So we’ve spent the week sick, taking turns of course, so it lasts longer. We started on Monday night and, if current trends continue, should finish up Saturday or Sunday. So it’s been tiring and pretty much nothing this week went how I pictured it would. But it wasn’t the worst week of my life, either. That’s always nice. I’m sad I didn’t really get to spend as much time with family as I wanted, but…there’s always next year. (When we’ll come down with another bug…) And Advent was definitely less “meaningful” when you’re getting fevered stares while you’re talking. Or cleaning up puke. Sunday night, after a foiled attempt to attend the candlelight service, we exchanged gifts with each other — well, each person got a little something for someone else — it was pretty fun. The kids really enjoyed getting gifts for each other.

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD;
   my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
   he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
   and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise
   to sprout up before all the nations.

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!

Isaiah 51:3

For the LORD comforts Zion;
   he comforts all her waste places
and makes her wilderness like Eden,
   her desert like the garden of the LORD;
joy and gladness will be found in her,
   thanksgiving and the voice of song.

Isaiah 42:9-10

Behold, the former things have come to pass,
    and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
   I tell you of them.” 
Sing to the LORD a new song,
   his praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
    the coastlands and their inhabitants.

Isaiah 55.12-13

 ”For you shall go out in joy
   and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
   shall break forth into singing,
   and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
   instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the LORD,
   an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

…I got to cuddle with my kids
…they are just sick with something annoying and not something serious
…they got to celebrate “Christmas Eve” (OK, a little early) with my family in spite of being sick — I would have been so sad to do it without them
…I have a DVR. And PBS. And a Veggie Tale movie from the library.
…my bed has an electric blanket. Which makes me feel like an old lady. But a very warm old lady.
…my son is kind and sensitive and he loves Jesus and I like being with him
…chiles rellanos exist. And my mother knows how to make them
…there are so many good stories in the world and enough good storytellers
…I have snow tires. And “StabiliTrak”. Whatever that is
…my family is great and we like each other and they make me laugh and that is a wonderful thing
…someone invented washable markers
…God gives us joy even when we try to look for it in other places

Isaiah 25.1

O LORD, you are my God;
    I will exalt you; I will praise your name,
for you have done wonderful things,
    plans formed of old, faithful and sure.

I can rejoice in the present, whatever my circumstances, because God HAS done good things and has, from long ago, decided to give me good things.

Isaiah 60:18

Violence shall no more be heard in your land,
   devastation or destruction within your borders;
you shall call your walls Salvation,
   and your gates Praise.

I love how the walls of salvation are what protect us and that the gates of praise are part of that wall.

Isaiah 63:7

 I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD,
   the praises of the LORD,
according to all that the LORD has granted us,
    and the great goodness to the house of Israel
that he has granted them according to his compassion,
   according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

It is God’s goodness and grace that earned for us our blessings…we did not earn or acquire them ourselves. We can rest and rejoice in this. 

Isaiah 25:9

It will be said on that day,
   ”Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
   This is the LORD; we have waited for him;
    let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

I like that this call to praise is before the deliverance, the salvation. What faith!

Isaiah 29:19

The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD,
   and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

Fresh joy. I love that. Not old joy, faithful joy, hand-me-down joy — fresh joy.

Isaiah 48:20

Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea,
   declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it,
send it out to the end of the earth;
   say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

I kind of like the idea of standing out on my deck and proclaiming in a loud voice, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Michelle!”

Isaiah 49:13

 Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
   break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people
   and will have compassion on his afflicted.

Tidings of comfort and joy!

Isaiah 51:11

And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
   and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
   they shall obtain gladness and joy,
   and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

I like the picture of sorrow and sighing high-tailing it out of here.

Isaiah 52:7-9

 How beautiful upon the mountains
   are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
   who publishes salvation,
   who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;
   together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see
   the return of the LORD to Zion.
Break forth together into singing,
    you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the LORD has comforted his people;
   he has redeemed Jerusalem.

