Today I did something I never expected to at the age of 39.  As if it wasn’t bad enough my mother in law could tease me about being on medicare.  Today I was able to call her and give her a really big laugh.  I signed up for my medicare part D prescription drug coverage.   Which program did I choose?  The AARP plan, that’s right, the American Association or Retired Persons.  At 39 I have AARP medicare Part D, and I chose that simply because it was the best plan for me and my medications, not for any other reason.  So allow the teasing to begin.

For those of you who don’t know how medicare part D works, there is something called THE GAP!  This is when you reach your maximum allowed coverage pay out and you pay for all of your medications.  This is also known as “the donut hole”.  So I am now in phase 1, or approaching the gap, and not looking forward to it! No one on medicare part D does.  If however it really was about donut holes, it might not be so bad, maybe that’s why someone coined the phrase “donut hole”, so it wouldn’t sound so bad.  Wouldn’t it be nice if everything bad in life had a name that made it sound better.  Now once you reach the gap, you can eventually bridge this gap, by paying enough in the gap to reach the next phase, called catastrophic coverage.  At the point part D kicks back in, and you are nearly fully covered.

So after I signed up, I had this term “The Gap” stuck in my head, and I thought to myself  “in reality we are all approaching the gap”.  This gap has to do with the gap between us and God however, and for some of us the gap has been bridged, and for others it hasn’t.  Why is that?  The gap has been bridged with the required payment, however, like medicare part D, we must sign up to get the coverage, it isn’t automatic.  The coverage is provided by Christ who died on the cross for us, and that death pays the penalty needed to bridge the gap.  That gap is caused by our sin, and we must confess that sin and admit our need for the coverage to receive it.  Problem is, not every one is willing to admit their sin, they like to call sin different things, give it nicer names or ignore it all together.  Unless someone admits the gap exists, confesses their sin, trusts in Christ to bridge the gap through His death on the cross, the gap will remain.

I know the gap exists, but for me the gap has been covered, Christ has covered it for me.  Only in Him can it be covered.  Unlike with medicare part D, we cannot pay enough to bridge the gap on our own.  If Christ has not bridged the gap for you ask yourself if you desire for the gap to be bridged.  I encourage you to do so by going to the Lord and recognizing that the gap exists, admitting that your sin has created it, and trusting in Christ’s death to bridge it.

It is done. All the preparation, all the shopping, all the wrapping, all the baking the cooking the eating, and the stress.  The one day a year we spend the most time preparing for that seems to go by the fastest in a sea of paper and food.  Now today we begin dealing with the aftermath.  The leftovers, the boxes, new toys all over the house, and for some the bills for all of it.  The next step, removing all of the evidence in our homes from the stockings, to the tree.  Then will come the outdoor lights, unless of course yours stay up all year.  We will spend hours, or even days, removing all the fringe that went with that one day.

The challenge in doing that is to not remove the importance of that one day from our lives.  That one day is more then the sea of paper and food that it seems to fly by through.  It is the day which we celebrate that our Lord chose to become a man.  A life in which we hold a hope and a promise of eternity with Him, because He chose to come, then later die for us.  Remembering that fact with traditions rather then fringe at Christmas is important, yet we must also continue to remember that once the fringe is removed.  Once we take down the tree and the stockings, once the bows are gone, and the wrapping is thrown away, we must continue to put first that which the Lord has asked of us.

So my challenge, and the challenge for you as well, is to continue living each day focused on that which the Lord has asked of me.  Christmas or not there is going to be fringe in our lives that distracts us from doing that, it just comes in different colors, shapes, sizes, names, and places.  Let’s not allow the fact that we are removing the fringe from our homes, and the fact that Christmas is over, to give any of us a reason to remove Christ as the focus of our lives or our families.  Let us be determined to allow Him to mold us on His anvil as we desire to become more like Him.

My parents are coming for Christmas!  I am so excited because this is my first Christmas in my new house, and the first Christmas since I have been married, we years, that I have been able to have family come to my home for Christmas.  So it is very exciting for me to have them come this year.  The past couple of days we have been getting ready for their arrival, and since we just moved in 2 months ago, there were a few extra things that were still left undone from the move.

