Ten Things to Do on Christmas Morning: When all the Gifts are for Him

by Ann Voskamp on December 3, 2010 in Christmas Change

So for over ten years now, we have nothing under the Christmas tree here, and I tell that crazy story and people have to ask and it’s a good question:
So if you don’t exchange gifts, what do you do then on Christmas morning?

To read this entire article go to ChristmasChange.com

Christmas: Thinking About Whose Birthday It Is

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Parenting

Here are a couple of GREAT quotes from Ann Voskamp's blog today. Go to Holy Experience to read the entire article.

"Parenting isn't so much about instructing people as it is about (an) invitation into (His) Presence."  "And we practice the hospitality of parenting -- inviting children into our presence and His."

One Parenting Habit That Changes Everything

by Ann Voskamp

"The food served on plates is but a a corpse, the dead food, and when we partake of it, we eat of the dying world. But when we eat Scripture, we eat the only real food, for Christ is Living Bread and eating He who sustains all things, sustains body and soul. When we eat His Words, we eat of the eternal world."

"Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD." ~ Deutoronomy. 8:3

Read the entire article at A Holy Experience.

Who or What Do You Love?

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.


What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything.


It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.


Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."


~ Pedro Arrupe

Thank you, Ann Voskamp for this quote. Read the article that goes with it on her blog, Holy Experience.

Are You an Admirer or a Follower of Christ?

"And Christ's life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly manifest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of following it. When there is no danger, when there is a dead calm, when everything is favorable to our Christianity, then it is all too easy to confuse an admirer with a follower.

And this can happen very quietly. The admirer can be under the delusion that the position he takes is the true one, when all he is doing is playing it safe. Give heed, therefore, to the call of discipleship!

If you have any knowledge of human nature, who can doubt that Judas was an admirer of Christ? "

~Kierkegaard

Here is a quote that Ann Voskamp's blog today. To read her article in it's entirety go to Holy Experience.

What You Really Need When Life Is Loud

Here is another great thought provoker from Ann Voskamp at Holy Experience.

Five Reasons to Regularly make Silent Retreats in the Day:

1. In Many Words are Many Sins:

“When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.” (Prov. 10:19)

2. All Strength Has its Roots in Silence:

“In quietness and trust is your strength." (Isa. 30:15) As the strength of God that came into the world to save us emerged from 9 months of silent gestation in a womb, from three days of silent waiting in the tomb, so words that emerge from silence have strength.

“And this righteousness will bring peace. Yes, it will bring quietness and confidence forever.” (Isa. 32:17)

3. In silence we cease Living Reactively and begin to Live Reflectively:

Much of our lives aren’t lived from the inner to the outer, but only in reaction to the outer world – our words and actions are reactive to outer stimulus, outer noise, outer distractions. In silence we learn to not live reactively, but reflectively – a still pond listening for God, a quiet life reflects His ways, reflects His heart, reflects Christ’s actions.


4. In Silence We Face the Canyons:

In the quiet, without the noise of distractions, we begin to hear the cry from the chasms of our hearts, begin to hear the depth of our need for love, affirmation, community. In a world where it all too easy to fill the gorges of our pain with people and noise and activity, it is only in silence that our neediness draws us to God for His healing.


5. Silence is an exercise in Humility:

Author Michael Casey writes,

“ [Constant talking] restricts our capacity to listen, it banishes mindfulness and opens the door to distraction and escapism. Talking too much often convinces us of the correctness of our own conclusions and leads some into thinking they are wise. It can be a subtle exercise in arrogance and superiority. Often patterns of dependence, manipulation and dominance are established and maintained by the medium of speech.”

Are You Afraid of Silence?

"Is there not more silence in our lives because we are afraid?

Afraid that when we aren’t talking, aren’t connected, aren’t piping in on conversations around tables, water coolers, comment boxes, aren’t messaging or emailing …. that we don’t matter. That we will be forgotten.

That we’ll become invisible.

And maybe more than anything else, we want to be seen, known."

To read this entire article go to Holy Experience by Ann Voskamp.

A Reminder to be Positive Today!

"In my year of yes, I embrace glorious color and holy mess and try, (because I fail and I am the soul messiest of all), to be done with the slow suffocation of "perhaps" and "we'll see" and "maybe" -- the biding of time till the visions wither limp -- and every day I try to remember that control smothers and fear asphyxiates and even now we could trust and nod yes to God's yes of today and now and breath.

We breathe."---Ann Vos of Holy Experience

For my year of "Living Life Positively" this was a GREAT reminder. I have gotten lax the past few weeks. Thank you, Ann, for this wonderful reminder. I MUST say Yes, much more often.

God Came to Rescue Us

"I stand on the field’s headlands, snow crusted up to knees, and pray the combine can keep pushing through. Pray that we'll somehow haul the corn up onto glassy roads. Pray that the temperatures stay low enough.

Pray about the absurdity of all this, the craziness of a December harvest and a Christmas tree hanging with the symbols of the wildest story of all: A God pulling on flesh, wading out into the muck of this world, the stench of the barnyard, all to wrench us free from endless winter."

Read this beautiful story written by Ann Voskamp at Holy Experience. She is a gifted writer and takes some great photos too.