A favorite passage, for sure, the image of a messenger running back to the city to report success, the victorious king following closely behind.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
   he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
   and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
   to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
   the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;

Isaiah 61.1-3

We have three nativity sets here, and right now, they all have one thing in common: baby Jesus is nowhere to be found.

And sadly, that has been more characteristic of my Advent season than I had pictured. I got busy with my special Advent plans and my special Advent blog and finishing my special little study of Isaiah: and then when I noticed this similarity in the nativity sets, I knew baby Jesus had been missing from more of my Advent that I intended.

But my first thought was not guilt or regret or shoulda-coulda-woulda, my first thought was my word for this week: rejoice. Rejoice because I have already been forgiven for my oversight, for replacing sitting at Jesus’ feet in friendship and worship with “theology” and good plans. Rejoice because this is exactly what baby Jesus came for: my faithlessness and error. Rejoice because I’ve been given another chance, a fresh new day to change things, to invite Jesus to be present…even if the nativity baby Jesuses won’t be found until a month from now.

I am already so excited to have nearly a full week to rejoice. This verse in Isaiah talks about the garment of praise, which I’ve already mentioned indicates character and true nature: this week, I want to remember to be praise. To be praise when I eat breakfast and be praise when I watch the accumulating inches of snow and be praise when my kids puke and be praise when they are running around like crazy, bored monkeys. A while back I had been wondering about the different ways we worship, and how for most of us, worship takes place in the mundane: well, I want to have the most mundane of weeks, mundane and full of rejoicing.

Being ”information geeks” we went to one of the presentations the park rangers did, describing what the dogs did and how useful they were in park operations during the winter, etc. They ended with a demonstration of the dogs pulling a sled — sans snow, since it was the end of August. When they pulled the sled and harnesses out, something unusual happened: all the dogs in their kennels, barely visible to us in the presentation area, began running to the ends of their chains towards the park ranger making the sled selection, and they all started barking and howling. I don’t speak dog, but I believe this could have been roughly translated as, “Pick me! Pick me!”

The dogs who were selected to pull the sled could barely contain themselves. They were shivering with joy and excitement. The sled driver barely had to signal and these dogs were off and running. They did a few laps around the grounds and when they stopped, I’m pretty sure I heard one of them say “Awwwww, over already?!”

I have never seen anything so born to do what they do: these dogs were born to pull sleds. What seemed to me like a ton of work, was pure joy for them.

I wanted to “give rest” this week, in some small way, and so yesterday I brought dinner to some people who I thought could use a small “rest” from making dinner for their families.

And I had so much fun. I am pretty sure of all the people affected by the situation, I got the most enjoyment out of it.  And it was surprisingly easy. Granted, I kinda took some mass-production shortcuts on the chicken. And I used sauce from a jar and pre-grated cheese and didn’t even make my own bread. But considering that I made dinner for seven families (including my own) and didn’t feel like a major production? Nice!

I mentioned before that I love people with food. Which would be correctly interpretted any way you read the sentence. But, for my purposes here, I will stick with the interpretation that means “I show love to people by feeding them”. This comes easily and naturally for me and brings me joy.

Now calling people up on the phone to chat? SCARY. Being with people I don’t know well? WORK. Being a thoughtful listener and caring, likable person? EXHAUSTING. Suggest getting together? We’ll move that to tomorrow’s to-do list, OK?

I have spent a lot of time trying to love people like everyone else loves people. Like everyone else says we’re supposed to love people. And while I realize that God often asks us to step outside our natural inclination and gifting, I think that when we do what we were built to do it brings him great joy. I can picture him grinning and saying, “Ha, ha! There’s my girl, Michelle. I put this special thing inside her that makes her want to feed people she knows. This creating business is such clever and original work. And look! She’s doing it and see how happy she is?”

