Christmas Reflections

x o x o 

I love this season of Christmas.  I can barely wait each year for the afternoon when our family exchanges ornaments and decorates the tree; for the way we laugh and retell the stories, and one by one weigh down the branches with memories new and old.  I treasure the simple, unexpected moments of togetherness when all of us end up laying around in the living room with the tree lights low, the music playing and the easy conversation that flows.  I love the huge family and friend gatherings with great food, little kids running around and the pleasure of being with those we care about.  Even the kitchen chaos has had a festive feel to it lately... like last night when each of us on crazy schedules came tumbling in at different times, ate our dinner, snacked on ginger cookies, watched the gingerbread house take shape on the table (thanks to Brooklyn), and dipped into the candies meant to decorate it. These are the moments I love and cherish so much.  They are such wonderful gifts.

But there is one gift I cherish more, and sometimes I forget.   It's only when I stop and intentionally set aside some quiet moments to reflect, to pull away from all the hustle and noise, pressure and distraction, that I remember. 

Amidst all the wonderful gifts, there is something infinitely more....the most immeasurable, indescribable, invaluable gift of all: God's gift of Himself to me -- to all of us. He is the gift of fresh, new beginnings; the gift of forgiven mistakes, forgotten pasts, and clean slates.  He is the gift of freedom for our souls. He is Christmas.

A couple thousand years ago, at just the perfect moment -planned before the beginning of time- God did the impossible.  He became small. The creator and mastermind behind all that we might wrap our wildest imaginations around, willingly inserted Himself into time and history, in the form of a helpless baby, born to a peasant girl who was engaged to a carpenter.  And His birth was announced to the shepherds, of course.  God lit up the heavens with stars and angel-choirs singing -- a show for the lowly and lonely and overlooked. 

This is what God always does.  He comes to those of us that want and need him most. He becomes small enough to be born in us,  if we choose to make any room at all for Him in our own soul's manger -- right there in the mess of it all.  And then the Miracle grows in us.  God fills us and spills out of us.  We get to be transformed daily, if we choose, because the creator is lovingly at work within us.

And just like the virgin Mary, who said "yes" to being a vessel wherein Christ could dwell, we have the same choice to make.  Are we willing to say yes, even the tiniest yes, to having God dwell in us?  Are we willing, even when we don't know what it means, when we're afraid, when we doubt, when we're confused and lost in our messy lives, to say yes?  

If we are, if we're willing to make any room at all for God in us, I can't help but believe that we might finally experience a widening of our imaginations and catch a glimpse of Christmas' true meaning and best gift.

Merry Christmas to you all.

words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2016

fresh starts...happy 2016

My favourite moments of the Christmas season are those I spend alone or with loved ones, reflecting on God's gifts in my life.  The most immeasurable, indescribable, invaluable of all being God's gift of Himself to me -- to all of us. 

He is the gift of fresh, new beginnings; the gift of forgiven mistakes, forgotten pasts, and clean slates.  He is the gift of freedom for our souls.  

A couple thousand years ago, at just the perfect moment -planned before the beginning of time-

God did the impossible.  He became small.

The creator and mastermind behind all that we might wrap our wildest imaginations around, willingly inserted Himself into time and history, in the form of a helpless baby, born to a peasant girl who was engaged to a carpenter.  And His birth was announced to the shepherds, of course.  God lit up the heavens with stars and angel-choirs singing -- a show for the lowly and lonely and overlooked.  

This is what God always does.  He comes to those of us that want and need him most.  

He becomes small enough to be born in us,  if we choose to make any room at all for Him in our own soul's manger -- right there in the mess of it all.  

And then the Miracle grows in us.  God fills us and spills out of us.  We get to be transformed daily, if we choose, because the Creator is lovingly at work within us.

And just like Mary, who said "yes" to being a vessel wherein Christ could dwell, we have the same choice to make.  Are we willing to say yes, even the tiniest yes, to having God dwell in us?  Are we willing, even when we don't know what it means, when we're afraid, when we doubt, when we're confused and lost in our messy lives, to say yes?  

