How will our home look if our celebration is a picture of anticipation and waiting for God’s plan to be completed, a picture of our joy in the salvation he has begun for us? What visible things will fill our house as we celebrate what God has done through Jesus?

Our very first Christmas was in the middle of our honeymoon, so our traditions began the second year of marriage. We visited our families before Christmas, and returned across the country to our small place late at night on December 21. We didn’t have any decorations, the time was short, and our budget was limited, so we decided not to buy a tree. I had found a tiny nativity set at an international gift shop.

On Christmas morning, the two of us sat on the floor beside a low, small table with that creche between us. Christmas carols played softly from the radio as we opened each other’s gifts. It seemed exactly right that Jesus be the visible center.

So every year since then, a special crèche has been the focal point of our celebration. We arrange it on a table and collect our gifts underneath. I usually use a colorful length of material from a missions setting as a table cover. This table is often the gathering place for our family devotions during December. Anyone who visits sees can see that this is the center of our celebration.

We also use a manger scene as part of our Advent candle arrangement, so the focus of our waiting is visible before us. Other uses for a crèche might be:

• As an unbreakable set for the children to play with.
• As manger scene ornaments for the Christmas tree.
• As a stained glass or colored cellophane window arrangement, visible from the street.
• As a play corner with toy lamb, baby doll and appropriate dress-ups

One friend told me about her crèche collection.

I try to find one in every place I visit. I give traveling friends $20 to spend on a nativity for me if they happen to see one where they are going. I find them at garage sales and thrift stores and after-Christmas sales, and people give them to me as gifts. I have more than a hundred now from all over the world, and when I get them out for Christmas it is a wonderful reminder that one day people from all tribes and tongues and people and languages—not just my own country—will worship the King.

They’re my favorite sort of keepsake when I’m traveling too. And I look for them at special prices after Christmas. But I have no idea how many I have because I keep giving them away.

One thing has changed from earlier years. When Talitha joined our family, I realized how often Jesus is portrayed fair and blond, which he most likely wasn’t. Now I look for figures with darker skin and hair or made from a material like wood or clay that doesn’t show skin tone.

I want my decorations and celebration to reflect the truth that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, of all peoples.

(Adapted from Treasuring God in Our Traditions)

Over the years, we have chosen not to include Santa Claus in our Christmas stories and decorations. There are several reasons.

First, fairy tales are fun and we enjoy them, but we don’t ask our children to believe them.

Second, we want our children to understand God as fully as they’re able at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would delay or distort that understanding. It seems to us that celebrating with a mixture of Santa and manger will postpone a child’s clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. It’s very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part-truth and part-imagination to find the crumbs of reality.

Third, we think about how confusing it must be to a straight-thinking, uncritically-minded preschooler because Santa is so much like what we’re trying all year to teach our children about God. Look, for example, at the “attributes” of Santa.

• He’s omniscient—he sees everything you do.
• He rewards you if you’re good.
• He’s omnipresent—at least, he can be everywhere in one night.
• He gives you good gifts.
• He’s the most famous “old man in the sky” figure.

But at the deeper level that young children haven’t reached yet in their understanding, he is not like God at all.

For example, does Santa really care if we’re bad or good? Think of the most awful kid you can remember. Did he or she ever not get gifts from Santa?

What about Santa’s spying and then rewarding you if you’re good enough? That’s not the way God operates. He gave us his gift—his Son—even though we weren’t good at all. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He gave his gift to us to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough.

Helping our children understand God as much as they’re able at whatever age they are is our primary goal. But we’ve also seen some other encouraging effects of not including Santa in our celebration.

First, I think children are glad to realize that their parents, who live with them all year and know all the worst things about them, still show their love at Christmas. Isn’t that more significant than a funny, old, make-believe man who drops in just once a year?

Second, I think most children know their family’s usual giving patterns for birthday and special events. They tend to have an instinct about their family’s typical spending levels and abilities. Knowing that their Christmas gifts come from the people they love, rather than from a bottomless sack, can help diminish the “I-want-this, give-me-that” syndrome.

