December 25, 2022

I believe it was back in 1990 that my husband introduced me to the seemingly popular movie, A Christmas Story. I found myself shocked that such a movie existed. I didn’t understand sarcasm then and didn’t really think that a family could be that dysfunctional. I didn’t find it funny so every year when the movie came on, I would sometimes sit in the room with my family and make comments against the movie characters.

The father who needed HIS mouth washed out with soap, The boy who bullied the kids needed a good whopping. The mother who encouraged her child to eat like a pig so he would eat his dinner instead of taking the time to be consistent on teaching a child how to have good manners. As the years went on, the movie grew on me. I still make comments throughout the movie like how the boy sticks his tongue onto the frozen flag pole and has to have the fire department come to help him out because no one thought to get warm water to unstick it but it has become a favorite of mine. I also think I have sought to understand what possibly caused the writer to develop these characters. I also can over analyze but this is what I have gleaned from it:

The “Old Man” aka the father was probably raised to keep his feelings in his pocket because he didn’t need them so that when he grew up, he decided to only allow his angry feelings to come out. Once in awhile you see the sweet side of him, like making the most of the ruined dinner by taking his family to the Chinese restaurant and then on Christmas morning giving his firstborn the gift that he most wanted.

The boy who bullied still needs a good whooping; however, my guess he is a very insecure person and tries to hide it by showing his toughness until Ralphie lets him have it. I also wonder what kind of home the boy came from to be so mean. To bully usually is to see it modeled. I would love to think after Ralph gave him what was coming that maybe they would’ve all been friends.

The Mother might have been dealing with a special needs child who had sensory overload and in order for mom not to have her own overload she tried to creatively help her son, though probably not helpful, but at least she tried.

The neighborhood dogs out of control and the ruined Christmas dinner show us things happen out of our control. This a a good reminder we cannot control the circumstances or people around us but we can control our responses.

This particular Christmas wasn’t how we expected it to be because of flight cancelations due to blizzards. Two nights before we were to fly out, after our devotionals that evening, we prayed together for our trip but also included in that prayer that we would not get stuck in any airports. Well, God listened to and answered our prayers, though not in the way we expected. We literally had three different flights canceled and then rebooked just to cancel again.

My littlest was sad and teary but just for a short time. We decided to go to Dollar General to look for some snacks and a movie. We got the snacks and then went onto a thrift store where they were having a special 50% off sale of everything. Well, since our trip was going to be our present to each other, we hadn’t gotten each other gifts so we found a movie and some very adorable bookends for my girlie’s bookshelf, all that for a total of $6. Then we came home, cuddled up, and watched movies.

As the night grew, I started having breathing problems. I had felt the feeling in my lungs for a good week or more coming but I just prayed through it. That first night was uncomfortable as it takes so much energy to breath. The daytime is better so the next day as we were stuck at home, we continued to watch Christmas movies. My girlie was so good to bring me things I needed as my lung function was low. The next night was worse and I knew I needed to go in to the clinic for a quick shot of steroids. My husband took me and it was a ride in the truck of trusting God to get us there and back home safely. Praise the Lord, we were in and out of the clinic within 15 minutes, and I, although sore on my derrière, I was able to breathe! I was able to sleep okay but always hard when hopped up on steroids.

The next day, we watched more Christmas movies and then my husband and girlie went to the store to go Christmas shopping so we could fill our stockings. They also got goodies for our neighbors, and I wrote a little Christmas greeting and filled baggies and then they delivered them as it was turning dark. That evening we were able to watch a beautiful cantata where we had family singing in, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law as well as my brother-in-law doing a wonderful narration. It was where we were to be, or so we thought. We had fun commenting via text to my mother-in-law so later she could look back and read them.

We were able to put the extra goodies into festive bags and cards attached to give to whomever God placed in our path the next morning at church. God always makes everything work out for the best. Then home to watch more Christmas movies as well as the third night of my girlie and I having a slumber party in the living room. We talked before we went to sleep and then fell asleep to the best Christian meditation app ever! Click HERE to get a free 30 Days of Abide. God has used this to help me fall asleep in peace to His Word this past year, and it has really helped a ton with the sleep problems I have previously had.