If we are, if we're willing to make any room at all for God in us, I can't help but believe that we might finally experience a widening of our imaginations and catch a glimpse of Christmas' true meaning.   

May 2016 be a year for fresh starts and saying "yes" to the best Gift of all.

Love and Hugs,

Melody

H A P P Y    N E W    Y E A R   T O   A L L    O F     Y O U!!!!     FROM ALL OF US!! 

all words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2016

This is Love

My Jesus.

Stepping from

 eternal throne

He humbly chose

a woven crown 

of 

thorns and hatred

intertwined

made to pierce

and mock

by hands He had created.

THIS IS LOVE.

Should it surprise?

when hanging from

the splintered

bloody beams

by hands and feet

nailed firm

that all creation

trembled

splitting time

in two

with humble 

love-soaked cry

"Father, forgive them

for they know not what

they do."

THIS IS LOVE.

And though we nailed him there

blind in our hate

lost in ourselves

He chose then

this posture 

for us

of open arms 

stretched wide - embracing

and He still does

THIS IS LOVE.

As surely as He chose to die

He rose alive. ALIVE!

and though he

conquered death 

and always will

he still 

chooses

to make us free - 

free not to believe

and in our hearts

leave him

on the tree.

THIS IS LOVE.

words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2013

what do you see?

SLOW DOWN.  TAKE TIME TO REALLY LOOK AROUND YOU.  WHAT DO YOU SEE?

I SEE BEAUTY 

IN THE SCRAPS.

I SEE STIFF COLD HANDS 

STRAINED OPEN

RECEIVING

I SEE SOFT HEARTS 

POURED OPEN 

GIVING.

I SEE HOPE IN

EXPECTANT BLUE EYES

OTHERWISE LOST 

WITHOUT 

COMPASSION.

I SEE CAST OFF TREASURES

SPOTTED BY OPEN EYES

 BROUGHT BACK

INTO LIGHT

WELCOMED 

LOVED.

text and images © Melody Armstrong 2013

known intimately and found beautiful

...thoughts from a walk I took this time last year.

It is a profound thing to be known - deeply known.  It can also be incredibly risky.  For to be known, we must be vulnerable.  We must risk being misunderstood or mistreated.  We must be willing to take a chance that our openness and honesty may not be reciprocated. 

Being known by God might feel just as risky to some of us.  And whether or not we are comfortable with the idea, we ARE intimately known by Him. 

David marvelled at God's intimate knowledge of him in Psalms 129:13-16 

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,  your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 

When Jeremiah was a young boy, God told him: 

“Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you: a prophet to the nations -- that’s what I had in mind for you.”  [Jeremiah 1:5 The Message Bible]

God says the same to us.  He sees us, regards us, and treasures us. He knows our name -- not just the name we answer to -- but our truest identity. If only we could know ourselves as he does.  What a gift it would be to see ourselves through his gracious eyes and realize the beauty of his design in us. 

Yesterday, a warm sun began thawing the heavy cloak of snow that has covered everything for weeks. I grabbed my camera and headed out for a walk.  I am always amazed at  the vast beauty of a winter landscape, but today I had eyes for something else.  I was watching the path at my feet instead, searching for hidden beauty.  And guess what?  I found it everywhere I really looked.  Many times it meant getting down in the snow, getting low - the humble places where beauty is often missed-  focusing my lens on intricate details that only reveal themselves beneath an intentional gaze.  

I continued on to the edge of a nearby river and found an aged piece of gnarled wood laying half frozen under the ice.  It wasn't very attractive the way driftwood often is until I took a closer look.

I laid right down in the wind-crusted snow shooting images of that driftwood from every possible angle.  By the time I stood, my jeans were soaked and I was beaming. I had found the beauty I was searching for.

I had found an original masterpiece.  The patterns and designs in that lone piece of wood were mesmerizing.  I whispered my “thank you,” overwhelmed by God’s lavish creativity, how he can afford to hide such beauty in places that most of us never see.

