Category: Advent
Perfectly Imperfect
It was a perfect display of our lives; pieced together, repurposed, a bit chaotic, unfinished, ill-shaped, wonderfully imperfect, and lovingly created.
Advent Prayer-Week 4 A Present Reality
The coming of Jesus incarnate ushered in the kingdom of God and marked the beginning to the present rule and reign of God in our hearts and lives. So Jesus was not only talking about a place, an afterlife or future return, but a way of seeing, thinking and living right now. A distinguishing mark ...
Advent Prayer: Week 3 “How Long, O Lord?”
This is the third Sunday of Advent. Advent means "Coming". There is usually anticipation, excitement, and tension all mixed together while we wait for that which is expected. Our prayer this week focuses on the Advent practice of waiting. The season of Advent gives us the opportunity to practice something that is hard for most ...
A Prayer for Advent – Week 2
Last week we began our journey through Advent. Our prayer centered around how in a culture and season cluttered with distractions and busyness, we are desperately in need of something more sacred than all of our hurrying. Today, as we begin Week 2 we focus on Mary's embrace and even delight in God's, often disruptive, ...
It is Here! Let the Season Begin!
The Season of Advent Begins Today! For centuries, Christians made space in their crowded hearts at Christmas through participating in a daily devotion called Advent. The word Advent means “coming.” The season of Advent refers to the four-week period leading up to Christmas Day. Jesus’ coming was not just a one-time event as a child ...
Christmas Changes Everything
The story of our lives has more to do with what God is doing than our ability to manage it. Gail Johnsen This is my all-time favorite quote about Christmas: “God has interrupted our ordinary expectations, as cherished as they were, to conceive something. We cannot manage it. We can’t even understand it. All we ...
Christmas is the most wonderful, awful time of year.
Christmas is the most wonderful, awful time of the year. Often we have created an image of Christmas that centers around a perfectly pinterest-decorated home, candlelight, neatly (or extravagantly) wrapped presents, and intact families cozied by the fire reading Christmas stories and eating cookies. Not that this is bad. It’s just not reality for many ...
Advent Reflections: Let the Weary World Rejoice!
For centuries, Christians made space in their crowded hearts at Christmas through participating in a daily devotion called Advent. The word “Advent” means “coming.” The season of Advent refers to the four-week period leading up to Christmas Day. Jesus’ coming was not just a one-time event as a child so long ago, but his coming ...
Crazy Joy!
Choose joy! We hear it all the time. In this way, we often think of joy as simply a choice we make. It’s where we are in control; we muster up the strength, gather all our internal resources and make a cognitive decision…and “will” our way to joy. Choosing can only take us so far. ...
This is Advent
I am mindful that this year Advent begins against a sweeping backdrop of pain and brokenness. It seems there are few places in our world that have not been touched by violence and injustice. And our hearts ache. Sometimes the ache feels unbearable. Our first and most basic reaction is to silence or dull the ...
Gail Johnsen 