Advent thoughts for 2020

 I don't always decorate much for Christmas. We typically go somewhere on Christmas day so sometimes when life gets in the way, we don't get a tree. We didn't decorate at all last year as we were still in a fog from my dad's passing and my father-in-law recovering from major surgery. It just seemed unimportant with everything else going on. This year, on the other hand, I've been excited about decorating and getting a tree! Ironic that the one year I am longing for a tree, they are hard to come by and the time to search for one is even harder to come by! We may have to settle for the 2 foot tree we got 13 years ago to decorate in my husband's hospital room after his surgery. But, still I am grateful for what we have. So, tree or no tree, this year Christmas will be here soon! And, I will enjoy whatever decorations, whatever joys are here!

As I was going through decorations, I had a lot of thoughts. I was gathering all of the ornaments we have given to my son over the years and thinking how time flies. I also had trouble remembering if some were his or ours! They have blended into our tree ornaments over the years. Now, just as our tree will look different with fewer ornaments, our Christmas will be different with him far away and other family not able to gather due to the pandemic. Last year being a blur, this truly feels like the first Christmas without my dad. Earlier this week was the anniversary of his passing, but I honestly don't remember anything about Christmas last year besides missing my dad. It's almost easier to celebrate these times during a pandemic. If I tried to do a big Thanksgiving celebration and Christmas celebrations with family as usual, there would be a big hole where my dad is supposed to fit in. With things completely different, it doesn't make it as obvious and doesn't give me glaring reminders of "this is where dad and I would be, talk, or laugh". I hope that makes sense to someone else besides me... but if not that's ok, too.

So, as I was going through decorations, I also thought about advent. As you may have figured out from earlier posts, I love advent! Focusing on hope, peace, joy, and love, what's not to love? I have always waited until after December 12th to put up our tree and do most of the decorating. Why? It's probably like the cutting the pot-roast in half story. I do it because that's how I grew up with my parents doing it. My mom's birthday is the 12th and we always waited until after her birthday to get ready for Christmas so that she could have her day. 

But, what if I made decorating part of my advent celebration? After all, isn't advent a time of waiting with anticipation and getting ready for Christmas? Since I thought of it mid- advent, I can't do it completely this year, but next year, I will be ready! 

Advent week 1- Hope- time to start getting some of the decorations around the house out, including the nativity's and my snowmen collection, and especially my BELIEVE nativity set because hope give us the opportunity to believe. 

Advent week 2- Peace- time to get out all of my angels and whatever other decorations give me peace.

Advent week 3- Joy- time to get the tree. We have never had a fake tree. It has been fun going as a family to pick out the perfect tree. Sometimes they have been "not so perfect", but that's part of the joy! Once the tree is up, the lights can go on the tree. One of my joys is watching how excited my oldest dog gets when we get a tree. She spends as much time as possible laying under the tree. Pine needles fly everywhere from her height and down as she works to find the best spot to lay. 

Advent week 4- Love- time to put the ornaments on the tree! Most of the ornaments on my tree were things I was given or inherited. Each ornament is a memory of love from and for my family and friends. When I think about all of the love that is put on the tree with those ornaments, and then I think about how much more God loves us, I am overwhelmed! 

This all means I have to strategically pack away everything. I will have totes labeled Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. But, I won't have to worry about that for awhile. My Christmas decorations stay up long past Christmas Day. Christmas doesn't end until epiphany January 6th and I wish everyone kept celebrating the Christmas season until then. I get sad that on December 26th I see lights and trees down already. Although, I'm sure there are people who wonder why I sometimes still have mine up in February!

Another thing I wish I would have thought of sooner and hope to do next year is post on Facebook: What brings you _____ (hope, peace, joy, love)? How will you experience or bring ________ (hope, peace, joy, love to others? What scriptures give you ___________? I started late last week with peace and have been inspired by the comments. Also, it has been interesting to see who commented that I don't regularly get comments from. Hopefully I will start right away next year.

These have all been random advent thoughts that wouldn't necessarily fit in one week more so than another so I figured they deserved their own post. Mainly, I hope writing them all down will help me remember next year! Thanks for reading!

Where was God in this? I think He inspired me to be more intentional this advent.

Blessings,
Jennifer

Joy 2020

 Joy! This week we get to focus on joy! 

When I was leading youth, this was my favorite week! We always went caroling to our friends at assisted living and nursing homes, or to friends that were homebound to spread joy to others! Through the years, the youth, the volunteers, and I all made connections with those we visited. It wasn't the only time we visited, but it was probably my favorite visit. We brought cookies or cupcakes and sang and visited. Even if I was still doing children and youth ministry, this wouldn't have been the same due to the pandemic. One year, the weather was horrible when we had planned to do our caroling up and down the street the church was on. Instead of walking, we called friends and family and all sang into the phone. It wasn't the same, but it was a fun substitute! Can you spread some joy by calling someone and caroling or catching up with them? 

It's hard right now to be joyful when so much negativity is out there. If we just focus on all of the things that aren't the same, if we continue to think "that's not how we did it before", then I would guess joy is not going to happen. If we're too busy looking at the negative to see the positive, then our lives are filled with negativity. 

I heard a great sermon on joy this morning, and a friend told me about a great sermon she had heard this morning about joy. I'd like to share some of the thoughts from them. "There will be times that we are not happy. And yet, joy is something else." "It's not easy to be happy, and yet, God will give us the opportunity to be joyful." We are challenged to call upon our God who is the giver of joy. So that even if every day isn't happy, maybe the joy that God has given us might reflect better in (us)." "Mary's joy was Jesus' job. Jesus gives us all the joy we want or need. It's there for the taking. We just have to accept it."