And finally, when children know that God’s generosity is reflected by God’s people, it tends to encourage a sense of responsibility about helping make Christmas good for others.

Karsten, for example, worked hard on one gift in 1975. On that Christmas morning, his daddy stepped around a large, loose-flapped cardboard box to get to his chair at the breakfast table. “Where’s Karsten?” he asked, expecting to see our excited three-year-old raring to leap into the day. Sitting down, I said, “He’ll be here in a minute.”

I nudged the box with my toe. From inside the carton, Karsten threw back the flaps and sprang to his full three-foot stature. “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them . . .” He had memorized Luke 2:8-20 as a gift for his dad. Karsten knew the real story.

In fact, a few days later, he and I were walking down the hall at the church we attended then. One of the older ladies leaned down to squeeze his pink, round cheek and asked, “What did Santa bring you?” Karsten’s head jerked quickly toward me, and he whispered loudly, “Doesn’t she know?”

(Adapted from Treasuring God in Our Traditions)

Talitha: “Mom, I have a tiny disco ball to hang on the Jesus Tree!”

Me: “Before you do that, you need to tell me how that disco ball relates to Jesus.”

Talitha: “Mmm…well…Jesus is the light of the world…and he shines all around…

Me: “Good. And he’s multifaceted, so there’s always more to learn about his glories.”

The Bible is filled with names and word pictures of Jesus. Every name or image is a facet of the God who is too complex and deep for us to ever know completely. But as we gaze at him from one angle and then from another, we see more clearly the whole, complete, perfect person he is. And the more we know him, the more we love him.

There is no other time in our year set aside to think so happily and thoroughly about who Jesus is and what he’s done. That makes Advent and Christmas a perfect time to put in front of us everything we can think of that reminds us of him.

While our children were very young, we did this is by using a large bare branch as a Bethlehem Tree. It was adorned with ornaments and items that picture or symbolize the Bethlehem event.

Now it has become a Jesus Tree, reaching farther for its symbolism, to include:

• ornaments and items that represent the nativity.
• items that relate to Jesus’ life.
• symbols of who Jesus is, as found in Scripture’s names for him, word pictures, and parables.
• reminders of Old Testament prophecy and history leading up to his birth.

Many of our Jesus Tree items are not ornaments per se. They are children’s creations of cloth or sticks or playdough, or we reinvented something as a symbol. For example, the lion (of Judah) is from an old zoo game; the hammer and saw (representing Jesus’ life as a carpenter) were part of a toddler’s tool set; the globe is a key ring.

The facets of Jesus are even more significant to us if we discover them ourselves. Perhaps our Jesus Tree preparations and our Advent spiritual preparation can mesh as we read through the Gospels, say, trying to find out who Jesus is.

Here’s a short list of some ideas to get you started:

A few reminders of Jesus’ life

• Star, stable, holy family, Wise Men, and other nativity symbols
• Shepherd (nativity visitors; he is the Good Shepherd)
• Toy hammer, saw (he was a carpenter)
• Nails (carpenter; crucifixion)
• Grapes (Last Supper)
• Praying hands
• Thorns
• Cross

A few symbols of Prophecy and History

• Bible, scroll
• Wheat (His grandmother Ruth; Bread of Life)
• Heart (God so loved the world)
• Joseph’s coat, Noah’s Ark (God saving his people)
• Church

A few symbols of word pictures and names of Jesus

• Lion (of Judah)
• Rose (of Sharon)
• Sun (of righteousness)
• Sheep (Lamb of God)
• Globe (he takes away the sin of the world)
• Crown (eternal King)
• Dove (Prince of Peace; he left his Spirit with us)
• Candle (Light of World)

May God bless us as we meditate on his Word during this advent season, and may he show himself to us in new ways.

