New Beginnings

It's about that time again! Those diehards who still believe in the power of New Year's resolutions will sign another invisible contract with themselves to do better at something-or-other next year.
And those of us who have failed at enough of our resolutions of giving up candy and cussing to send us over the edge into New Year's resolution apathy will still hope for change...for something new...for something better to come from this coming year than what came from the last.
For anyone who has said something like, "I wish I could just...move. Just go somewhere where nobody knows me and...just...start over," but has no place or reason to move? I think New Year's is kind of their next best thing.
The celebration of the New Year's holiday has caught my curiousity these past few days. Why do we celebrate it? Is it the celebration of a new beginning? Or the chance for one?
If so, I wonder why? I wonder why we celebrate that.
Is it built in us to have that desire - you know, for new beginnings?...
What do you think?

Sparkle!

Sparkle is totally 'in' this season! I love it!
Do you find that it says something about the people who wear it?
To me, it shows a confidence. When I see someone wearing sparkles, my mind tells me that there's beauty inside of that person. There's something there that's admirable and I want to find it out. I most often don't get to...but I'd like to.
Another reason I like sparkle is because of a little thought my mom once planted in my head that I've never wanted to shake.
She tells that sparkle says something about heaven.

I did a little interview with her just now:

"Oh sparkle?! I think it's something that's universally valued in humans. So much so, that some of the earlier explorers were able to trade sparkly beads and trinkets for the Indigenous people's more valuable resources and needs!
"I've just always wondered what it is about sparkle that makes us trade huge amounts of our resources for it: like diamonds.
"It makes me think that heaven sparkles. Of course, that's confirmed in Revelation where the streets and the beauty surrounding the throne are described. The author had a hard time putting words to it, but he explained it using the beautiful stones like the emerald. Even looking at water: it's so fetching when it sparkles. Eyes are more fetching when they sparkle."

Cool, huh? I love that thought!

Here's another thought to add to this small wonder of sparkle:
To make a long story short, it can be found in the book of Ezekiel. God had this to say to (a type of) heaven's fallen angel:

"You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty...every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle, and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created, they were prepared...You were an anointed guardian cherub."

So, Lucifer, when he was an angel of heaven, was adorned with every precious stone? I heard in a sermon once that he was the most beautiful angel of them all. What is up with that?! Is that interesting to you? It is to me! What is it about sparkle?

I wonder if, when we wear sparkle, we are not only saying something about ourselves, but we're saying something more eternal than we know?
I have no idea.
All I know is that sparkle is 'in,' and I love it!

Christmas away from Home

I have always LOVED Christmas - it's my favorite by far. But, I would be workin' real hard to sound religious if I said that Christmas has always been a worshipful season for me. It's been the pre-Christmas decorating with dad, browsing the cinnamon-smelling shops with mom, and opening presents at Grandma's house on Christmas Eve that have been my most consistent joys during the season.

A couple years back, I spent my first Christmas away from home and I learned something about the Gift of Christmas for the first time. Here are parts of the letter I wrote home.


Dear Family,
. . . This year I think I have my first real reason to feel very personal with Christ in giving Him thanks for Christmas.

Being away from home....is sad. I miss seeing many of your faces. I miss knowing you; talking with you; getting to know you more. I miss touching you. I miss knowing that you're close. Memories make me cry and smile...I have so many memories driving me home.
I feel the sacrifice of coming here (an overseas mission) these days. Sometimes I have to stop in the middle of whatever I'm doing, or wherever I am, and take a deep breath because of the heaviness of being away. Tears come, and ache, too. Ache for you and things familiar. In this new world of mine...it's just so different.

Christ, on Christmas, was away from home for the very first time in all eternity. He had been in heaven from the beginning with His Father, getting to know Him, loving Him, dancing with Him.
On Christmas, He came to earth...a new place where nothing was familiar; where sin RULED - and He knew no sin! He came to earth, and His world as God was ROCKED. He left His Father, the only other One who "spoke His language," the only other One with His same perfect innocence. The only One who really knew Him. And the road ahead was long and all unfamiliar.

Quite possibly (in my head, I would say this for sure right now) Christmas was the day Christ made His biggest sacrifice for us. It was the first day He left everything behind; the first of many days. He would live with no break to go touch His Father...touch His face...or just go sit across the table from Him and have coffee.

Yes, His death was definitely a sacrifice - pain and abuse all climaxed at that one point.
But, His death was also His flight home. His mission was finished. His Father was just moments away! Hope must have double climaxed: 'For the JOY set before Him, He endured the cross!'

Yes, for the joy set before Him. Uh, what I would do right now for a flight home...

