Grace notes

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appears

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee O Israel

O come, thou rod of Jesse, free

Thine own from Satan's tyranny

From depths of of hell thy people save

And give them vict'ry o'er the grave

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee O Israel

O come, O Dayspring, come and cheer

Our spirits by thine advent here

And drive away the shaves of night

And pierce the clouds and bring us light

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee O Israel

O come, Thou Key of David, come

And open wide our heavenly home

Make safe the way that leads on high

And close the path to misery

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee O Israel!

On this first day of Advent...

...it's the perfect time to remember

He came...
He comes...
He is coming!

Mostly cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms

On January 30, 1974, my first-born son died. Just three weeks old, having spent his entire life suffering in a NICU, Jonathan Isaac Warren lost his fight to come home with his parents and instead went into an eternity with the Father. His fight was over; my fight to understand was just beginning. I was 19.

The call came on a Wednesday morning before John and I were even awake. The night before had been full of hope....the doctors had told us for the first time in three weeks that they expected the little guy to pull through even though the fight was not over. Five short hours later, it was over.

John and I went to a part of San Diego where no one knew us, where we could walk the streets in anonymity and grieve together without having to give unbearably painful explanations before we were ready.

But it was Wednesday. It was our custom to attend our church's prayer meeting on Wednesday night. Our church had been a wonderful support to us during our ordeal and had loved us and cared for us though most of them hardly knew us. We felt drawn to be with them even on this first day of our life without our son. And so we made our way back to our church family that very night.

I told John I didn't want to arrive early. I wanted them to know we were there, since most of them would have already heard the news and would wonder how we were. But I didn't want to talk; I just wanted to be. So we made plans to arrive a minute or two late, hoping we could slip in quietly just as the service was beginning.

As we entered the sanctuary that Wednesday night, the night that was, to date, the hardest and most painful day of my short life, singing had already begun. And as I got close enough to hear, I recognized the hymn, "There is Sunshine in My Soul Today".

There is sunshine in my soul today,
More glorious and bright
Than glows in any earthly sky,
For Jesus is my Light.

O there’s sunshine, blessèd sunshine,
When the peaceful, happy moments roll;
When Jesus shows His smiling face,
There is sunshine in the soul.

There is music in my soul today,
A carol to my King,
And Jesus, listening, can hear
The songs I cannot sing.

There is springtime in my soul today,
For, when the Lord is near,
The dove of peace sings in my heart,
The flowers of grace appear.

There is gladness in my soul today,
And hope and praise and love,
For blessings which He gives me now,
For joys “laid up” above.

No God. I must be hearing this wrong. You wouldn't require this of me tonight. Not hearing it, and certainly not singing it.

I wasn't hearing it wrong. And something inside me knew that it would be part of my healing process, part of how I would look back on this day, to sing with my church family out of a joy that went far deeper than the tragedy of the day. No, I don't believe I heard God requiring this of me. I don't think He is a God who would demand that a 19 year old mother who has just lost her only son sing about gladness in her soul. But I gave it that night as a sacrifice of praise, one that I didn't feel like giving but chose to give anyway. I have never regretted my song that night. . .and though I could think of a dozen hymns that would have better spoken to my brokenness and pain, for some reason God did not choose any of those to be the one sung as I slid into the pew.

I have a friend who will greet tomorrow's Thanksgiving with the same heart. Her world has collapsed, her heart is broken, her future muddled with uncertainty. But because I know her and know of her trust in her God, I know that she will, through her tears, look to Him and thank Him for His goodness.

Many of us, perhaps to a lesser degree, face tomorrow with circumstances that make gratitude a "sacrifice of praise". My prayer is that, like my precious friend, we will all give thanks in faith for the goodness of a God who loves us perfectly even in the seasons where the clouds obscure the sunshine.

Ministering to me today. . .

a favorite song:

Hear Me
Jim Brickman/Tom Douglas/Victoria Shaw

Take these tears, put 'em in a bottle.

Don't let these tears I cry be in vain.

Take these tears, keep them up in heaven.

Water my life with tears like rain

Hear me, hear my words unspoken,

Restore my faith in hoping

Hear me, I am feeling broken

I am broken open.

Take this life, turn it into something,

I'm afraid it's just wasting time

Turn this life the sun has ripened, grow it slowly on the vine.

Turn my tears into wine

Hear me, hear my words unspoken,

Restore my faith in hoping

Hear me, I am feeling broken

I am broken open.

Turn my tears into wine,

turn these tears into wine.

All there's left of me are traces.

Make me stronger in my broken places

Hear me, hear my words unspoken,

Restore my faith in hoping

Hear me, I am feeling broken

I am broken open.

Turn these tears into wine,

turn my tears into wine

Hear me...

Trust me--if you haven't heard the song, the lyrics on the page don't do it justice. Hear Michael Bolton sing it on the Jim Brickman CD "Grace". It captures the anguish of my heart right now. . .

Week Eight

I guess waiting is the hardest thing I've ever done.

Yet those who wait for the LORD

Will gain new strength;

They will mount up with wings like eagles,

They will run and not get tired

They will walk and not become weary.