Then we woke up to open our stockings and went to a beautiful Christmas service at our home church with the extra goodie bags in tow. After, it was my idea to actually go get Chinese. I do believe it was our first Christmas to do what the Parker family did in A Christmas Story. We had to order it, pick it up, and bring it home. On the way home, we stopped by Walgreens with $8 to spend on eggnog and whatever snack we wanted. Well, they were out of Eggnog but as we looked at all the ice cream, my girlie asked if we could get the “German” ice cream and so we did. The cool thing is we saved $4 with rewards and spent only 99 cents on our snack so I had saved $7. It might seem silly but to see God bless this was beautiful to me. It was a fun Christmas dinner!

Back to the DESIRE for Ralphie, the main character, was to receive a Red Ryder BB Gun yet everyone around him tried to convince him that he really didn’t or shouldn’t want that. He even wrote a paper on it for a school assignment. Even through all this he still believed it was his heart’s DESIRE and wasn’t going to give up on wanting this. Toward the end of the movie on Christmas morning where they open all the gifts including probably the worst gift ever given to Ralphie, “a pink nightmare”, as his Old Man called it.

Just when he thought there was nothing left, his father told him to look behind the desk. There he found another gift and opened it up as fast as he could. The DESIRE of his heart: A Red Ryder BB Gun. When he ran out to use it, the bb ricocheted and hit his face so he fell down and his glasses fell off his face, and as he stood up, he stepped on his glasses. He was so concerned what his mom would think about getting hurt by his new gun so he made up a story that the icicle fell and hurt him.

I am sure that there are gifts that will be remembered as the most favorite gift of all such as the Red Ryder BB Gun that Ralphie and many others received. The most favorite gift I’ve remembered over years since I was a child was when I received my dog, who happened to jump on my bed Christmas Eve after my parents had gone to pick him up from a neighbor’s home that they kept there hidden for safe keeping until I went to bed.

My mom had just bathed him and that was when he took off and made his way to MY bedroom. He chose ME! And I cannot even remember asking for a dog, but I must’ve at some point. My parents told me he was for me and that I could name him whatever I wanted. It’s funny because I guess I must have “followed” the Harlem Globetrotters and so named my new puppy Curly. I remember thinking the next morning, “Why in the WORLD would I name a dog Curly because he had no curl in him, and then I remember that Curly, the Globetrotter didn’t have curly hair; in fact he didn’t have any hair! Curly was bald!” So the name stuck!

I wonder how many times though we even remember what we got from the year before that we have really thought this was the ONE thing that will make us happy and our greatest DESIRE; probably moreso when we were children. Our youth pastor last week mentioned this, and he’s right, we probably don’t remember what we wanted so badly.

So overall, the gifts we have received lose value to us YET the greatest gift that God sent to us, His Son Jesus, gains value — eternal value. To know Him more and more each day we walk with Him is beyond precious and priceless. I never realized when I first asked Him to be Lord of my life that I would continue to DESIRE to want to know Him more and more.

There is a verse that we hear often but I wonder if we really comprehend what it means:

“Delight yourself in Yahweh; And He will give you the DESIRES of your heart.” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭37:4‬ ‭

The problem with looking at one verse without reading the context can really make you wonder, “What the heck?! I am “delighting” myself in the Lord yet He is NOT giving me the DESIRES of my heart!?” This is a verse I have struggled with over the years, and I ask God to please show me how to understand this. I have talked with well known pastors and teachers and asked them to explain this to me and tell them what I have asked for and then they are stumped because they don’t know what to say. I will share that DESIRE toward the end of this blog.

Let me first show you how I put this verse into context….

When I look at a passage, I love to take it apart. The first thing I try to remember to do is PRAY FIRST and ask God to teach me what He wants me to learn. This is how God talks to us: through His Word. Sometimes I havc really struggled to understand His Words over the years but He is patient as I seek to learn and the amazing thing is I am always learning. God’s Word is NEW every time I open it. It brings life and healing to me. God meets me right where I am at! I DESIRE for YOU to experience this, too!