(Adapted from Treasuring God in Our Traditions)

Advent is a time of looking back, remembering the faithful people who were waiting for the salvation God had promised, as 1 Peter 1:10-12 tells us.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,inquiring  what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted  the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Then the very next verses continue by turning our eyes forward in Advent, looking toward the return of Jesus.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:13-19)

There will be another advent of Christ; he will come again. This makes Advent a season for introspection. Peter gives us God’s high standard as we contemplate our standing with him: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). This is a time to ask ourselves questions like:

• Am I clear-thinking and sober-minded, or are my concerns mainly trivial? (verse 13)
• Is my hope set fully on the grace I will receive from Jesus at his Second Coming, or do I cringe at the thought of leaving behind the life I love? (verse 13)
• Am I an obedient child of my Father, or am I still shaped by the passions that drove me before? (verse 14)

If regular personal devotions are not part of our lives, this would be a time tailormade to begin. We remember that God charged the adults in Deuteronomy 11 to “lay up these words in your heart and in your soul” (verse 18), and that he expects us to “love the LORD [our] God” (verse 1).

The living water in our own hearts is the fountain from which we shower Christ on those close to us. Our time with God and his preparation of us is a necessary foundation. Without it our Christmas activities will degenerate into hoopla.

But however much we want a significant Christmas celebration, that is not the primary reason for our contemplation and self-examination. Our deeper motivation is the strengthening of our ultimate hope in Jesus, “so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming” (1 John 2:28).

May this time be a reflection of what our lives are—gratitude for the promises that were fulfilled when God gave us the gift of his son and anticipation of and preparation for Christ’s coming again.

(Adapted from Treasuring God in Our Traditions)

Advent Candles probably are the most common Advent symbolism of looking back to the days of waiting for the Messiah God had promised.

Various helpful schemes of symbolism can be attached to Advent candles, their number, and color. But here are the basics—one candle for each of the Sundays of Advent, and if you wish, a fifth for Christmas Day. Some people have a special candle holder arrangement, a wreath maybe. That’s nice but not necessary. The only requirement for using Advent candles is candles.

On the first Sunday, only one candle will be lit, then two on the second, and so forth. That’s the ritual. But if we want our Advent candles to be more than a centerpiece, we have to ask ourselves, “What makes these more than wax and wick?”

The flame is a symbol of the one who is called “the light of the world.” We who follow him “will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

But we need to remember that our very young children will see only candles. No matter how much we explain the symbolism, they need some more years before they can comprehend it. That’s why I usually incorporate a manger scene into our Advent candle arrangement. Tangible is my guiding word. What children can see and touch, they might understand a little more clearly. It’s helpful for us adults as well. These candles are pointing us toward God’s gift of Jesus.

On Advent Sundays, we Pipers gather at the table for a meal and hear a word from the Bible before lighting the next candle. When the children were younger, each week’s passage probably would be one part of the Christmas story from Matthew or Luke. As they grew older, we expanded to include Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah’s coming. Then on other days, whenever we sit at the dining room table where the candles are the centerpiece, we light that week’s number of candles.

The light, brighter by the week, points us toward Jesus who has called us to be “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

(Adapted from Treasuring God in Our Traditions)

During Advent, it’s as if we are re-enacting the thousands of years God’s people were anticipating and longing for the coming of God’s salvation, for Jesus. Then at the end of the four weeks of Advent, Christmas is a heartfelt celebration because that ancient waiting is done.

And yet we are still waiting.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. (Romans 8:22-23)

Our spiritual redemption came to us with the baby of Bethlehem. But still, “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

There is suffering and tragedy still, even for Christians. Someone we love is dying. We may be in pain. Sometimes we have trouble believing God’s promises. In other words, our redemption is not complete. We are waiting for the redemption of our bodies—waiting for Jesus’ second advent, for him to come again.

So here we stand in the middle. Advent is a season of looking back, thinking how it must have been, waiting for the promised salvation of God, not knowing what to expect. And at the same time, it is a season of looking ahead, waiting eagerly, and preparing ourselves to meet Jesus at his Second Coming.

