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Thursday, December 24, 2015

The Sacrifice of Time

This year (and really every year) for Christmas, the top of my wishlist was a hand written letter, followed relatively closely behind by hugs and boxtops-for-education.  I am a pretty basic kind of girl in my wants and thought my list was easy to accomplish because it’s wicked cheap and affordable compared to many other potential gifts.  Save your money and write your words/thoughts instead was what I said. 

But this season particularly, it has been abundantly clear that though my request requires very little money invested, it is still a hard gift for others to want to give.  As one friend put it in her letter to me this year, “A letter-a letter takes time; a letter takes thought; a letter takes heart.” 

It is much easier to browse a store, find a Joy mug, fill it with candy and wrap it up than it is to sit down with paper and pen and write a letter.  And I get it, I am a 28 year old anomaly.  I don’t have a husband or kids rivaling for my attention.  I’ve got loads of quiet hours to myself and can pause Netflix for a quiet moment unlike my friends who are still searching for the mute button on their own children.  Letter writing is not as much of an opportunity cost for me as it is for my loved ones so I try my very best to be understanding.  And I am oh so thankful for those who do take the time to write up personal messages on a pre-fab Christmas card or take up with paper and pen and write a hand written note to slip into an envelope to be sent on its way to me.  I even have students this year who put personal messages in their cards to me….these sweet personalized messages mean so very much to me. 

The thought…the intent…the words…the heart…..the sacrifice of time…It is noted and I am so thankful for it.  I am thankful for the other gifts and the pre-feb cards too.  They remind me to be thankful for the gift of friendships and human connections and to remember to keep in mind both giving and receiving languages of love.  I love receiving letters but I also love giving them….but maybe those who receive them from me would have been happier about a practical gift or a monetary contribution.  I guess it’s all a balance and finding how to be love someone else balancing “being myself” with “preferring one another in love” (Romans 12:10 & Philippians 2:3) 

But speaking of sacrifice, this is a time of the year where Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  I know you’d think more sacrifice equating with Easter, and it does, but I think it’s fair to bring it into the Christmas story too.  Jesus sacrificed His oneness with God to take on the flesh of a human and to be “with us” (Matt. 1:23).  His life and ministry here on earth took time, heart and thought as He poured into humans relationally, educationally, through healing and ultimately through dying, providing the only everlasting cure to the disease to which we all suffer being sin.  His written Word, the Bible took the time of several, cost many men their lives, and yet it remains a beautiful “letter”, if you will, giving insight from the past, application for the present and hope for the future through Jesus Christ, the Lord. 

So as Christmas is just around the bend, let us be thankful for the gifts that may be around the tree and the gifts of family and friendship shared across the board, but may we not lose sight of the best gift of all, wrapped not in wrapping paper, but in scraps of cloth and not placed under a tree, but laid in a feeding trough, so that He could come to this world to save you and me.  Thank God for His sacrifice for all time through Jesus Christ.

John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

Until next time,
Merry Christmas and wishing you a happy new year,

Joy Lynn

Monday, December 7, 2015

Help me to find Joy

Sometimes I sit curled up in a ball, looking up, enclosed by all these walls…walls I built to bury me away, walls I built, to keep the curious at bay. 

Other times I stand upon a trestle high, looking up I can see the sky, but looking down to the cold hard ground, I see the hole where I’m often found. 

Day by day, week by week, I never quite know where moment by moment I will be, mountain high or valley low, some days fast and other days slow.

Roller coaster, can you subside, let me off the track and take a rest this one time, to find my footing and steady my nerves, to give me the courage to face the next few curves?  

Dear God, please, help me to be, steady and strong even when I am utterly weak, for I’m crippled and broken and used up, You know, so please, if You are willing, make me whole.

But if not, help me to be, at least able to deal with what’s right in front of me and give me hope and rest and lasting peace.

For I’ve knocked on many doors, but You must have the key, so help me find the Joy, that I was purposefully named to be. 


Joy Lynn