Of course, there will be moments of sadness, of feelings of loss, and I imagine there is a sense of grief for the things we cannot have during this time. But, at some point, we have to look for joy. Maybe when we find ourselves going into that rabbit hole of sadness, we have to intentionally look for joy. During this week of advent, think about the joys in your life. 
Maybe you can make a list of ways to look for joy. 

Create a "Joy Jar" filled with little messages- blessings, fun memories, scripture, etc. that you can take out when you're having "one of those days".  
If your life isn't joyful, are there things that you need to let go- toxic relationships, time commitments that overextend you, or situations that need to change?

What brings you joy? What do you to bring joy to others?

Where is God in this week? He's there with us, offering us joy. We just have to let Him know we want it.

Blessings,
Jennifer

The sermons that were referenced can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjHfp91M9tY

https://www.facebook.com/148869845233740/videos/700026367320049

Peace 2020

When I started in youth ministry, I started really focusing on advent. We looked at what each focus word meant in our lives and we would discuss ways to live out each focus throughout the week. Since beginning those discussions, advent has become such a meaningful time in my life and I find a sense of renewal each year as I again focus on each word. 

 Peace. That seems to be a struggle in many ways this year. Social justice, politics, stress from the pandemic all contribute to our lack of peace, while making it so much more evident that we need it. When I think of peace through the lens of the world, I am overwhelmed. We have to look at it and we have to strive for it, but what can I as one person do? But, you've probably heard it before. By changing one thing, one person at a time, we will change the world. So, I think a good challenge for this week would be to find ways to do that. What ways can we, by our actions or words, work to bring peace to someone. Can showing kindness and love bring world peace? Will it bring about change for social justice issues, make politics a positive idea, make the pandemic go away? Nope. But, it can make people feel a little better. 

When I think about peace, I don't always think of the big picture of world peace. While that's extremely important, sometimes I have to look within myself. Am I at peace with where I am right now? Almost a year ago, I looked at myself and my answer was no. In January, I decided it was time to take a look at what I was doing and, more importantly, how I was doing.

In general, I'm not great at self-care. I decided 2020 was going to be my year to focus on self- care. I spent the first eight weeks with goals for my self-care journey-starting with one the first week and adding another one every week. Some of them have stuck and others haven't. I haven't had pop since the 2nd week of January. I've been running and have exceeded any ideas I had when I started at about 30 seconds at a time. I do think the idea of self-care 2020 has helped me this year. I can't say how it was changed by the pandemic, but I am guessing the goals would have stuck or not stuck whether or not the pandemic happened. 

In a way, I feel that time has brought me a sense of peace. Some positive changes have been good for me. At a time when I was struggling to get up in the morning, I found some motivation.  My word for the year "ok" meant that it was ok not to be ok... that I needed to still work towards being ok... and that everything doesn't have to be perfect. Giving myself permission for any or all of those things to be true, for my goals to be better achieved on some days than others, gave me a peace in my life. It was ok that I wasn't, that I'm still not always ok. 

If someone had asked me a year ago if I was at peace with some of the rough things I had recently gone through, I probably would have said yes. This summer, some things came up that forced me to relive some of those struggles and made me realize my answer wasn't yes, but rather sometimes I was at peace with them. Through the course of a month or two, I relived some things, took some actions that I felt called to do, and then realized that the outcome wasn't my concern. I had done what I needed to do and my personal peace didn't need to depend on the actions of anyone by myself. That's when I realized I was at peace with that chapter and I could close the book.

So, in this week of focusing on peace, I plan to look for ways to help bring peace to others. I plan to give myself the space to be at peace even if things aren't perfect. And, I plan to continue looking at my relationship with God and others and exploring where I am in them.

So, where was God in this? He helped me, encouraged me through others, and He loved me even when I wasn't ok. \

Blessings,

Jennifer

Hope 2020

 I'm a week behind as today begins the second week of advent. I had meant to write all week, but time got away from me. So, let's pretend this is the beginning of the first week of advent for a few minutes.

Hope... a year ago none of us knew the craziness that this year has brought us. This year we have had to cling to hope like never before in our lifetime. Someday, we won't have to wear masks, we will be able to hug people, we won't have to consider the risks of going to the store to get necessities, and we will once again live in a world of toilet paper for all. I have been clinging to this hope since March. There were times I was better at it than others. 

A year ago, I was days away from saying goodbye to my dad... an unbearable thought then and now. But, a year later, I have felt God's comforting presence that has brought me hope. Throughout this year, changes in my life have surprised me. Most recently, becoming a chaplain at the hospital was not something I had thought much about. But, God has given me a gift to hopefully be a comfort to people who need it. One of the reasons I have the confidence to do this is through the experiences with my own grief. 

How amazing is our God that He can take anything that comes in our lives and use it for His good! Seeing that over and over in my life and in the lives of others is probably what has instilled hope in me more than anything else. Even in a year when we have all struggled in one way or another due to the pandemic, there are wonderful things happening that would not have happened otherwise- families staying home together, churches reaching out into the community more, people realizing what is important in their lives and what isn't, and so much more.

But, in this time of advent, I have to think of the hope that a little baby brought us all. We who are not perfect people became perfect when He took our sins away. Because of this, I know that I get to go to heaven. I have hope in that.. I have hope that I will see my loved ones when I get there. I don't know if that's what heaven is like, but I'm hoping! I'm also hoping that my loved ones are still here watching over me, seeing what I'm doing. That's one of the hardest things to adjust to after my dad passed. I don't get to tell him what I'm doing and I don't get to hear what he's doing. 

So, where was God today? He's planning how to use everything we do to make things better and to bring people together for Him. And, if we have hope, our eyes will be open to see it.

Blessings,

Jennifer