(Adapted from Treasuring God in Our Traditions)

We are a people of promise. For centuries, God prepared people for the coming of his Son, our only hope for life. At Christmas we celebrate the fulfillment of the promises God made—that he would give a way to draw near to him.

Advent is what we call the season leading up to Christmas. It begins four Sundays before December 25, sometimes in the last weekend of November, sometimes on the first Sunday in December. This year it was November 29.

1 Peter 1:10-12 is a clear description of what we look back to during Advent.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. (1 Peter 1:10-12 )

For four weeks, it’s as if we’re re-enacting, remembering the thousands of years God’s people were anticipating and longing for the coming of God’s salvation, for Jesus. That’s what advent means—coming. Even God’s men who foretold the grace that was to come didn’t know “what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating." They were waiting, but they didn’t know what God’s salvation would look like.

In fact, God revealed to them that they were not the ones who would see the sufferings and glory of God’s Christ:

They were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.

They were serving us. We Christians on this side of Jesus’ birth are a God-blessed, happy people because we know God’s plan. The ancient waiting is over. We have the greatest reason to celebrate.

(Adapted from Treasuring God in Our Traditions)

Today is a very important day in my life—my mother’s birthday.

At my blog, I’m in the middle of a series, telling our adoption story. Today, I skipped ahead a few episodes to describe Mother’s response to our adoption news.

I’m thanking God for Mother, who to this day points me toward him through her life and practical advice.

When I came home from running errands yesterday, I found a florist’s delivery on my back porch—rich, red long-stemmed roses. The gift card had no words, only numbers: 6-6-66.

Yesterday, 6-6-09, was the 43rd anniversary of the day I met Johnny Piper in the lounge of Fischer Hall at Wheaton College. God has brought us a long way since then.

When I got the flowers, Johnny was in Raleigh. Remembering the many times he’s told a favorite what-if story, I texted him: “Oh Johnny, they’re beautiful! Why did you?”

He responded: “It’s my duty”—which, of course, is a joke that always gets a laugh. (You can scroll to the bottom of this message to see the story I'm talking about.)

It gets a laugh in America, but some audiences elsewhere might not get the humor, according to a friend who lives in China. When she was hospitalized there a few years ago, a group of her students came to visit and brought gifts. She exclaimed, “How nice! You didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

As with one cheerful voice, the young people responded, “Of course we did. It’s our duty.”

I leave for China today. It’s my pleasure.

I returned recently from Cameroon, West Africa. This was my second time as part of a team distributing wheelchairs, a joint project of Bethlehem Baptist and Joni and Friends.

We went in the name of Jesus. We know that, though it is a good thing to be lifted up into a wheelchair, it is not enough. We pray that the people we met will trust in Jesus, our Savior and the son of God who “sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety” (Job 5:11).

Desiring God’s International Outreach became a partner in that prayer through the donation of books, most of which were given in gratitude to the Cameroonian volunteers and pastors who worked alongside us. A book is a precious gift to a person with little income, but great hunger for God.

Some received books in English.

Some received French translations.

And children received a copy of my book, Most of All, Jesus Loves You.

International Outreach, I bring you greetings from Cameroon. Children and parents, pastors and church leaders, staff and volunteers at Christian ministries to the disabled send you hearty thanks and blessing.

(More stories and pictures are at the Harvest Project team blog.)

One time there was a little boy. His family moved to a new place. He didn’t know anyone in the houses nearby. That made him feel lonely. So he sat on the front steps and cried out, “Friends! Frie-e-e-ends!” He wanted a friend...

If you were very young and were visiting me, I might tell you the rest of the story. But even if you’re not so young, perhaps you resonate with that little boy’s cry.

All of us—children and adults—want friends who love us, comfort us when we’re sad, forgive us when we mess up, and help us know God better.

It took me a long time to realize that when I’m down, one of my greatest comforts is to read through the gospels, rediscovering the ways that Jesus shows himself to be a friend—the best kind of friend.

