A Christmas Story - re-Posted

I thought it was appropriate timing to re-post this deleted post - not appropriate timing in the fact that it's past 1am after a super long week, but appropriate timing in that it's time to adore Christ for the most awesome thing ever - the cross.
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Before all the words in this blog were typed in, last year had to come to an end. This happened just before that end, which was recorded in "This is The Beginning," which I guess makes this story the real end.
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I had already edited this story once after it's original post and then decidedly deleted it. But now I will re-post it as is, and come back to it soon to add my editorial comments. One of which is this. . .

Do you ever find yourself complaining just because you want to? I hate that. Here I found that creeping in again after God had been working greatly in my heart with that mid-last year. I have nothing to complain about, but everything to be thankful for.
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Growing up in a non-Christian led home, Christmas has always been, well... Christ-less. The only part of my Christmas that is focused on Christ is going to Christmas Eve service to worship my Lord and Savior, a privileged I have not always had. This year the message given was about just that, the whole notion of being ready for Christmas as another way of saying "is all the shopping done and the presents wrapped and the food planned?" That is a Christmas not focused on Christ. Jeremy questioned us saying "Do you adore Christ?" He entreated us to look at Christmas with the Christ in it. I was convicted and decided that instead of leaving with my immediate family, as soon as I got home, to "join" the extended family for our traditional festivities of eating, drinking and dancing until way into the AM hours, I would stay back and spend some time adoring Christ, and to once again try to perhaps gain the boldness necessary to share Christ with my family, on the day we are to celebrate how it all began. So I went home from Christmas Eve service with my mission.

I got home and my mom and sisters were ready to leave and I asked, just in case, what was planned for that evening to which my mom replied, "You know the usual." And I asked if it would be okay if I could join them in a couple of hours and she said "Sure. You're dad is asleep upstairs." And I asked, "Why, what happened?" She said my uncle had visited him earlier at work and they started drinking and my dad had had to much to drink. That was unexpected and caused me sorrow, needless to say, and then I no longer wanted to be home, but wanted to be near my mother. So off we went to my aunts house. We arrived and ate some great Colombian food and things went well, even though my mom had to tell everyone about my dad when they asked why he wasn't there, to which she added her testimony of "I am sorry he doesn't have the Lord and has to resort to that, but I do have the Lord." I was doing my best to enjoy my family and converse with them.

After a while I went to the living room and sat alone (with the music blaring) and tried to read my Bible and journal a bit. After about 20 minutes, I decided to go for a walk and get some peace and quiet and talk with the Lord. So I went off down the block. I don't remember much of what I thought about, but I walked down pretty far and then thought "I shouldn't be this far away"... it was 11:10 pm by then, so I turned around and had to run back because it started sprinkling.

Not long after arriving back, someone yelled "A house is on fire!" We all went out side and started down the block, towards where I had been. I'd never seen flames so big in my life. I heard my aunts say "How sad, their house is burning down on Christmas Eve, there tree must have caught on fire." I walked about half way down and stood watching in disbelief. The rest of my family walked on to the end of the block to where there were several police cars. The house was on the back side of the houses on her block, the entrance to that block was where I'd earlier decided to turn around and walk back to my aunts.

I had little sympathy for the house, I thought more of the souls. My mind started thinking of how to turn this into the gospel. I thought "What shall it man profit if he gains the whole world yet loses His own soul?" "You will likewise perish if you do not repent." I kept silent, could not speak.

As my family began to come back up the street, my littlest cousin first came with the report, "A man came in a Santa suit and shot three people and then threw a bomb in the house and blew it up!" I thought he was making it up and then the others came with the same report from the police officers. I walked back with the rest of my family, some were already laughing and joking by that time. I was silent. What could I make of this? What do I do, how do I react? What do I say?

I went into the house, shut myself in my cousins room, stared out the window and prayed. I was fighting the urge to shut down, fall asleep and stop the thoughts. I was crying and lay down.

Outside the room I could hear my cousins, their boyfriends and girlfriends and friends, and my uncles laughing over the alcoholic shots they were taking in the kitchen, the rest had resumed dancing, music still blaring.

I was crying for the dead. No not the ones shot in the house that was now burning (eight at final count), no, not them, the dead ones in the kitchen and living room who would surly burn in the lake of fire if they did not repent. What could I do? Could I walk in and cry out as John the baptist did "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" Would they have heard? I kept silent, but cried out to the One who hears. Then I slept.


I recently finished reading These Strange Ashes, Elizabeth Elliot's own telling of her first year on the mission field, in which many terrible things happened that seemed unexplainable to which she draws this, among other conclusions: "To be a follower of the Crucified means, sooner or later a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss. The great symbol of Christianity means the sacrifice and no one who calls himself a Christian can evade this stark fact. It is not by any means an easy thing to recognize, within a given instance of personal loss. What, we ask ourselves, can this possibly have to do with that? We are not by nature inclined to think spiritually. We are ready to assign almost any other explanation to the things that happen to us. There is a certain reticence to infer that our little troubles may actually be the vehicles to bring us to God. Most of us simply grin and bear them, knowing they are the lot of all human beings, and our memories being marvelously selective, we simply cancel them out, none the better for the lessons we might have learned."

Similarly John Piper once said "All things exist to magnify Christ." I remember living with the mindset that everything that happens happens for a reason, He allows it for something, whether we get to see or recognize a piece of the reason or not.

In the days that followed I kept wondering what, why...

I finally remembered the words of Solomon. "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting." Surely I was in a better place that day, in my room of mourning than with the feasting.



"He who has ears let him hear."

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Christmas morning started off very awkwardly. My sisters and mom and dad were all up and breakfast was being made and as I came down stairs I could sense everyone was uncomfortable and on edge. We sat down and I prayed for breakfast. By God's grace by the time we finished eating, everyone was at ease. We opened our presents together and talked and laughed as we did. Everyone was very content with what they got. The rest of the day was spent in and out of sleep and watching TV. Christmas always wears my family out because of the bakery business. That was it.

"Do you adore Christ?"

Christmas or Christ-less?

I spent my day in my room - my Harry Potter like existence, as I'd often thought of it.

Never so emphatically had I said in my heart the words engraved on the plaque in my room... "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." I never wanted to have another Christ-less Christmas.
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But God says to me, "Until I give you your own house, will you not serve me in this one, the one I gave you now?"

Is it possible to say that my flesh wants to be gratified by always being near to those in the body of Christ, and that my Lord beckons me to be with those that are not?

Will I yield to His will, though mine can so easily be masked by good?

How do I balance? This, the life long question.

How do I reconcile?

Do I spend 24 hours a day in the company of unbelievers waiting for the opportunity for the gospel? Or do I trust God and follow His every step, and really seek out his will for each and everyday.

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God only knows how long I wrestled with these questions. I know my rebellion. This rebellion being one of many I thought of when I wrote "This is the Beginning," knowing there is much He currently wants me to conquer, that I'd never sought to change.

It has actually been 9 years that I have been dealing with this. Only able to be put in words now because of faithful brothers and sisters God brought to me in many circumstances, that He has caused me to understand this. Truly He is patient and His loving kindness rests upon me.

And by His Amazing Grace, He has allowed me to change my ways and take steps of obedience and realize the first calling, my home. And guess what... He is already pouring abundant blessings upon me... my cup overflows, for it was already full.