We still had a few boxes left in the room they are staying in-done.  We needed to get the bed set up for them-done.  My husband wanted to get a few of the things that were still in the garage taken care of-he is working on that now.  Plus all of the normal things you do when company comes.  Plus shopping for Christmas dinner.  So it has been a bit frenzied the last couple of days because I added on top of that singing in the cantata yesterday.  Then of course while I would be working on doing something I would get distracted, forget what I was doing, then have to go back to it again.  Well they will arrive tomorrow, whether I am ready or not.

In all of this I started thinking, we all tend to get a little frenzied when company is coming to our house.  However, how frenzied are we over the fact that Christ is returning for His church?  He is coming whether we are ready or not.  I for one would very much like to be prepared if He arrives while I am still here.  I want Him to find me doing what He has asked me to be doing, rather then distracted.  He is going to arrive either way, and I pray we are all diligently working on being prepared.

The last few nights it has been so nice to sit in the evening and do what we have done leading up to Christmas every year for the past several years.  We have a tradition in our house of doing the “Adorenaments” from FamilyLife each year.  If you haven’t heard of these they are a set of ornaments that match 12 names of Christ, and on them is printed the scripture reference that goes with it.  Each night leading up to Christmas we get one out, read the reference, and the devotional to go with it.  Then Bryan gets to hang the Adorenament on the tree.

When Bryan was really little we focused on him learning that they were different things that Christ is to us, and that we know that because the bible tells us that.  Now at almost 9, he really understands why Christ has several of these names, and how to even explain them before we read the devotional.  In each of the names of Christ is a promise, and if my son knows them and understands them, then he is going to be able to see God fulfilling those promises in his life.

So each night up until Christmas we will continue doing this, and we will do it again next year.  This is one way we make sure we don’t get caught up in All The Fringe in this house.  My challenge to you-  Ask yourself  “What is my Christ centered Christmas tradition?”

This week has been difficult, frustrating, and has taught me that I am glad I did things the way I did them the past 4 years.  What do I mean by that?

This week I was reminded more then once that we choose whether or not to tell kids the truth about even the simplest things, what information we choose to expose them to, and how we choose to share what we share with them.  I was reminded of that because I was faced with all of those things in a matter of days.  I had to tell my child the truth about pain, the truth about what he was facing, I had to shield him from what he didn’t need to hear, and I had to choose to explain things in ways he could understand without making him think things that were not true.  I also at the same time had to shield him from others who were not doing the same thing–who were not being purposeful with their words, with their language, with their choices.

Purposeful.  My husband and I were purposeful in the last 4 years about how we handled my illness and my surgeries in relation to my son.  How we explained them, how we helped him handle it, how much information and how we shared it with him.  Purposeful.  So this week I again was purposeful in my words when explaining things, in being honest with him.  Purposeful in what information he was exposed to, and how he was exposed to it.  During the week everyone was surprised how well he understood what was going on, and at the same time how well he handled it.  I made a point a being purposeful.

When we are purposeful in our choices we are making a choice in how we act, what we say.  We are thinking about it.  When we are not purposeful that means we are simply allowing it to happen.  Being fully aware of the information that is available for my son in the world I want him to know that in every situation I am always going to be honest with him, that he can trust me, and that I am the one he can count on for information that is reliable.  This week I was able to prove that to him because I was purposeful in my words.  Others around me were not, and I was not surprised when he noticed, and very boldly pointed it out today.

Tired. Right now that describes me.  I should be sleeping not typing, but I wanted to write this while I could post it.  Tonight I will sleep in a hotel, a nice comfy bed with real pillows, and no monitors beeping and going off in the night to keep me up.  Monitors, yes monitors.  Since Monday night, today is Thursday, I have slept in a hospital room with monitors going off, nurses interrupting my sleep, and the sounds of carts in the hallway early in the morning.

