Desert bars and ties

There was a Christmas party at our gym last night: We took the twins with us who were excited to get dressed up. I ran into a pickleball comrade and she says to the boys “oh you’re so handsome all dressed up....I think there’s some girls over there who may be interested in you”

Darby replies:

“I think there’s a dessert bar over there I’m interested in”

Now I know I’ve raised him right

The "worst" Christmas gift I ever got

It was Christmas 1999, I was 22 years old with a 9 month old Zoe. I worked nights ,waiting tables, sporting a fashionable blue apron smock dress at the clover bar dive in grand haven Michigan . My then husband, who id met just a few years prior after selling him and his friends acid at a “peace” festival in Lowell Michigan , was still pretty heavy into the drug thing. We had just returned from a few years of phish tour, snowboarding for a season In Colorado and then living in a green 1969 converted schoolbus.

We went from chaos to a rented duplex and a baby trying to figure out how Christmas was supposed to work for normal people.

On Christmas Eve, John decided he would get me a Christmas gift, and so he went to meijers late at night to figure something out. The next morning there were at least 12 wrapped boxes for me sitting under the tree.

When I opened the first box it was a small ceramic statue of two people walking with winter gear on. I thought “ okay,” that’s a weird gift but it’s okay, there’s still 11 more to open! When I opened the next one....it was another statue of people doing some other winter activity. After I opened my third gift and found it to be a small Swiss village type house, I realized what was happening. And dread fell over me . Yes, I received an entire winter village from my local grocery store that Christmas.

As a snotty and selfish 22 year old, I was pretty disappointed. Johns mom had a winter village in his home as a kid. So, for him, this is what normal was on Christmas and he was trying to give me something his mom always loved. At 22, I wasn’t ready yet to be that normal. I returned the entire village.

Last year, after my grandpa died, my grandma wanted to get rid of my grandpas 50 year train collection . We took some village and ceramic winter pieces and stuffed them in a box. This year, I bought that white snowy batting and set it up.

And yesterday, I was at ....can you guess where?? Yes, Meijers of all places, searching for some village pieces to add to the collection. I’d wished I had those 12 pieces from 20 years ago!! I think I’ve finally arrived at the stage in my life where I can appreciate a good winter village at Christmas. So sorry to Jonathan LaMaire that I never appreciated the gift 🎁. I realize , this season at 42, what a great gift it actually was!!

And meijers doesn’t even sell those winter village pieces anymore 😞 , I wished I’d kept it!!!

Salted with Fire

Heres a touchy subject we don't like to discuss much. I'm reading through the gospel of Mark the last few days....as much as we don't like to talk about hell , and we evangelize in complete discomfort that the topic would come up...Jesus talks alot about it. He talks more about hell, and more vividly, then he does about Heaven. Now, I'm not advocating you go around to your neighbors and friends and complete strangers and tell them all they're going to hell, please don't do that. I know people do that, I've heard it from others who've experienced it, and Ive always recoiled as I hear their stories. So I'm included this group of Christians who feel uncomfortable with the evangelism of preaching hell myself. But I can't avoid the reality that Jesus talks about it.....ALOT.

So I come across Mark 42, the temptations to sin , theres alot of talk about hell and he vividly describes it as a place where the "fire is not quenched and the worm never dies". On a side bar, he uses the word Gehenna to describe hell which some scholars say was an actual place of refuse in Israel (what the people considered trash). It supposedly was used for household garbage, corpses of criminals, and its even said that some kings of Judah would sacrifice their children there to foreign gods. It was a place known to have a continually burning fire and maggots....so its a good metaphor of a real place they understood in describing a spiritual place of eternal torment and separation from God. You can study up on it if youre interested. The strange quote Jesus uses is actually speaking directly of what the prophet Isaiah prophesied almost 800 years earlier in the very last book of Isaiah (66:24)

Anyways, this "fire is not quenched" was really standing out to me...then I get to what follows "For everyone will be salted with fire" (Mark 42:49)

And we know that salt is good for the believer! Its a preservative, and the gospels speak alot about salt. we're called to be salt and light. (Matthew 5:13-16)

So we're salted with fire?! So I'm really meditating on this line because I think its brilliant actually. How do we get this salt that we're called to have and be? How are we salty? (btw- did you know the word for salary comes from the word salt?) Have you heard the term "worth their salt"? salt was valuable is ancient days, and was actually used as currency. But we get "salted with fire"...and hell is full of "unquenchable fire".

So I do think that all of us, and it IS a blessing, experience a salting of hell...trials, tribulations, persecutions, effects of our sin, discipline from God. We are "salted with fire"...we are sprinkled with the refining fire of hell. But why? I think thats where our salt comes from, experiencing the salting of fire from hell while we're alive on this earth. We escape the unquenchable fire, the salt preserves us. It gives us a taste of the pain of hell and a reason to hope for a future where it doesn't exist., and its what draws us to the mercy and comfort and peace of Gods forgiveness.

"But if salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again" -Jesus

Perhaps this is why we face continual persecution when we become believers. We need the persecution, the reminder of what we're ultimately being saved from eternally...that feeling of being salted with fire. Its temporary...it lasts while we're walking the earth in this lifetime. But it doesn't carry over to eternity. It preserves us UNTIL eternity and God calls us home.

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4

So thank God for the pain and persecution and discipline while you're alive on this earth. Its good for us...it keeps us salty. Its not forever. Now, the "unquenchable fire" of hell....thats forever. So work out your salvation with fear and trembling, and make peace with God today. "Yield now and be at peace with Him; Thereby good will come to you."- Job 22:21

elf on the shelf

I knew two years ago I was at the end of my rope with this elf on the shelf when I put him in the blender one night after my twins went to bed. I stood there really contemplating hard about just turning it on and ending the misery of having to come up with a new inventive scheme almost every night after four Christmas seasons in a row. I was out of elf scheming ideas and this looked like an opportunity to be out of the lie. I didn't kill the elf that night. But, a year later, and on Christmas day after opening present, I exposed the entire operation to my twins; all those fabricated components of Christmas. I couldn't handle the burden of keeping up the charade any longer. It felt really good.

There was some fallout though ...Miles asked how he could trust me with anything now knowing I'd lied all these years...what about Jesus?...perhaps I was also lying about Him too. I'm glad he asked those questions; and here's why:

I don't want any of my kids faith to be predicated on my faith. Don't believe it just because I told you it...learn it for yourself.

"Let Gods word be true and every man a liar" Romans 3:4....that includes me! I'm included in "every man"

Test the evidence for yourself and make your own conclusion.

Have you ever asked someone how they came to believe in Jesus and they said "I was just raised that way, so Ive always believed it". I don't ever want that to be my kids testimony. I pray they have a moment where they come to faith on their own after intense scrutiny and questioning. I find that people who don't test the evidence on their own and just rely on the people around them tend to have weaker faith than the ones who question and doubt the claims of the church until the light goes on with the prompting and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

So I'm glad my kids see me for who I am...a fraud who concocted a series of magical elf and Santa scenarios. And I'm also glad I don't have to continue with the ruse :) And now, I'm even more excited to see how God will present Himself to my kids and draw them to faith outside of me...true and real and lasting faith. I don't believe He has moments where he wants to put us in a blender and liquify us...His patience and mercy is much greater than mine. So, cheers this Christmas season to the beauty of a real and authentic Christmas in celebrating the birth of Christ! And cheers to me as a parent from my newfound freedom from the elf!!!