I hope my young grandchildren will know this friendship even at their young ages. That’s why I wrote Do You Want a Friend?

We may have lots of friends, but there is only one perfect and lasting friend. Jesus loves us and died to save us from our sins. There is no better friend than Jesus.

If you have two functional legs, imagine life without them.... Imagine life without them.... Imagine that your legs are gone so that you can have life.

That’s the story of my cousin, Mal. He was in a coma, almost dead, and his sons and daughter agreed to the one medication that might save his life, knowing that the loss of fingers or feet was a likely side effect.

Despite weeks of therapy, he did lose both legs below the knee. He says, “You would think that I would be angry and bitter. I can only say, God gave me two months [of therapy] to be prepared for this.” 

Yes. Losing one’s legs is desperately difficult. But how might it change our perspective if losing legs meant keeping life? Maybe we’d say something like Mal does:

Why had God saved my life? The only reason that came to my mind was, He had additional purposes for my life. I promised God that whenever a door opened, I would trust that He wanted me to step through. 

When Mal, on his two prostheses, steps through the door that stands open now, he will be part of the second Harvest Project team delivering wheelchairs to people in Cameroon. His work will be as a wheelchair mechanic, helping to fit chairs to the particular needs of particular people. I am privileged to be part of that team with Mal.

His greater mission, though, will be fulfilled just by living. His presence and ability and faith in his Sovereign God will be a testimony to families, communities, and churches who may have assumed that a disability means worthlessness—maybe even that it would be better to be dead than disabled.

God is using Mal’s life to prove otherwise—“that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3).

I hope you will visit and subscribe to "Let The Nations Be Glad" where I and others from our team will post updates on the Harvest Project, so you’ll be reminded to pray for the team and the people we’ll meet there. You can also read more of Mal’s story and see something of the challenges for a Cameroonian with disabilities.

There are good reasons to dream of a white Christmas.

For one, God created crystal, blinding-white new snow to help us understand the contrast between our sinful old selves and the new persons he has made us into: “though your sins are like scarlet,they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18).

For another, the first Christmas was one of the times that angels spoke to humans on God’s behalf. And one kind of snow fun reminds us of those Christmas angels.

May your CHRISTmas celebration be blessed. Have fun and give thanks for the birth of our Savior, whether or not you have snow!

“The little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.” Really? Let’s not forget that the Lord Jesus was also the human newborn baby Jesus, as we’re reminded in one of the best Christmas books ever—The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Imogene had the baby doll but she wasn’t carrying it in the way she was supposed to, cradled in her arms. She had it slung up over her shoulder, and before she put it in the manger she thumped it twice on the back.

I heard Alice gasp and she poked me. “I don’t think it’s very nice to burp the baby Jesus,” she whispered, “as if he had colic.” Then she poked me again. “Do you suppose he could have had colic?”

I said, “I don’t know why not,” and I didn’t. He could have had colic, or been fussy, or hungry like any other baby. After all, that was the whole point of Jesus—that he didn’t come down on a cloud like something out of “Amazing Comics,” but that he was born and lived...a real person. (73-74)

Luke 2:10

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

We are a people of promise. For centuries, God prepared people for the coming of his Son, our only hope for life. At Christmas we celebrate the fulfillment of the promises God made—that he would give a way to draw near to him.

Advent is what we call the season leading up to Christmas. It begins four Sundays before December 25. The first Advent Sunday this year was November 30. For four weeks, it’s as if we’re re-enacting, remembering, the thousands of years God’s people were anticipating and longing for the coming of God’s salvation, for Jesus.

That’s what the word advent means—coming. Even God’s prophets who foretold the grace that was to come didn’t know “what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating” (1 Peter 1:11). They were waiting, but they didn’t know what God’s salvation would look like.

In fact, God revealed to them that they were not the ones who would see the sufferings and glory of God’s Christ.