This time however all of that noise, and those monitors, were not the result of a hospital stay on my part.  This time it is my son.  He is staying in the hospital to have long term EEG monitoring done to determine why he is having shuttering and drop attacks.  We want to determine if this is due to epileptic activity or some other issue.  He was originally scheduled to get out today, but since he has not had a drop attack yet they wanted him to stay longer in order to attempt to capture one on monitoring.  The last 2 nights they have tried to sleep deprive my son, keeping him up till midnight and waking him at 6 am.  This means I did nearly the same, making me sleep deprived, almost seemed I was more sleep deprived then my son.  This is not so good for an epileptic who is not controlled (my story-Rocky Road).  So tonight my husband came back to town, we live 2 hours from the hospital, so that I could sleep in this nice comfy hotel.  Tired, I am very tired.  You see I know all about those hospital monitors, nurses interrupting your sleep, and carts in the hall early in the morning from my hospital stays.

Despite all of this we know one something in our family–God is God unchanging, and He is with us regardless.  So we will stand on that truth.  I may be tired, but God will never be.

We are all pulling out the trees, putting up the lights, hanging the stockings, and decorating the mantels.  It is officially the Christmas season.  As we drive down street at night more and more homes are adorned with lights.  Have you put yours up yet?  Has your tree made its appearance, filling your living room with color?  Are there any other decorations you put up during the holidays that you just love?

This year I am in my new house.  I put my Christmas village up in it’s brand new location, and I went and bought some brand new decorations for the living room.  The tree is out of storage and waiting to be put up.  All of the snowmen have been taken out of their crates and places around the house where they will stay for winter until the birdhouses reappear.  It definitely looks like Christmas in my home.

Looks–how many of us concentrate really hard on whether our homes look like Christmas?  Here is another more interesting question–does your home look like Christmas to God?  Good question, but what does Christmas look like to God?  To answer that question we must look at what Christmas is.  Christmas is a celebration of the very fact that Christ chose, of His own accord, to become flesh in order to die so that we might know forgiveness of sin.  Yes, that is what Christmas is about.  Christ’s choice to become flesh for us, and the celebration of that.  So, in order for Christmas to look like Christmas to God, He needs to see that celebration in us.  There is only way way that is going to happen, and that is if we know Christ.

So how does God see Christmas in us and in our home?  Through the very fact that we belong to Him, that we are saved by grace because He chose to come as flesh and die for us.  The celebration of Christmas is about that, and the rest of it, all the decorations, the tree, the lights, it’s all fringe.  All the fringe isn’t what pleases God at Christmas.  Sure it is pretty, but the beauty of Christmas is what God sees in us, and that is Christ who lives in us once we believe that He came to earth, died on the cross, and rose for us.  This Christmas enjoy the fringe, but celebrate what God sees in you.

The debate is starting up again, this time over New Moon.  On November 21st on Natalie Grant  posted a video on her website about going to see the movie, and the debate went from there.  After reading the responses for several days I posted what follows.  I decided to post it here, because I wanted to share it with everyone.

My whole thought on this is: if you even for one moment question your own wisdom and motive in seeing this movie–you ought to listen. The Lord gave you a helper, the Holy Spirit, to guide you. That Spirit is going to guide you to do things, say things, see things, walk places, and act in a way that is pleasing to the Father. Yes what we see, what we hear, what we say, how we act, and where we go all influence whether or not the Lord is pleased with us. Regardless of how others view us, isn’t how the Lord views us even more important to us? It should be. Why do we bother to ask what others would think of us doing something–we ought to ask what the Lord would think. If the Holy Spirit is prompting you in any way not to do something–by all means listen! Whether it is this movie, another, going somewhere, saying something, an activity you take part in, everything we do.

We are a people who have gotten so good at justifying our actions by saying “it isn’t as bad as….” or “the world is bad we shouldn’t shelter ourselves from it” or “it doesn’t influence me because I am better then that.” The bible disagrees with all of those statements. Justification for doing something that is not pleasing to the Lord–no matter what body part you do it with–is still justifying sin. If it displeases the Lord it displeases Him fully-not in part. Listen to Helper the Lord has given you, don’t drown Him out with justifications and falsehoods told to you by an enemy wishing to trip you up.