When Darkness is Darkest- His Light Shines: A Brief Reflection on the CT School Shooting

Yesterday, I was walking into a Christian elementary school to share Chanukah with a 2nd grade classroom. The woman at the door to check in greeted me with great suspicion and asked for my credentials. I realized, as I spoke with her, that she was crying and asked her what was wrong. She shared with me the news from Connecticut, which was just hitting national media within minutes of my arrival at this school. Shock was my first feeling and then horror. I went to the classroom to share about Chanukah- about miracles and light and joy. And I looked around at the little smiling faces of energetic children sugared up with "sufganyot" (Chanukah jelly donuts) and chocolate "geld". They were so precious and bright and hopeful. To think that anyone could harm them as viciously as the killer in CT was making me physically ill. Yesterday, in the midst of such fragile innocence and happiness, I was so overwhelmingly aware of just how dark this world is and how much we need the Light of Jesus. He is the only answer for lasting joy and a hope that is secure enough to weather the storms of even the darkest expression of hell's fury. America saw a glimpse of hell's darkness yesterday. May the Lord pour out His grace and allow eyes to be opened to LIGHT this season. For the Glory of God. --Jennifer

Tis the Season for Expectation

My favorite thing about this time of year is the spirit of expectation. As a child, my mother built up my expectation of Christmas through holiday crafts, hot chocolate nights, decorations, advent calendars and gift shopping. At church, we sang Christmas carols and lit the advent candles. As I grew up, my expectations moved from the getting of gifts to cherish more the giving of gifts, the fellowship of the holiday and sharing the advent story as a family on Christmas morning.

In these past few years, Christmas tradition has become anything but consistent for our family. My siblings are split between commitments to the Rodgers and their in-laws, I'm the "single auntie" sending gifts from the opposite side of the country and this year we won't even be together for the holiday. These changes have shifted the spirit of expectation.

 While gift-giving and holiday cheer are still a joy, the real expectation revolves increasingly around the Messiah. Jesus and His coming have always been the central part of my family's celebration of Christmas.  Yet, in my own heart and mind, I confess He wasn't hasn't always been the most central focus. Yet, in waiting for Christmas through childhood and arriving at that special day of devotion, fellowship and fun, I was taught an important lesson- how to wait in hopeful, joyful expectation. In this way, Christmas time became a training ground for the expectation God would develop in me for the coming of His Son.

Oddly enough, as I have grown in the Lord, disappointment has increased my expectation for the Lord.  As a young girl, I imagined future Christmases with my parents and siblings along with a husband and children of my own.  We would be together and joyfully sharing Jesus with our own little ones.  I would be filled with love and confidence in Christ and an unshakeable sense of purpose as I served God and others alongside of my family.  Being an auntie has been  one of God's sweetest blessings in my life, yet a disappointment remains and makes a rather stinging appearance at this time of year as I sit in an apartment far from home where I live alone and try to decide if it makes sense to decorate my place when only I will see it and will be on the road for work (again) for the majority of Christmas time.  All these years knowing Jesus, and I still can't fully claim to have that unwavering confidence and sense of purpose I dreamed of, though I know that it is provided in Jesus.  My finite heart just doesn't completely get it.

I don't say this to paint a depressed picture of being single at Christmas time. I know we all, married or single, can share our woes and disappointments. The point that I make rather is that in disappointment  I have much to learn about hope.

It seems like the trend among my peers can be to "encourage" each other to approach disappointment by avoiding expectation.  "If you don't get your hopes up, they can't come crashing down", or so I've been told.  I've caught this kind of reasoning coming out of my own mouth and heart on more than one occasion as I'm tempted to shift from youthful hopefulness to a more "sophisticated" cynicism.  What's really going on here is not a move from fantasy to realism, but a move from hope to resignation.  The problem with determining not to hope is that it seals us off from the joy of expectation.  The key then is to allow disappointment in how life turns out to be what God actually uses to shift our expectations from what is good and joyful here to a greater expectation of what He has promised He will do.  With hope centered on what is unmoveable, we can be free to expect great things with confidence and joy.

  At Christmas time, I can't help but to dream a little of what God might still do with my life here and now.  The songs, the lights, the holiday favorite films, the general atmosphere of cheeriness, warm hugs and hot chocolate- I'm too much of a romantic not to have my spirit's lifted by the yuletide cheer. And who knows if the dreams of my heart of that Christmas scene might yet have some future manifestation in my life? Yet, I've lived (just) long enough to know that the complete kind of joy and fulfillment my heart is seeking will only be found when the presence of the Lord transforms me and this entire earth into a Kingdom of righteousness and peace.

 The Lord offers me a growing experience of that peace and righteousness through knowing Jesus daily.  And in that, I can echo Mary's words when she says, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant..." (Luke 1:46-48a).  Yet, like Mary, who bore the Son of God and then watched Him suffer, die, rise from the dead, and ascend into Heaven, I wait with expectation for His final coming.  And in the "here and now" as it were, my expectation shifts more and more to long to know His presence and His transforming work in my life and in the lives of others.  At Christmas time, I learn again to expect great things, but not because life is so grand and "dreams come true", but because my hope is secured in the Rock, Jesus the Messiah, who came so long ago to redeem mankind and who will come again to restore us completely.