voice, soft and rich in my ear. My dad used to say you could see the remnants of the glory of the Lord on his head.

The street-preacher I have the strongest memories of is Pastor Neal. He used to stand outside the theatre department and hurl fire and brimstone at the homosexuals and the fornicators just trying to buy a ticket to the university’s next show.  I went to his church once, “The Revolution,” where he preached a beautiful sermon filled with the grace and love of our God. I wonder now, why he saved that message for those who already had it, and hurled the condemnation at those who had yet to experience the grace.

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I have become increasingly convinced of the prophetic act of spending. Money talks. What is the church saying? Are we saying the poor matter? Are we proclaiming that injustice will be redeemed? Are we shouting, DRINK! all who are thirsty? Are we affirming the dignity and humanity of every soul born into the flesh? God cares desperately about you? Or are we saying, this gospel is for me and those like me, God cares desperately for my comfort?

There are so many in my circle who are proclaiming good things through the cause they back. My husband walked 6 miles with 5 gallons of water for Charity water. My dear friend Brooke is running a marathon for She’s the First and raising 26 girls worth of education in the 26 miles she runs. My favorite bloggers are building a school in Haiti. I got accepted on the blogging team of The Exodus Road, an organization that fights for the lives of those who have been trafficked, combats modern-day slavery. I am humbled, but overwhelmed by the opportunity to raise money for their cause. It seems everyone has a cause they want you to contribute to. It is hard sometimes to feel like it matters.

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The darkness creeps up so quickly these days. It is enough to disorient me, the darkness of this world. But the Prophet’s job is to shout into the darkness, light a candle in the abyss of the night, promise that dawn is coming, and point to the light that is already breaking in. It is hard and lonely in this wilderness, and sometimes I need to be reminded that what I proclaim matters.

Confession: I haven’t bothered to register my credit cards with Pure Charity. The aforementioned bloggers for a Haitian school asked me to, and I keep forgetting or am just too tired. The idea is simple and brilliant. Many businesses that I already shop at will give a percentage of the money I was going to spend anyway to my giving account, and then I decide where that money is going to go. Free money to that project, or the Exodus Road project to fund raids on brothels where they are holding girls against their will. Seems like a no brainer, and yet I still don’t have an account. I think I have been giving into the darkness, believing that it doesn’t really matter.

If I pray every Sunday “on earth as it is in heaven” if I believe that God has more for this world than what we’ve already got, then I am a prophet of hope. As the advent season continues and I lean into the waiting, I don’t want to wait silently in the dark. I want to point to the dawn, the promise of light to come.

I have a lottery ticket in my top desk drawer at work. I bought it a couple weeks ago when the power ball was at a record high. I don’t know why I keep it, but I have not yet been able to throw it out. I feel like it symbolizes something. Or maybe I just keep hoping that I read the numbers wrong, or there will be an announcement about a consolation prize. I know that this is silly, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw out that ticket. It is worthless and empty, the kind of hope the world tells us is available. Maybe, what if…, someone has to win, why not me? Ending in not you, maybe not, someone did win but it sure wasn’t you. The hope the world sells seems to leave one or two with way too much, and the rest of us with worthless slips of paper.

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Last night, after the girls went to bed I re-lit the first advent candle and read the guide I had been given by my church. I sat in my dining room, with one white candle lit (the only ones the Kroger had) and prayed through the guide. I sang the suggested song, and tears ran down my face.

“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to you oh Israel”

Last Sunday Jill came over to borrow some paintbrushes and told me that my grandfather had been rushed to the emergency room. This Sunday my dad called to let me know that they had made the decision to stop restorative care. Every time the Peanut sees me crying she climbs into my lap.” You sad mommy?” She asks, “You sad?” I tell her I am and she pats my back. “Is okay mommy, daddy come and give you hugs.”

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to you oh Israel.”

Emmanuel, God with us. This is not an empty hope. It is not a ticket that some people win from and most people throw away. Even in my dining room, with the wrong color candles and my Grandfather slipping away on the other side of the country, I can rejoice. Emmanuel shall come to me, He shall come to my family. It is a certainty. There is hope eternal. God is with us. Hallelujah.

One of my friends has so many Christmas movies in her collection, she starts watching them the day after Halloween just to get through them all. Two a weekend from November first to Christmas day she watches movies where everything looks like a disaster, but by the time Santa Clause comes to town hearts have softened, relationships have been healed, the gift that the child wished for secretly in her little heart of hearts managed to find it’s way under the tree (the adults have no idea how) and Look! (gasp) it’s snowing!

We love a good Christmas movie. It’s a Wonderful Life or The Miracle on 34th street, maybe it is A Christmas Story (You’ll shoot your eye out!), maybe it’s Elf (Candy, Candy cane, Candy corn, and syrup!). But we love a story where it all comes together in the snow dusted end. Where everyone is the very best part of themselves because, even if just for right now, it’s Christmas! A Christmas Miracle indeed.