But, like Christ on Christmas, I am not with you, my family, for the first time. It is a great sacrifice. I say that to brag on Christ. I'm comin' home soon! Christ had a lifetime to live.

His sacrifice at Christmas makes me grateful. He is the One I want as MY Savior. It brings me to tears that He would be away from home for so many years for my salvation's sake. What a Savior we have.

I love you so much. Christ loves you more.

'I just can't wait to be home.'
Pauline


Merry Christmas to you and your family. I pray you find yourselves safe, warm, and with all the ones you love the most.

I Want to be Loved Like That

I'm home for Christmas!
When mom and dad woke up thismorning, they found my dog, Duke, whimpering on his haunches, begging to go downstairs where I sleep.
I remember when we first got him 9 years ago. He was a puppy, howling outside my bedroom window during the warm nights. I would go outside to hold him and sing to him, thinking it might calm him down.
He thought he was a lapdog long after he had surpassed the lapdog weight limit. But there's something about affection that, to me, just seems wrong to turn down, no matter how uncomfortable it may sometimes be. When ya get love, take it! That's my simple logic that allowed him to stay on my lap as long as he liked.
One Sunday afternoon, we came home and Duke's eyes had changed. They were cloudy and translucent, like an experimental eighth grade boy's eyes do when he saunters into the classroom 20 minutes late after lunch period. Duke had swallowed rat poison and was falling all over himself. I burst into tears, my dad called the vet, and I held him on my lap, sobbing all the way to town.
He made it home, and from that day on, everywhere I go in the house, I find him trailing close behind.
Duke and I began running together to train for volleyball season the summer of my Sophomore year. The summer was hot, but I couldn't let that keep me from my varsity dreams. Duke couldn't either. We would run, most often, in the middle of the day when the sun was the hottest.
One morning, I noticed Duke was struggling to walk - he opted not to mostly, but when he did, it was one pathetic limp.
"Uh oh, Boy. What's up?"
The pads of his feet were burnt and shredded. So much running on the hot pavement had torn his feet to bits.
"Oohhh! I am so sorry, Duke! ...Okay, you're not coming running today."
I put my running shoes on and went to go out the door. He knew what was up and wasn't happy about it. He came running to the door to go with me. I shut the door tightly behind me to hear him yelp and squirm just on the other side, and I ran down the road, I could hear him yelping from the window just as clearly.
Halfway through my run, I heard a car following closely behind. It was my mom with Duke in the passenger's seat.
"He wasn't gonna shut up," she said, rolling down his window halfway. She was going to follow me around with him so he'd at least feel close.
He put his paws up on the window, but that didn't last long. Soon, he riggled his way out of the moving car, jumped out and began trotting beside me.
If you could have seen his feet, you'd know more of his sacrifice.
I can't repay him for that, but...it's funny, I do often try - laying with him on his pillow and rubbing his ears at night. I'm one of those weird people who talks to their dog like he's a human. I tell him I love him at least 20 times a day.
Here he is at my feet, being near to me while I type.
...I want to be loved like that.
I am loved like that.

Beauty

Sitting in a fluffy chair amongst the colorful mugs and Christmas lights at Starbucks, I found myself thinking about beauty.
Ladies long for beauty from the time we are three, slipping into mom's heels, spraying grandma's perfume and rubbing on way too much rouge. We buy magazines at the counter - a 3.99 bargain to study Catherine Zeta-Jones' radiance and get workout tips from Kate Hudson! We dream of the dress we'll wear on our wedding day before we really ever consider dating.
The sight of beauty makes men giddy. Depending on the type of man, on seeing a beautiful women, they might let out a cat call or ask her for a date.

These are simplistic, Americanized examples of beauty. I don't mean to limit it - these are just a few of millions of examples I could give.
The point is, no matter who and where we are, beauty calls for us - demands our attention. It's an undeniable force that draws us in and makes us do things we wouldn't, had its sight and scent never crossed our path. It moves us.

What is beauty? Can it be defined?
I wonder if scientists have given it a go?
If I thought about it long enough, I think I could come up with an okay definition. It probably wouldn't be shared by anybody else, and I'd probably change my mind the next time I saw something beautiful, as it wouldn't fit into the cage I'd tried to put it in before. I don't think it's something we try and tame...We know it when we see it, don't we? Is that one of the beauties of beauty?
Beauty. I wonder what it is? I wonder why the desire for it is inate?
The thought of it gave me a strange, surprising confidence as I sat there in Starbucks. I do seek for The Truth and desire not to be blinded from it by my background and cultural traditions. Sometimes that means I get sidetracked by this world and focus too strongly on things I can see.
Beauty is one heavenly evidence to seek past things as they seem.