Peacefulness.....

Carissa

One Snowy Afternoon

Our snowy backyard. It is a lovely, crunchy walk up back. The noise of the village fades and the quiet of a bare forest is very peaceful.

But then the quiet is broken by silly giggles and the snapping of branches as two girls go tumbling through the woods. This is perfect fort building weather. Of course, when is it ever not perfect fort building weather when you are 11 years old?

The master architect and her impressive lean-to.

Two silly girls walking home from the post office with me and singing a rendition of

"We Wish You A Merry Christmas".

Oh, we are not that strange, Poland people....really.... :) Just 11 years old and full of life.

Carissa

Ordinary

It's all so very ordinary.

The bare facts offer little to jazz up this story.

9 months pass from the day of conception, and a baby is born. Ordinary. It's happened this way for hundreds of years.

This birth takes place as normal. The usual contractions give the warning signal, and the labor progresses as always. Ordinary.

How ordinary that little baby must have looked. The wrinkly skin, the impossibly small features, the little mouth all twisted up in the first wail of shock over the cold world outside the womb.

Now every birth is a miracle, don't get me wrong. Life is an extraordinary gift from God.

But it seems almost bizarre that THIS birth should be ordinary.

That it should be like every other birth before it.

I suppose that it's pretty ironic that it's the sheer ordinariness that blows my mind.

It's really no wonder that there was confusion and disbelief. I mean after all, the God of the Jews was the God who spoke this universe into existence.

He was the God who parted the Red Sea and rained manna from heaven.

The God who sent His idolatrous people into captivity as judgement on their sin.

And He was the God who was going to send a Messiah to save them from the oppressive Roman Empire.

Yes. This was the extraordinary thing that they were waiting for.

What a startling shift of events.

As heaven rushed to meet earth in the most incredible event of all time...it was almost totally missed. It happened quietly. After all, who would have expected the God of the universe to be humbly born of a woman, and in a cow barn no less? Isn't that rather sacrilegious? It took humanity by surprise.

What WAS this? A helpless Infant being rocked to sleep in the arms of a teenage girl.

I can almost seen a divine sense of humor here. God has no problem in disappointing the expectations of men to work His own mysterious, sovereign will.

This was it.

All of history reached it's peak at the first cry of a newborn Baby. This ordinary event changed everything.

Everything.

And in God's amazing and unsearchable way, the ordinariness simply added to the extraordinariness.

"God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill

He treasures up His bright designs

And works His sovereign will."

~William Cowper~

Merry Christmas

posted by Lydia

Homey Kinds of Things

Still trying to finish all my mittens before the big day!

Some Christmas cards I've made...

one of my favorite Christmas ornaments...

lavender with all its new branches stretching toward the sun....

my newest love :).....

Margret over for tea.

posted by: Caroline