They were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. (1 Peter 1:12)

They were serving us. We Christians on this side of Jesus’ birth are a God-blessed, happy people because we know God’s plan. The ancient waiting is over. We have the greatest reason to celebrate.

And yet we are still waiting.

Our spiritual redemption came to us with the baby of Bethlehem. But still, as Romans 8 says, “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (verse 23).

There is suffering and tragedy still, even for Christians. Someone we love is dying. We may be in pain. Sometimes we have trouble believing God’s promises.

In other words, our redemption is not complete. We are waiting for the redemption of our bodies—waiting for Jesus’ second advent, for him to come again.

So here we stand in the middle. Advent is a season of looking back, thinking how it must have been for those awaiting the promised salvation of God, not knowing what to expect. And at the same time, it is a season of looking ahead, preparing ourselves to meet Jesus at his Second Coming.

Brian Gault was born in Northern Ireland in 1960 with no arms due to the “completely safe” drug prescribed for his mother’s morning sickness. I’ve just finished reading his autobiography, Look, No Hands.

At Bethlehem Baptist's Disability Ministry blog, you can read about some of the impact of the book on me.

Annie Lou Henry
May 23, 1898 - November 9, 1980

Twenty-eight years ago today—five months after we began at Bethlehem—my father’s mother died down in Georgia. For a couple of years she had been having small strokes that kept her more and more confined to her home and then her bed.

During one visit, I sat with her and learned a lesson that helped prepare me for ministry and my own life.

This woman was my grandmother, who had always been part of my life. Though college-educated, she had survived the depression by scratching a living from the Georgia red clay, alongside her husband and children. She outlived her husband (Walter Raleigh Henry, Sr.) by 30 years. She buried one child and raised nine others. She now had so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren that she and God were probably the only ones who knew the number without lengthy calculation.

She had known God’s faithfulness through many kinds of heartbreak and pain and struggle. It was obvious to everyone who knew her that she trusted him for every breath of her life.

One time, one of her daughters told me that Grandmother prayed every day by name for each of her children, their spouses, and their children and grandchildren. Knowing her, I believed that. Aunt Rachel told me that Grandmother had sensed from God an assurance that all of the descendants she knew would be with her in heaven some day. Time will tell whether that is true, but the story is a strong testimony to her faith in God and her closeness to him.

Now this giant in my life—this shrunken 91-year-old giant—lay in bed and wondered if she were really a Christian.  Surely, she thought, if my faith were true and strong, God wouldn’t have let me come to this—too sick and weak to get out of bed. Maybe, she thought, my whole life has been a lie.

I was aghast. How could she say such things? I hardly knew what to say, but I assured her that her life told me a different story. I tried to point her back to the God she had always told me about, the God in her favorite passage of Scripture—the passage all of us grandchildren had memorized whether or not we wanted to, because we heard it so often from Grandmother:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of  the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30)

Here is the lesson I learned that day. Though Satan is never stronger than Jesus, he may seem stronger when we become weaker. When we are weak and sick and old, we may be the most vulnerable of any other time in our lives. And considering that our enemy is wily as a serpent waiting for an opportune moment to strike, perhaps the saints who have remained the strongest throughout life face the greatest temptation when finally they are weak. 

I write about Grandmother today for 3 reasons:

1. Every one of us is older than we used to be, and as more time passes, we will probably become weaker. We need to be on guard against the sneaky lies of our enemy.
2. We know or will know someone who needs encouragement when life closes in and he or she loses sight of the God who has been known well and trusted deeply until now.
3. As someone we love draws closer to death, we must never give up praying that God preserve faith strong to the end.

And I—now a grandmother myself—urge you to hide this assurance in your heart:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Today is the 87th birthday of my mother, Pamela Henry.

A couple of years ago, our Bethlehem M.O.M.S asked me to tell them what I learned by being my mother’s daughter. Only God knows all I’ve learned and am still learning from her.

