Five Minute Friday - WONDER

It's our LAST Five Minute Friday of the year!  At least our last 'official' one! Lisa Jo is graciously taking December off... being new to this amazing little gathering, I am sad for the break, but also see and get the wisdom in it!  I suspect I may be tempted to still post a 'five minute' post on Fridays, but the fullness of the holidays may actually cause me to take a break along with the rest of the FMFPartiers!

The Fine Print: "Five Minute Fridays" are hosted by Lisa Jo Baker.  It is open to anyone, so to learn more about it - and to jump in yourself (the more the merrier!) or just to find a linky to see what everyone is writing about today - click HERE!  The idea is to simply write... for Five Minutes flat... no editing, no deep thinking - or at least REthinking, no spell check - just write! Let it flow! We all write off of a prompt that Lisa posts at one minute past midnight Friday morning  (EST.)  I'm loving the community of amazing bloggers and the creativity that flows from these magical Five Minutes!

So - here goes:
Five Minute Friday - WONDER

{GO}

"I think the biggest enemy in the church is not the devil.
It’s our own passivity to the majesty of the Lord Jesus.
At some point the Good News becomes okay news and
Christianity is no longer life changing but merely life enhancing,
and Jesus doesn’t change people into radicals anymore, just nice people.
The church becomes dull, predictable, and monotonous.
Here’s the thing about dullness,
what it means is we’ve lost our capacity to be simple before God.
We’ve lost the ability to live in wonder and astonishment."
                   
                                                                           ~Graham Cooke

Ouch!  I stumbled upon this quote the other day and it made me catch my breath.  While I sadly see the truth in it, I immediately looked inward... "Can this be true?  Can this be said of me, Lord?"  The truth is it depends on the day!  But right now, in THIS season - you know, the Deck the Halls and Come Let Us Adore Him season - a sense of Wonder comes easy!  We get caught up once again in the magic of Christmas and Christ's birth and the story... HIS-story...

The challenge is to keep that awestruck hope and wonder filled faith... to behold His majesty in the midst of January and March and July!

To stir up a sense of Wonder, we added two things to our Christmas celebrations when our daughter was young: We set our focus in our living room around a manger/feed trough and placed a Baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes and hay, as our centerpiece... instead of putting gifts under a tree, we placed them at Jesus' feet.  It was impossible to forget the Reason for the Season!

The other thing we added was a gathering around the menorah and lighting the festival lights.  While we are not Jewish, we recognized that Jesus most likely did not celebrate His birthday the way we do... He didn't gather around a tree hung with lights... He hung on one and He WAS the Light.  As a child, however, in all tradition - He DID say the Scriptures, repeat the Nightly Blessings, and light the candles, reflecting on not only the history... but knowing - KNOWING - that He was the fulfillment... that He was - He IS - the Light of the World!

So as we pull out the menorah and gather the candles for Hanukkah - I reflect back and can't believe how grown my daughter is! As we are facing the end of her childhood, I love that I still see Wonder on her face as she says reads the Scriptures and lights the candles... and I think of Mary... watching Jesus light the candles... did she, like me, ever actually forget that this baby of hers was not - in fact - hers at all? They are but ours for a season... but always - ALWAYS - they are His!

In the glow of the candle, my heart swells, my eyes brim over, and I remember... this sense of Wonder that comes at Christmas, abides with us, within us, all year long and there is never an end to our childhood... we are always His... always!

{STOP}


Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukkah!
May you be Awe-struck and Wonder-filled this holiday season, and all year through!
~Karrilee~



It's Friday... click here to read, or jump in and let us hear your voice and join the crowd... and remember to check back come January for a whole new round of play!