And then I thought about how he stops and notices me. And you. He sees the intricate designs that he took pleasure in creating.  He notices and smiles at our unique beauty.  God sees those parts of us that look gnarled and weathered and he doesn't cringe or turn his face.  Instead, he seeks out those places in us, knowing he has created - and is still creating - something beautiful. We may feel stuck on the edge of things, cast aside and half-buried, but he takes special notice.

I see that old piece of wood as a symbol of our lives, but with an important distinction.  We need not be dead.  In God, we have the opportunity to be fully alive, “abiding in the vine,” grafted into the main branch that is Christ, the life-giver. In Him, we are never just dead wood, cast aside.  Although there are places in all of our lives that seem pointless, purposeless, and maybe even dead, God knows better. We may feel like there are parts of us where beauty seems completely absent, but God looks at us differently. The maker of all things beautiful sees our truest selves, and through his creative artistry finds a way to take even the worn out, broken places of our lives and make them beautiful once again.  

Unless otherwise cited, words and images copyright © melody armstrong 2013

winter white forgiveness

What if, right in the winter of our souls, we saw it......the beauty and purity of the dazzling forgiveness that Christ offers to wash us in?  

 And what if, right in the middle of that icy frozen state of our own unforgiveness, we experienced a melt?

...and the frozen hurts, preserved over the long soul-winter,  started falling away...one drop at a time, till just our tender hearts were left?

What if, in our own process of being forgiven and forgiving others, we found freedom to flow, a fresh water stream, clear right down to the bottom of us? 

AND WHAT IF...in the words of the lovely hippy urban girl:

"...she remembers that beauty rises up from the ice shards of life"?

May your winter soul, and mine, be warmed by the pure beauty of forgiveness - both given and received.

With love,

Melody

photos and text copyright©Melody Armstrong 2013

After the pause...

In the last couple days I've had two people tell me that they've been missing my blog (which I liked a lot!!!)  I realize that there has been a long, awkward pause these past 4 weeks.  The reason is simple.  I often just don't have words to express the really huge heart stuff.  So I spent time in my journal instead, where my thoughts flow, unedited, like ink flows through pen...sometimes blotchy, sometimes thin, sometimes in orderly cursive, usually in jots and scratches.

Through most of December, I struggled to communicate the deep longing I have to connect with the central character in the true Christmas Story.  Yes....Jesus (not the scrooge or santa).  I want to know Him deeply.  I want to understand how deeply known I am by Him.  (And in saying so, I don't want to scare away those of you who do not relate, at all, to this longing.) This Christmas I wanted the age-old story of Jesus coming to earth - God becoming man- to impact me the way it should....the way a personal, shocking, messy, scandalous, humbling, unfathomable, love-filled story should.

Nicole Nordeman, in her song Tremble, describes my thoughts more eloquently than I could ever begin.  If you are looking for something to contemplate, I urge you to take a moment and soak in the words and melody of this song from Nichole's heart.  Below are some of the lyrics that are especially meaningful to me:

"Have I come too casually? 

Because it seems to me
There's something I've neglected
How does one approach a Deity
with informality
And still protect the Sacred?

'Cause you came and chose to wear the skin of all of us
And it's easy to forget You left a throne

And the line gets blurry all the time
Between daily and Divine
And it's hard to know the difference

Oh, let me not forget to tremble...
Face down on the ground do I dare
To take the liberty to stare at You?
...Oh, let me not forget to tremble

The cradle and the grave could not contain Your Divinity
Neither can I oversimplify this love..."

     -the song Tremble by Nichole Nordeman

And so this December I waited.  I listened.  I prayed as honestly as I could...in my often distracted way.  And as I wrote in my journal:

"I let my soul travel the distance to stillness

to settle into the waiting on bended knee

offering Him the gift of me."

Now, with January 2013, comes the living.  The doing.  The being.  Feet hit the cool, hard floor running and most of us spend our days trying to catch up.  Already?!  What am I trying to catch?  What is this "real living" that is so far out in front of me that I must catch it?