So, “Trust in Yahweh” — this seems simple to understand yet maybe hard to put into practice. My first thought is, “Yes, Lord, I trust You!” Then I think on it more and I have to ask myself, “Do I trust the Lord in only the good times or do I trust Him in ALL seasons of my life: the good, the bad, and the ugly? So maybe THIS is why God hasn’t given me the DESIRE of my heart.

Well I can say it is hard to trust when I cannot see God working specifically but I have to trust that He is working behind the scenes. The cool thing is when I feel low in faith, I ask God to help my unbelief and I will sometimes have dreams that show me God is working which in turn shows me how to pray. This encourages me, and I journal much about it.

The other thing I know is that all I need to do is have faith as big as a mustard seed. Did you know the mustard seed is actually one of the smallest seeds ever, if not the smallest and it takes years to even start to see it’s growth? This also helps me to trust and wait in God’s perfect timing and remember that even though I don’t think He is working, He IS….behind the scenes…or in this case, under the soil.

“And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you have faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.” Luke‬ ‭17:5-6‬ ‭

Then, “do good”, and I think, “THIS must be why I am not getting the DESIRE of my heart because sometimes as much as I want to do good, it is so hard especially when life happens….every single day…It is important to know there is nothing we can do to save ourselves but to know that trusting God and obeying Him goes hand in hand.

“But someone will say, ‘You have faith; and I have works. Show me your faith without the works,
and I will show you my faith by my works.’”‭‭James‬ ‭2:18‬

“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” James‬ ‭2:26‬ ‭

True faith leads to good works in keeping with that faith.
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John‬ ‭14:15‬ ‭

This could easily discourage me because I think like Paul:

“Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by working out my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold into bondage under sin. For what I am working out, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want, I agree with the Law, that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that in me evil is present—in me who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” Romans‬ ‭7:13-25‬ ‭

This is what I do know: God loves me even at my ugliest and teaches me I can love even the most unloveable too. He knows my heart and my DESIRE to do good. This is why I must wake up every morning and ask God to show me people as He seems them. It changes my perspective! Believe you me that I have not prayed that many mornings, and I am not a nice person.

Next…. “Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness” – Am I doing this? This stretches me in my learning so I have to look throughout scripture to make sure I am understanding. This is really fun to do for me. I love searching and searching for what God wants to teach me in His Word and it can take me all over the place as one word leads to another passage! This can take time but it is so worth it for me! Am I abiding (remaining or staying) in Christ?

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit from itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John‬ ‭15:4-5‬ ‭

“But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”Galatians‬ ‭5:16‬
‭
When I remain with Christ, guiding my day to day activities, I will remain overall spiritually healthy with the Holy Spirit as my Guide. I will make a difference for Him, and I will not be pulled to do evil. The problem is when I try to do life on my own, I fail miserably because that is when I try to control things as the way I think they must go according to what I am feeling.

It is unfortunate how many (all of us at one point or another in our lives) have fallen for the enemy’s lies to make this world as a whole to believe you’re making the right decisions because it “feels right” and you need to “follow your heart” but look what God’s Word has to say about the heart.

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can know it?” Jeremiah‬ ‭17:9‬ ‭

This should make us shudder at how often we’ve listened to our feelings. We all have made many bad decisions from listening to our deceitful hearts. Remember though, no matter how bad of a decision you might have made, God can still redeem you and use those bad choices to bring Him glory. How? I do not know but He has done it time and again and will do it again and again. He is Sovereign and we cannot do anything to mess up His perfect plan for our lives.

We just need to get to the point of giving over our lives to Him fully. It may seem to work for a time for me to be the god of my life, but eventually I realize that I don’t really understand what I need or want. I must be fully committed to the Lord and follow His will, not mine meaning I must get off the throne of my heart and allow God to have full access there. That is when we start to understand God’s love and start loving Him more and more.

“You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deuteronomy‬ ‭6:5‬ ‭

From “Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness”, I realize I MUST be daily, minute by minute, intentional in seeking to studying the Word so I grow in the Lord, This cannot be done in my own strength but I must ask for this power from Him.

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians‬ ‭4:13‬

So then when I come to, “Delight yourself in Yahweh; And He will give you the DESIRES of your heart.”, it is starting to make more sense to me. To delight in the Lord is finding full contentment in Him no matter how life is going. When I look at the context, I will only DESIRE His will! His DESIRES for me will become my DESIRES, praise the Lord!

