Merry Christmas Everyone!

Since my last post, I have added ribbon and ornaments to all of my garland.  As a matter of fact, I placed all of my parent’s ornaments in all of my garland.  When I look at them, I can’t help but smile.

I wanted to show you an updated version of our garland now that it is decorated, but that isn’t why I’m writing today.  Honestly, I have tried to write at least 5 blog posts since the last one I published.  I started them — just to leave them abandoned as drafts.  Sigh.

I have been in a strange place.  More change has taken place in my family.   A dear family member is now in a skilled nursing facility because of her inability to care for herself.   It makes me sad for her — for all of us — but mostly her children.  I know what they are going through — especially the daughter.   I guess it has me remembering a lot about the days with my own Mom and Dad.  The constant running back and forth — feeling pulled in 50 directions.  I didn’t even realize how stressed I was until it was all over.   My blood pressure was up at the time (nice and healthy now) and I even experienced shingles.  Crazy!   So perhaps the memories of that last year in particular are better left alone.    I have said it before — NOTHING can prepare you  to become the parent in the relationship with your own parents.    God can carry you through, but there is no way to prepare your heart.

With all of that said … I have felt complacent.  Almost stuck in neutral.   I remember receiving a prophetic word (about two years ago).  The pastor said that I felt like my transmission was stuck in neutral.   He was definitely seeing into the future.  Over the past couple of years I thought I had already hit that spot, but now I realize that THIS is the season he was seeing.   So, how does someone knock themselves spiritually back into DRIVE?   I don’t know!

Every time I read scripture I cry.  I should probably be spending more time in God’s Word to melt off this complacent wax shield.   It is hard to explain.   This morning, out of obedience to push myself back in the right direction I read Isaiah 53.  This chapter is well-known to many of us.

Isaiah 53

Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him,
    nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem.

Surely He took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered Him punished by God,
    stricken by Him, and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions,
    He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on Him,
    and by His wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on Him
    the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open His mouth;
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so He did not open His mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away.
    Yet who of His generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people He was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in His death,
though He had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in His mouth.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes His life an offering for sin,
He will see his offspring and prolong His days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
After He has suffered,
    He will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by His knowledge My righteous servant will justify many,
    and He will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great,
    and He will divide the spoils with the strong,
because He poured out His life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For He bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

I am linking with Beth at Simply Beth for her Three Word Wednesday gathering.

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