I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
Okay, ONE LAST Advent letter đ
|
Hi Friends, Itâs been a healing Advent season for me, looking into the birth of Christ with the unique lens of Him lifting off spiritual anxiety. I have loved hearing about some of your stories and the unique ways the Lord is meeting you and bringing you healing as well. This is the last letter in this Advent series, and the message is this: You donât have to move on from the manger just yet. God lived among us â a newborn baby, a child, a young man simply working with his hands, studying, going to sleep each night. He is Emmanuel. God with us. I know many of us have lived with a heaviness on our shoulders. Perhaps youâve been taught the Bible, even good things, that came with a manufactured urgency. Maybe youâve sat under teaching where wholeheartedness was equated with overwork. If youâre feeling harried and wind-blown by circumstances, or if youâre feeling waves of anxiety in your spiritual life, perhaps the manger is right where you need to camp out. The church calendar moves us through the life of Christ in a 12 month sequence so we get a chance to see it all and stand in wonder. But if you feel like you need permission to slow down and stay at the manger for longer than Christmas week, here it is: Jesus Himself didnât move on so quickly. He didnât skip over the newborn stage, didnât bypass childhood. He lived it in real time. Yes, the Incarnation happened at the speed of man. Your life is meant to be lived at the speed of man, too. The world will move on. The pace of lifeâs treadmill will ratchet up in the next couple weeks. But you donât have to. Itâs here â taking in this face, these tiny fingers that are willingly dependent â here a pressure lifts from our hearts. Itâs here we exchange hurry, hurry, hurry for holy, holy, holy. Itâs here we tuck the meager blanket of our love around Him and see He eagerly receives it. Itâs here that we see our ordinary lives are enough. For Unto us â the heavy laden with anxiety running through our veins â a Child is born. Unto us a Son is given. Heâs come to free the captives, to bind up the hearts of the broken. Heâs come to heal and to save. And yes, to lift off the heavy weight. What good news. What great joy. Hallelujah. â Anna |
Anna Blanc
I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
Hi Friends, We pretend to be experts, you and I. We pretend to be vinedressers. We offer to Him what we are sure is treasure, and we sweep what looks to be rubbish under the rug. We take up the pruning sheers. We are a mess, and we know it. So we cut and we slice and we prune till we can stand back and feel pride, as though we have established some sense of order. But maybe we have not established order. Maybe we have merely cut off all that was growing. Thereâs one vinedresser, and Heâs our...
Hi Friends, Have you ever noticed how quickly we decide what matters? Whoâs successful. Whoâs influential. Whose life is âmaking an impact.â We see the titles, the platform⌠and without even realizing it, we start assigning value. But God does something completely different. He takes what seems valuable in the eyes of man and turns it on its head. His ways are so very different than ours. Turns out, He put the most valuable thing of all completely out of sight. It doesnât matter if you are...
Hi Friends, Last night I stepped out onto the back deck. To be honest, I was escaping the thunderous noise (oh the noise!) of three boys who felt bedtime looming and were attempting to squeeze just a few more minutes of play out the day. I stepped out into what has been one of the first warm evenings of the year, heard the birds singing in the forest beyond our yard, and I had what felt like an involuntary reaction. It felt like when the doctor hits your knee just right and you get surprised...