Here’s a recent example. Mother broke her hip in May and hip replacement was the best way to help her toward healing. Within days of the surgery, I was hearing from my siblings that Mother was always one step ahead of what the doctors, nurses, and therapists were going to be asking of her. The day before she was going to be helped and trained to get out of bed and dress herself, she struggled triumphantly through the process herself.

She told me a couple of weeks ago, “I knew I couldn’t just wait and have things done for me. I had to make things happen, so I wouldn’t slip into being an invalid.”

And make things happen she does. When it was my turn to stay with her a month after her hip replacement surgery, she wasn’t allowed yet to drive, so all she really needed from me was that I drive her—to church because she was eager to gather again with God’s people...and to Curves so she could start working out again.

As soon as possible she was off to jail again—as a Gideon Auxiliary member to meet monthly with women prisoners.

Psalm 127 says children are a heritage from the Lord. I say, that to the children, Godly parents are a heritage from the Lord.

As I've mentioned before, I like being read to. If you can relate, I want to make sure you're familiar with Christianaudio.com.

They offer a different free Christian classic audiobook download each month. This month it’s All of Grace by Charles Spurgeon. After October 31, you’ll pay $14.98 for exactly the same download that’s free right now.

They also always have a long list of free downloadable sermons, interviews, lectures, etc.

Now I’m waiting to see what the November free offer will be.

Last Wednesday marked the eightieth anniversary of the death of Lilias Trotter. She died August 27, 1928, forty years and five months after following God’s call to leave her comfortable English home and move to Algeria.

According to the standards of her day, it seemed impossible that she should succeed. She was too old (34!). She was single. She didn’t know Arabic. She had no acquaintances in North Africa, except the two women who traveled with her. She couldn’t pass the physical exam for any mission board because she had a chronically weak heart following a surgery when she was younger.

If God works through the weakness of humans, as Lilias believed, he had it here in full force!

She sailed from England on March 5, 1888, with “a strange glad feeling of utter loosing and being cast upon God.” She had a passion for the God of the impossible.

Once there, she wasn’t satisfied to work only in the city of Algiers. Trotter loved to travel into the desert to find outlying settlements and nomad camps where people needed Jesus. Each journey was risky for women traveling alone with an unfamiliar guide through territories where Europeans were targets for desert bandits, scorpions, disease, and ferocious dogs.

There were no roads through the great, constantly shifting sand dunes, which rose up to 400 feet above the floor. A sandstorm would cover the subtle markings on the way. Even tiny miscalculations could mean missing a destination by miles. Within hours, the air could sear the lungs and the sun burn the traveler. It could take only half a day to reach dehydration.

In her art and writing, even today, we can catch glimpses of this world she loved. Toward the end, she was bedridden, and still she followed her calling. A map of Algeria and Tunisia hung over her bed. In her sleepless hours she prayed intensely.

On the map she wrote these words: “Take heed to the ministry which thou has received in the Lord that thou fulfill it.”

May we take those as our own words and prayer and intention.

Our grandson, Orison, is three years old. Judging by his interests during our Sunday afternoon backyard picnic, I would have said he was aspiring to stardom as an ace batter or as a trumpet player in a marching band (using the wiffle bat as his trumpet).

It would be fine if he achieved either of those goals. But I smiled when I read his mom’s blog this morning and glimpsed much deeper, higher, and broader possibilities: “Mom, I’m going to Kenya.”

That was make-believe, but games reflect a child’s desires and interests. My smile reached deep into my heart when I read Molly’s yearning that God make her ready for whatever he has for Orison in future years.

May we all pray with Molly that God help us to surrender all worldly claims on our children’s lives.

One verse leapt to my memory as we listened to Psalm 69 in the service this weekend: “I have come into deep waters.” It reminded me of a memorable passage from Lilias Trotter, 19th century artist, author, and missionary to Algeria.