So all that is to say, making chicken yesterday made me realize how restful and refreshing it is to be who God created me to be. And how stressful and tiring it is when I am trying to be someone else because I feel pressured to from others or because I’m comparing myself to them and not feeling like I measure up. I like that we’re all designed to serve and love in different ways, but sometimes I forget to enjoy God’s creativity.

The technical snags in the project came quickly and with force. My laptop flipped. The ZIP drive wasn’t working right. The program I was using was not compatible with the printer. In fact, it seemed nothing was compatible with anything. As the hours and days went on, it was one frustration after another. And I was completely frazzled.

Part way through the week, after a morning bonding with IBM tech support, I was waiting to something to start working right. I was stressed out; my wheels were spinning. I was a ball of frantic energy. My aunt could not have been more calm and peaceful.

I remember sitting there in the lunchroom where I was working, when she came in to see how I was doing. I told her things weren’t getting anywhere. And she wondered aloud to me, if perhaps this little project wasn’t necessary, that maybe God had other plans for the week, that maybe we didn’t need to be trying so hard, stressing out and forcing it to happen. Then she prayed with me about it.

I wish I could remember exactly what she said, her exact perspective that so dramatically both comforted and confronted me, but I only remember what it felt like: it was like blindly stumbling around frantically in a hurricane and then instantly walking through a door to a quiet, warm and cozy room with an overstuffed chair and a good book sitting next to it. And realizing that the quiet room was reality and the hurricane was my own creation.

I am learning to recognize my self-made hurricanes. The words “faith” and “frantic” don’t go together…and so when I am characterized by the last, I know I’m in trouble.

Isaiah 28.16 says,

therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion,
   a stone, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:
   ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

These words refer to the people of Israel scurrying around trying to secure political protection from their enemy: it was madness and fruitless all at once. And I am all to familiar with that feeling.

Later, Isaiah says, in 30.15

thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel,”In returning and rest you shall be saved;
   in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

And earlier, in 26.3-4, 12

You keep him in perfect peace
   whose mind is stayed on you,
   because he trusts in you.
Trust in the LORD forever,
   for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
…O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,
   for you have indeed done for us all our works.

Our action, even when it is choosing inaction, has to be characterized by rest. By peace. By trust. It is there that we find our rescue, there that we find our true strength.

No, really, I can’t wait. Or at least, I am not very good at it. I can’t wait till after dinner to eat cookies, so I get that done before dinner. I can’t wait to check my email and favorite blogs and Facebook in the morning, even if there are hundred things I should be doing instead. Half the time I can’t wait for my kids to put their shoes on before heading out the door. I am, however, very good at waiting to clean the bathroom or iron last week’s — or was it last month’s? — laundry.

And that’s just the stuff that doesn’t really matter. There are those occasional emails I send off, asking some “important” question, and I am a tangle inside until I hear back. And couple years ago when we were actively looking for a house and it took a year and half? I only checked the MLS every three hours.

Really, I have  not had to wait for much in life; I know that. But those times I have, it is hard work. It is exhausting. It is amazing how “doing nothing” can have that effect on your emotions, mind and body, but we all identify with the “sickness” that waiting for something big can often bring.

Isaiah 40.30-31 says,

Even youths shall faint and be weary,
   and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
   they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
   they shall walk and not faint.

Whatever it is we are waiting for, when we can shift our perspective into waiting on God, we are promised rest. That’s kinda what trust does: those inside tangles slow down when we recognize we are in the care of an all-powerful God. And when we stop fighting the wait, stop working so hard and wasting energy on hurrying what cannot be hurried…we find rest. We find renewed energy to wait, or to proceed as God would direct.

And beyond gaining an ability in the moment, Isaiah 64.4 says,

From of old no one has heard
   or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
   who acts for those who wait for him.

We can rest because God promises to “act for those who wait for him.” God doesn’t just promise an ooey-gooey feeling, an ability to make it through the tough times, he promises an outcome. He promises action on our behalf. There is real, and not just imagined or felt, strength and rest in waiting on God.