Do you hear what I hear?

My favorite Christmas song is "Do You Hear What I Hear?" There is a version of it by Third Day on the Christmas Offerings album. I sincerely wish that for each of my entries I could select a musical track to accompany the text you read. If I could choose one for this entry, it would be that song. I'm listening to it while I write, as many times as my roommate will let me, because it really captures the spirit of Christmas for me.

The news of Christ's birth, beginning with just a breath of the wind and a message to a humble lamb. The news spreads in a strange hierarchy, to shepherds, whose word was not trusted in court and to a child, who is the least likely to be listenened to. Then, the best part of all is that the little shepherd boy goes straight to the mighty king and is actually taken seriously when he tells the king about the Messiah. How awesome is the message of this song on so many levels!

I see the beauty of that favorite song of mine reflected in the amazing experience of Christmas I've had in Belfast. Christmas began as an idea, a message to be shared in plays, skits, and readings that would happen throughout the advent season. But Christmas infected my heart and came to me through the people I've come to love and know as dear friends here in Belfast. There is no way I could ever thank everyone for the myriad of gifts, cards, and well wishes I received this season. Today, Boxing Day, I stood in Frances' kitchen drying dishes and my heart was so full thinking of all the people who are now my extended family.

Christmas came to me through the youth at Whitehouse who put on an incredible Christmas Eve service, through visiting housebound and giving out potted plants, through sing alongs at a local nursing home and the Salvation Army, through people I served alongside or observed, through carols and the faces of children showing off their presents (even one putting Scooby Doo in the nativity!), through the people I work and worship with, and through the city itself. Now I see pictures on the walls of our house and think about how they are so familiar to me. I am already so changed by this experience and feel a bit of sadness that my Christmas in Belfast is coming to an end. It truly was a blessed Christmas and I hope that yours was the same.

home by another way

"So they worked out another route...and returned to their own country." (Matthew 2, The Message)

The wisemen, or scholars, were warned in a dream to go home by another way. I like The Message translation, "they worked out another route." Lately I have felt comraderie with the wisemen. It's not that I claim to be wise or even scholar, though like everyone at this time of year I am hoping to meet Jesus and experience the joy of Christ's birth. No, I feel like the wisemen are my kindred spirits because I've been faced with the possibility of having to work out another route.

I am loving Belfast these days. Most mornings when I wake up the sun is shining and I truly thank God for the miracle of sun and it's beauty on the hills behind our house. I walk down streets where the shops are now familiar and I've ventured down a few new ones either on purpose or by accident. I feel more confident, like I understand a bit better the people that I work with and the way things go. I think Frances said it best when she said about me, "When she first came she was a wee quiet thing and now she's a right cheeky little girl!" I'm feeling more like me and taking some good advice- lighten up!

That's why, I guess, I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me yesterday when I learned some things that have made me reconsider my route back to my own country. My previous blogs give a picture of my renewed passion for teaching and how much I value the gift of being a classroom teacher. My route has been, over the past 3 months, that I would return to teaching and almost step back in to the cookie cutter of the life I left behind. I felt I was learning to appreciate the immense joy of that life. Yet some part of me felt that God wasn't through and I wasn't just meant to tick away the months in Belfast. This experience is too much of a gift for it to just be that. And this must be a bit of what those wisemen felt. They went on a pilgrimage because of a star they had studied. Yet when they arrived they were overcome, their lives changed, and they had to return a different way because they were not the same.

So here I find myself recalculating my route, finding that I'm a bit scared about what else God will change while I'm in Belfast. But I also have a bit of a thrill-seeker feeling that I'm suddenly in this strange position and there is no telling what God has in store. I can feel the tremble of fear and excitement as I consider that God is shaking up my route. That means that He's in control. That means that He has concern for me, He has plans for me, and now is another chance to cling to trust in Him that He'll use my gifts to do what He wills.

I remember the feeling I had this time last year when I turned in my application to be a YAV. I felt like I had just jumped out of a metaphorical plane. But there was this amazingly awesome freedom in knowing that I had no control over my future and God would guide each and every step I took. When I think of how richly He has blessed my life in this year I am overcome. How can I worry and what should I be afraid of if He is the one doing the changing and charting the route.

So I have six months to live in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the next six months I hope to wake up each day, whether sun or not, and completely and unabashedly live in the dancing joy of the gift of being here, sharing God's amazing, life-altering love with anyone who happens to get close enough to catch my joy.

Thank you for your prayers, thoughts, and support over these past months. I am learning so much about myself and about how alive and at work God is here in Northern Ireland and in the universal church. Peace, joy, and blessings to you as you prepare your heart during the season of Advent!