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I walk into Target shortly after Halloween and am blinded by the neon sign hanging from the ceiling “All is BRIGHT.” I blink a few times. It certainly is. Somehow they forgot the “all is calm” line that comes just before the bright part. Perhaps because calm doesn’t encourage blindly tossing pre-wrapped candles into your cart just in case you forgot someone. There is glitter everywhere, on the decorations, the sweaters, the signs from the ceiling, the purple scarf I pick out for my 7 year old niece (mostly because I am tired of her borrowing my sparkly accessories when I want to wear them). Glitter makes these things special, the signs promise. These pillows, that doormat, these things will make your house festive. Come buy the Christmas spirit!

I put a mat under the cart because my cart is full of small children. It is navy and matches the wreath I made last year that is hiding somewhere in the depths of my spare room closet. I look at the holiday throw pillows but want more than just one and at 25 dollars a piece and I can already hear my husband asking me “you spent 50 dollars on throw pillows we can only use in December?!” I see his (that I just made) point. I remember the Christmas of my youth, gingerbread houses and decorating the mantle. I just want Christmas to be special for my girls. It is easy for me to be convinced that I can buy that at Target.

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A couple of weeks ago I took my girls to Disney World. The Magic Kingdom just the Peanut the Rooster and our double stroller ready to hang in the most magical place on earth. I guess not very many people attempt to take their kids to Disney World by themselves. Everywhere I went I was met with the need to have just one more set of adult hands. Meanwhile I noticed the people everywhere whose job it is to put the magic in magical. There were folks quietly moving the stroller to the “official” stroller parking when us harried parents attempted to start an unsanctioned lot, and people to sweep up the goldfish crackers as the Rooster tosses them out the side of the stroller. They even have this new way to wait in line at Dumbo (I am now an expert, I rode that ride three times in a row.) where you are given a buzzer and let your kids run around in the play place until it is your turn on the ride. Even the waiting has been whisked away.

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My Nativity set is one of my most prized possessions, a wedding present from my parents that represents the rich spiritual history that was passed down to me, that I will pass forward to my children. It is beautiful. But lately, looking at it, I can’t help but think it is certainly a “Disney-fied” version of the incarnation.

I think we have claimed the birth of Jesus as the most magical story ever told, and whisked away all of the ugly parts in an effort to protect the magic. We throw on sparkle and sequence of a beautiful virgin, a silent baby, a snow kissed Bethlehem. We proclaim the scene in our imagination and shout “It’s THE Christmas Miracle!” and imagine Mary and Joseph living happily ever after. At least I am guilty of these things.

While we prefer tight packages bound up in perfectly jaunty crimson bows, the Lord does his  mightiest works in the messiest places. There are gigantic messes all over the Christmas story that never fully get cleaned up. Whatever happened to Mary’s reputation? Was Joseph seen forever as a sucker probably raising another man’s baby? I’ve been through two uncomplicated births myself, and I will save you the details, but it is not a tidy process. Mary, most likely faced that alone, in a stable. We talk about the this stable like it is some beautiful place, when really there was probably animal poop everywhere and she chose this place out of complete desperation. Then there is the whole part where Herod tries to have Jesus killed and slaughters all the baby boys in the town, and Mary and Joseph take their son and run for their lives. I haven’t heard too many Christmas Eve sermons preached on the fleeing to Egypt and I have never scene a Christmas pageant where animal poop makes an appearance. But that part is there too, it just is a little too messy to be a part of the decorations on top of my entertainment center.

As I read about Advent, I discovered that the early church saw this time as less of a reflection that Jesus came as a baby, and more as a time to anticipate that Jesus is coming again. They used advent as a time to celebrate the waiting. We don’t do a great job of celebrating the waiting. I think we have taken the Dumbo ride route and whisked it away. Sure you are waiting but look, fun, fun, fun! But if the Christmas story tells us anything, it is that God’s miracles work in the midst of the very things we are trying to get rid of. This advent season I want to reflect on God’s work in the unlikeliest of places, and lean into the good gifts of advent Hope, Joy, Peace and Love, as I wait for my Savior to come back again.

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In an effort to really lean into this season I will be posting on the following schedule:

Week of December 2-Monday Can’t Buy Me Hope, Wednesday Modern Day Prophet, Friday Hope in the Waiting

Week of December 9- Monday Can’t Buy Me Peace, Wednesday Modern Day Bethlehem, Friday Peace in the Waiting

Week of December 16- Monday Can’t Buy Me Joy, Wednesday Modern Day Shepherds, Modern Day Kings, Friday Joy in the Waiting

Week of December 23- Monday Can’t Buy Me Love, Wednesday Modern Day Angel, Friday Love in the Waiting