When I “Commit your way to Yahweh, Trust in Him, and He will do it.” This shows me that in EVERYTHING I do I must commit to the Lord and trust Him and He WILL do it. Then I may ask, When, Lord?” And then I remember 1000 years is like a day to the Lord. This reminded me when I wanted us to care for foster children and I waited a year and a half just to get a call for a child needing a home.

It took me to give my will to Him fully and trusting Him. I went back recently and read my journal entries at this time, and it is amazing the grief I was having over what I saw as a loss, when I was telling God I wanted His will more than a child and asking Him for me to accept knowing He had something better planned, and then all of a sudden when I prayed and cried through that, I felt a burden I was carrying leave me and had peace. Within a week, we got a phone call not just for one child but for four, and even through all that, God hand-picked the one meant for us and us for her.

My biggest DESIRE is that my children will not die without Christ. This is the DESIRE I told you earlier I would come back to. I have talked and written to many well known pastors and leaders about this and I haven’t heard one “safe” response except that they will pray this with me. I do appreciate that the ones I ask these questions aren’t going to say what I want to hear because I have had people tell me, “they will return to the Lord“. I know people mean well but people shouldn’t say things to you just to give you warm fuzzies leading to false hope. They are not God, and they do not know. People take the following verse out of context ALL. THE. TIME. And it drives me a little crazy.

“Train up a child according to his way, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs‬ ‭22:6‬ ‭

I use to believe this verse meant that they would be saved. This is unfortunate that many Christian parents and leaders believe that if we do, “ABC, XYZ”, that our children will be saved. This is an awful set up, not only for the parents, but for the children who have been made to believe that they are saved because they said and did all the right things. Nothing and I repeat NOTHING you or I or anyone can do to save ourselves or our loved ones.

We are NOT the Holy Spirit and they will remember throughout their lives what we’ve taught them. They will remember that we DESIRED them to know God, to really know Him, not just be a Sunday Christian but someone who loved and served the Lord with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind. They will see our sins better than anyone as all the people you live with, you will see their good, bad, and ugly. The great thing about raising your children in the Lord is they can see your dependence on Him and DESIRE to point them to the Lord so they will walk in His ways, not yours.

The Word of the Lord will not depart from them because as they go through the journey of their lives, God is the gentle Hound of Heaven who will bring verses to their mind and seek them through that. They have learned so much of God that it will be hard for them to unhear it; however our children are not robots and they will have to choose their own path on their journey. Just like we all have done, they will take the wide road at times and may find temporarily happiness, sometimes for quite awhile, if not forever. Their choice.

What I can do is stand in the gap for them, praying for God to speak to them through dreams, give them restless sleep when they are straying further away, protection from and desire to flee evil so that it is no longer pleasurable to them, and for God to place godly people in their lives to draw them to the Lord and keep them from the ungodly which may mean loss of relationships but I can pray that the godly ones are the ones that they realize mean the most to them in the long run. What I also can do is ask God to give me contentment in everything, and I can tell you how God has allowed me to be thankful for everything He is doing in His perfect timing, not mine.

He has shown me how much I love praying for all my blessings and their spouses through each of their prayer journals which I decided to start writing/praying back in 2018. I use to write keepsake letters to them since they were born, telling them all the things they were learning and what I was praying for them. I decided to put those away in special boxes when they moved out on their own so that one day they will receive them as well as their prayer journals when I am gone; presently, I have seven prayer journals. Eventually I will start prayer journals for my grandchildren.

What a blessing it has been to write prayers for my blessings! When I started this, it was like giving them to the Lord all over again. It can be hard to lay your blessings down at the foot of the cross because once you do, it is so easy to pick them back up if you stop being in God’s Word daily and allowing fear to control you. I have and continue to learn it is so much better to give everyone back to Him that He has blessed you with so that even when they are gone everything will still be okay because God is in control..

I think when people dedicate their babies to the Lord, they don’t realize what that fully means at the time. I fell into this category of ignorance is bliss as well. What I have learned, though, over the years, is that I dedicated to raise them in the Lord and since, I have DESIRED for God to do whatever it takes for them to be truly fully committed to Him, not just be Sunday Christians. I don’t want an easy life for them, or me, but instead a life full of contentment in God alone, which turns into a DESIRE to make a difference, being a world changer, giving Him all the glory.