Lord, help us to wait for Your answers. You made her, You know what's wrong, please heal her.

Soon the bells will start...

Okay, well it maybe it was 81 degrees today, but hope springs eternal even in cities where it has no right to. I'm finally getting myself in gear for Christmas, shamed by Aubrey and Lyric who both have everything done but the unwrapping. I have rolled out my wonderful Container Store gift wrap station, a Christmas present from two years ago and one of the most useful things I've ever received. In the next couple of days I'll be stocking it with all the Christmas paper and ribbons, temporarily storing the baby shower and birthday wraps in other places (with apologies to the family members who have birthdays between now and New Year's and who always seem to get their birthday gifts wrapped with holly and snowflakes!)

My Christmas cards, purchased in September, have been unwrapped, and tomorrow I will begin addressing them. This is a task I normally do in November and then write our Christmas letter right after Thanksgiving, shooting for a mailing date of December 1.

The normal shopping routines have changed markedly in the past three years. I now get just as much enjoyment (and a lot more convenience!) from browsing, sending links back and forth choosing gifts online as I used to get from shopping in stores. I never liked malls, really, but I used to enjoy being in shops at Christmas time and coming home with an armful of bags. That enjoyment has been replaced by the anticipation of the shipping confirmations and the FedEx truck, the driver of which is practically a member of our family :-)

The calendar is filling up with all our traditions....the setting up of the advent calendar, the beginning of our advent devotions, Cookie-Baking Day, Tree Night, purchase of the children's annual ornaments, our trek to Fort Worth, the New Years bonfire....all the things that make the season a Warren Christmas. How blessed we are to have a family who loves being and doing things together!

Because it's looking more and more as if Kristen and family will be moving soon after the holidays, each family gathering, each gift choice, each experience shared together is taking on extraordinary significance. This will be their third and last Christmas as "residents" here and that will make it bittersweet. It certainly keeps me thinking about ways to make it the best ever....

The more things change. . .

Any hope that the loving generosity of Americans in the wake of the Pakistan earthquake would change hearts and minds of those inclined to violence and terrorism is quickly fading. The child victims of the disaster now become victims a second time:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1869841,00.html

the wait

there are no silk plants here
no dog-eared magazines
no mass-produced vinyl-cushioned chairs
no clock-face on the door that says
'will return at. . .'
there's no clipboard for signing in
no aide calls out names in order of arrival
no elevator music
no brochure display to pass the time

here there are pills
and needles
weak smiles
phone messages
prayers and weary sighs
expanses of empty space and time
fuzzy calendars

welcome to the waiting room

North Face

We've come through another hard week and weekend with CJ. I'd never have believed when we took her to the emergency room on September 26 that we'd be staring Thanksgiving in the face with no answers. There's a metaphor there somewhere...the "holiday" will be a test of how willing we are to give thanks in the face of a mountain of questions and an uncertain future.

Why are You silent, oh God?

Why is there so little sleep in the dark and so little light at noon?

When will the days stop running together in a blur of tears?

How long, Lord?

If there's a simple answer, would you help us find it this afternoon?

If it's going to take months or years, would You tell me so that I can build life around this reality and not leave trivial things hanging on my desk?

Will You please give CJ the assurance that she is in Your strong arms even when it feels like she's slipped through Your fingers? And remind me, too?

Will you show us how to truly own Your promise that You will knit all this together for good in her life and in the lives of all of us who love her?

I'm listening.

My heart breaks. . .

. . .to wake each morning to reports of yet another night of violence in France. 'Surely,' I think each night, 'tonight will be the last.' And yet by the time I sleep each night, ordinary people are waking outside (and now inside) Paris, Lyon, even Bordeaux, Marseille, and St.-Etienne, to find their cars burned, their markets and their historic sites pillaged. Rioting has spread to Brussels, to Berlin, and many other major cities in Europe with large immigrant "ghettos".

Many of us who have lived in Europe have wondered what has kept the lid on the powder kegs for so long. But seeing the problems "up close" and shaking our heads at policies that seemed destined to light the fuses doesn't make me any less heartsick for those who will pay the price for those policies. May a gracious God use the chaos and fear in the hearts of men, women, and children to turn their hearts toward Him. And may those of us whose first thought might be a sneer be tempered by compassion...

Grace notes

And the things of earth

will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace

~~from "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus"

by Helen H. Lemmel

Heave, ho. . .

It's always rough when Lyric is here.

The schedule is tight, the list is long, the workload heavy. Just getting through a stack of eleven movies would be hard enough. . .but then there's the pressure of working in a trip to the theater, several stops at Sonic, shopping online from our two laptops on the featherbed, naps once we've shopped 'til we've dropped, reading aloud from two different books, updating and commenting on all the blogs, and. . .well, you can see the stress we're under. It makes me feel really bad when Lyric so desperately needs a real break from work. I know she could use sleeping in for a few of these mornings, but if we're not up and around by 11 we simply cannot get everything done.

I keep promising her that the next "vacation" will really be restful and "laid back" but it never seems to happen. I take full responsibility and despite the constant obstacles, I'll keep trying. Next time we'll sleep late and just "chill". . .