Soul Sister Time

              Christmas is over.  The climatic hustle of the western world has descended to the natural outcome of gifts exchanged, swelled stomachs, and wearied travelers destined to face the unalterable fact that there is an inescapable void from living in a fallen world even with all the promises that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year.               This day of facing the complex reality of living in a fallen world is a perfect opportunity to face that void within and ask yourself some important spiritual questions that have the potential to restore your soul and set you on track spiritually to live out the true promises of God.                God who is your Creator, is your Provider and Protector.  He defends and befriends you and gives you this pattern from the beginning of His Word.  He created the world and provided everything human beings would need to live within it, including the warning not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—one comma

                Christ’s coming to earth, taking on human flesh and living among us, leads a soul to feel its worth.  Weary souls rejoice because Christ was born to be our friend through our trials.  Souls are thrilled with hope because the sin and error can be redeemed.  This is the message in the lyrics of O Holy Night.  They proclaim the spiritual transformation of Advent on the soul.                  Are the burdens of life the reason for your soul’s anguish?  Does your soul demand to be loved, honored and cherished, yet receive so much less than what it was created to enjoy? My soul demands to be accepted, yet it receives condemnation, loved yet it is despised, valued though it is detested.  In the fallen world in which I live, I receive contempt from the most unlikely of relationships.  My soul cries out against this treatment.  My soul detests these insults that it is no power to defend.  Then Christ was born and the soul’s worth is restored.                 The birth of

When you are waiting you are without what you are waiting for. As a new grandmother I experience this absence in an intense way. On the second Sunday of Advent I had to leave my post as chief cook and bottle washer after Lila was born. It's a role every grandmother covets and carries out with the greatest of love. Since I live several states away, I won't be able to see her again for three weeks. During weeks three and four of Advent, I will not only wait for Christmas, but also I will wait to be reunited with Lila, this time with Grumps by my side; his wait to meet her is a little longer than mine. Waiting to see Lila again puts me in touch with the intense ache of being without what my heart longs for. Perhaps this absence of what we most want is part of the reason we distract ourselves from the spiritual gift of Advent. Maybe it is the angst of waiting that compelled us to create fantasies of gifts, parties, feasts, and endless shopping during the season of Advent. I

On the first day of Advent I awoke to a call at 3:20 am that I should come to the hospital because my daughter was being taken down to deliver Lila—my first grandchild!  I had been first alerted to her early arrival two days before when Rachel's water broke, but not much labor. I arrived in Birmingham seven and a half hours later (it would have been sooner but there wasn’t a direct flight!). And then...we waited. We waited on Lila’s lungs to respond to a couple of steroid shots (she was three weeks early). As we waited, we halfway watched football and occasionally made small talk about subjects other than Lila’s birth; but mainly we carried on just wishing, wondering and thinking we could plan for the time that Lila would arrive based on the medical advice we were given.  All we could think about was what we were waiting for, our baby girl to come into the world. While waiting on Lila, a code blue was called to her room; then the number was changed to the room next door. We G