Now let’s wrap up the context of this passage. This brings me such encouragement and excitement! “He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday”. Have you ever felt like everything you did or said in your past and present was under scrutiny, by one person or another? You felt as though people had to focus on your wrong and even add to it because it might need to sound better or worse? You feel judged. You feel under attack.

Have you tried defending yourself or others, but to no avail? Our attempts to right the wrongs are usually futile. When we’ve said and done everything we can and nothing works, then we realize we have no control over the situation and that’s usually when we look up to God and must learn to wait patiently on His timing. God will make all the wrongs right! Not just my wrongs but everyone’s wrongs. Praise the Lord!

Yet there are some lessons I have learned through this. First of all, I have had to ask myself if I am living to please man or the Lord? I must not care what others think of me, whether true or not, because God knows and that is all that matters. Next, I need to remember that He will fight for me and finally I am learning to be so content with the many blessings He has given me that I don’t even deserve but this is how His grace and mercy works.

In Psalms, David went through much hate from the king, even after he had helped him including winning a battle for Israel. He even fled for his life at one point. Throughout the Bible there were many people that were hated for one reason or another; most were outcasts because they didn’t fit into “the mold”. Well, I have learned that it is those that don’t fit the mold that God uses the most!

I allowed various people in my past to speak death into my life. I had been told to not be so silly in public, to not cry or be sad, to get over my feelings and stop acting like a victim or martyr. I have been told that I am annoying. This made me believe that I was not right or that I needed to change or that somehow I was not who God created me to me. I have had to learn to replace the lies with the Truth. I will NOT stop loving life, no matter how silly I am whether I am home or in public. When I had social media years ago, I had some people give me their opinions to remove things that were considered convicting or uncomfortable to some.

I have also learned over the years how unhealthy it has been to keep my tears in so when hard things came, they would just “leak” out of me whether a song comes on the radio, or someone says something that reminds me of someone or something beautiful or fear that would “explode” out of me seemingly out of no where, writing and/or saying or doing things that are not helpful but hurtful so I have had to continue to go through therapy, journal, and talk to God.

I have had such a personality of being the “fixer”, and only in the past few years as I have looked back, learning I’ve done this since a classmate committed suicide in the 80’s when I was in Junior High, but not only that, I was the only one he told, and I didn’t believe him. I kept that a secret for many years. I carried that with me way too long, and it has caused me to have such fear that if someone is about to make an unwise choice, I felt I must do anything to try and stop them or somehow it would be my fault,

I have had to remind myself I do not have that much power to change a person’s mind on anything if they are so choosing to go their own way. I also have had to ask God to show me people as He sees them and that really helps a lot. I have no idea what everyone has gone through and there are be reasons why people respond as they do or why some don’t want to work through hard things, and I must be okay with that. I have found solace in letting go even more over the past couple years.

I just wish so much I would’ve learned this thirty plus years ago “If I knew then what I know now, Condemnation would’ve had no power. My joy, my pain would’ve never been my worth. If I knew then what I know now, would’ve not been hard to figure out what I would’ve changed if I had heard ‘Dear younger me, it’s not your fault.You were never meant to carry this beyond the cross. Dear younger me, you are holy, you are righteous,You are one of the redeemed. Set apart, a brand new heart. You are free indeed!'”

So, to sum up all of these passages, this is what God has taught me through it:

Trust, and minute by minute remain in the Lord, daily applying what God has and is teaching me. I must set aside my will knowing that God has the best for me as I patiently wait for His perfecting timing all the while being content. Realize I am a saint because of Jesus’ shed blood for me, whom God will not turn from, but instead fight for me as I rest in Him.

This gives me such encouragement and perspective when I study God’s Word! God HAS and IS giving me the DESIRES of my heart every single day as I walk with Him and it is nothing I would’ve imagined but even better! I love God SO much!

This Christmas has been VERY unexpected but instead a VERY meaningful and different Christmas. Every one of us has been so content and have been given the DESIRES of our hearts.

Blessings,
Jennifer