“I am come into deep waters” took on a new meaning this morning. It started with perplexing matters concerning the future. Then it dawned that shallow waters were a place where you can neither sink nor swim, but in deep waters it is one or the other: “waters to swim in”—not to float in. Swimming is the intense, most strenuous form of motion—all of you is involved in it—and every inch of you is in abandonment of rest upon the water that bears you up.

“We rest in Thee, and in Thy Name we go.” (A Blossom in the Desert, 146, my italics)

It is an encouragement to me to be reminded by this image that deep water doesn’t drown us if we swim hard while at the same time we abandon ourselves to God who holds us up—“underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deut. 33:27).

I like listening to unabridged books while I do relatively mindless tasks. Recently I remembered a long-ago recommendation from Justin Taylor and I began downloading audiobooks from LibriVox, where they offer “acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.”

All the books are read by volunteers. I suspect that means a range in quality, but so far, everything I’ve dipped into has been very well done. I’ve tested a few and listened all the way through to Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton and Jewish Children by Shalom Aleichem.

There are 1,476 listings in the catalog, with more being added as volunteers finish them. I see lots of good “reading” ahead—Dante, Defoe, Descartes, Dickens, Dickinson, Mary Mapes Dodge, Dostoyevsky, Frederick Douglass, and Arthur Conan Doyle, to name a few from just one letter of the alphabet.

Of course, I mustn’t leave this topic without a reminder of the all the free audio resources from my favorite author, available here at Desiring God.

This is a weekend for remembering the ones who died in our nation’s service. For me, the memories are mostly of high school friends who died in Vietnam.

Today, my heart goes out especially to the ones whose memories are fresh and raw, hardly far enough in the past to be called “memory”—friends and family of American military personnel who will not return to them from the Middle East.

Here and there around the cemetery this morning were old men and women, caring for and adorning graves already well-tended. I imagined that they were honoring a friend or family member who died in World War II or in the Korean conflict.

This is a weekend for all Americans to give thanks for what God has given us through the sacrifice of all the men and women who have died for our country. However great the faults of our government and whatever our dissatisfactions, we have much to be grateful for.

If we had had our way, our much-loved granddaughter, Felicity, would have been crawling around in the grass during our Memorial Day picnic this weekend. She would be living and experiencing the privileges of being an American citizen—if we had had our way.

Instead, she has always been and will always be a citizen only of the land of promise, the city whose designer and builder is God (Heb 11:9,10). And though we still weep to hold her and know her, what more could we ask for her? She will never have to struggle over her true allegiance as we do who are citizens of both an earthly nation and the Kingdom of God.

Thank you, Lord, for the ones who have died to protect our freedom here. And thank you even more for your kingdom, which can never be threatened by any enemy.

Hidden treasures, that’s what my boys and I were looking for back in the days when we made our Christmas shopping rounds—first to Savers and Salvation Army Thrift Shops, then to the liquidation store nearby, then if we still hadn’t found all the gifts we wanted to give, we upgraded to Target.

A hidden treasure was what Talitha wanted last week when she and I went shopping for a very special dress to wear on Saturday for her date to the Father-Daughter High Tea at Bethlehem. She found the perfect dress for $9.99 minus the 40% seniors discount (I’m eligible).

That’s our kind of shopping.

The Apostle Paul said, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph. 4:28). Although we’re not really stealing, just looking for a steal, we like the principle—work so you can earn so you can be generous in Jesus’ name. We could add another piece: In order to have what we need to be generous, we also need to be careful how we spend.

So, I’m thrilled that Hidden Treasures Thrift Store opens this week. During our day-off lunchtime yesterday, John and I peeked in and were impressed at the large, airy, attractive store. Here’s what they say about themselves at their website:

Hidden Treasures is a not-for-profit thrift store that exists to impact our world locally and globally for the glory of Jesus Christ. . . .

We will be selecting international ministries from a Bethlehem Baptist Church-supported network to be recipients of 75% of all our profits. The remaining 25% of profits will be put back in to the ministry of Masterworks.

The grand opening is Thursday to Saturday this week. Lord willing, I’ll be there!