Hmmm....what about right now?  This moment?  This day in all its ordinary, gleaming possibility?  It seems to me that it's all about my vision, my way of seeing.  How will I view the events of my day?  What about the fire alarm waking our family at 6:00 AM and the real fire gaining momentum on my glass kitchen table...the fire that, anywhere else, would have had our home in flames by the time we reached it? (....more on this later!)  What about the news that more than one of my dear friend's marriages are ablaze with the heartache of uncovered deception?

December represented my waiting for God to come to humanity.  January is the reminder that HE CAME.    He came to save us.  Really.  And He does.  Do I have the eyes to see His saving hand everywhere I look?  I keep asking for God to heal my vision.  If only I could see and remember that He came to bring us life -real, true, abundant LIFE.  And He is faithful.   EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIRES, HE SAVES.


photos and text by melody armstrong © 2013.

a hockey mom's laundry room

WHAT WAS I THINKING WHEN I  SAID "YES" TO CARING FOR THE JERSEYS?  REALLY????  Could no one have reminded me that my laundry room is a disaster at the best of times??  That I'm constantly tripping over misplaced shoes which suddenly went from a manageable size 6 (small trip) to a ridiculous men's size 11 (large trip and almost fall) and every other size in between??  That huge storage bins, ten gallon paint cans, smelly hockey jerseys and other assorted hockey equipment would occupy all floor space?  That the washer and dryer would become convenient although INaccessible storage for multiple random items such as Halloween makeup, 2 loaves of bread, recently worn hats, gloves and ski pants, toilet paper (?what), empty laundry detergent containers..... ???? 

Stuff is spilling out everywhere.

Oh.....isn't that the story of my life?  Of so many of our lives?  No matter how hard we work to pull it all together, contain it, control it, manage it........or AT LEAST TRY TO MAKE IT LOOK THAT WAY, so many of us are just one busy weekend away from having it spill out everywhere.

And it spills not just from our laundry rooms. If only it was that simple?  

Too often the spilling comes from a more private place --messier than my laundry room, at times, although much less obvious.  It's my soul I'm talking about.

I get overwhelmed by the schedule, sprinting to and from the car with arms full, and phones ringing, and kids hollaring "where's my....." and low gas tanks, and sticky-notes on my steering wheel, and printed schedules that were here a minute ago, and the whistle of incoming texts, and police with photo radar giddy at the thought of speeding moms just like me who are about to crest the next hill and help them meet their daily quota.

It's all a little too much at times......and when the spilling begins, it is ugly. My voice gets too loud.  My pitch gets too high.  And every wrong my children have ever committed replays through my mind in fullscreen, HD.  The long list of frustrations and wrongdoings (that were supposed to be forgiven long ago) begin spewing from my lips --lips that are meant to share encouragement, love, gentle correction, and healing kisses.  

I rant until their ears are closed and mine are suddenly open --open to the accusing voice that always follows, silently yelling words like "shame" and "failure." It is not the voice of my Soul's Savior, who loves and corrects me all in the same, gentle breath.  

So I have a choice.  Right there, in that moment.  I can slump my shoulders and sink into the miserable shame and guilt that steals joy, grace and second chances.  I can turn a sharp tongue to my own soul and batter it with those words we mother's often tell ourselves: "you're a brutal mom; what kind of example are you? When will you ever get it right?......."  

Or, I can choose Him....GRACE and TRUTH and LOVE.  Grace says that there is always forgiveness.  Truth says that I am broken, like the rest of the world, and need healing.  Love says that I can be free from guilt and start again.  

So today I choose well.  I take a deep breath, humble myself, and ask for forgiveness.  I'm convinced that my children are God's secret agents, for every time I humbly ask their forgiveness, they  throw wide their arms and embrace me with unconditional, unreserved love.  They promise me that I can make mistakes too, and that they will always love me, no matter what....Oh, they remember!  Could it be that I really have taught them well...that I really have modelled it to them, no matter how feebly?  That they've come to understand what God has whispered to me and I have whispered to them from their infancy: "I will always love you.  No matter what!"

Next time you are faced with the choice, I hope you choose Grace, Truth and Love.    xoxo

photos and text © melody armstrong