Sometimes there is a recurring prayer that comes and nestles deep into my brain and snuggles firmly into my heart and soul. A prayer etched with the words of God. This past summer there were prayer instructions from God’s Word that showed up each morning, no matter where I turned in my English Standard Version. Mainly, God kept me in the battle songs of Psalms, where light fights darkness. Here we are in January and as I open His Word today, this same thought is here in Isaiah:

And I will lead the blind

in a way that they do not know,

in paths that they have not known

I will guide them.

I will turn the darkness before them into light,

the rough places into level ground.

These are the things I do,

and I do not forsake them. Isaiah 42:16

Two of our gospel writers tell of the birth of Jesus. Matthew, our tax collector, tells the story from Joseph’s point of view in a “just the facts, ma'am" style that answers the Jewish concerns. Right up front, he must address this whole problem of Mary turning up pregnant before her wedding day. Apparently, it was starting to become public knowledge. Not a good thing. And Joseph has no doubt that the child is certainly not his.

Joseph is faithful to the Law of Moses, which gives him the right to have Mary stoned to death for her immorality and her betrayal. A woman – a young girl – ‘pledged to be married’ wasn’t what we modern folk think of as ‘engaged’. In ancient Israel in the eyes of the law and the community, she was for all intents and purposes already ‘married’ to Joseph. So this whole problem of Mary being pregnant was something he couldn’t ignore.

We know this story so well, we don’t even hear it anymore. Slow down. Take Mary out of royal robes and remove the crown from her head and the perfection from her reputation. It is about to be smashed to the ground and into the mud anyway.

Mary is just a young girl. She is not quite – almost, but not quite, old enough to be married. Or she already would be. She is still living in her father's house. She is 'pledged to be married' to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. She is in agreement with this. But it hasn't happened yet. When it does happen, the whole village will know about it. It will be a big celebration with vows and singing and dancing and feasting and a set-aside time of honeymoon and seclusion between her and her new husband. But all of that is in the future. It has not happened yet.

When Dante wrote his terrifying poem The Divine Comedy in 1320, he placed an inscription over the gates leading into hell, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." The soundtrack playing in the background was the terrifying screams of those who were condemned in this never-ending burning inferno.

We modern folk have abandoned not hope, but the whole idea of hell or a pathway to destruction. I am betting you that most people, if they think about what comes after this life on earth, believe all dogs go to heaven. Wherever that is. Whatever that is. Or worse, they believe there is nothing other than this life here on planet earth.

The tinsel and lights are appearing on lawns and in windows in my dark world. Trees are tied hostage on car rooftops, soon to be released in some hopeful home. Songs of good cheer sprinkle the airwaves. Wasn’t it March just last week? Is it December already? In this season of fear and separation will we celebrate the birth of a God-Man some of us call the Christ, the Messiah? Will we really think of the time God came to town as Immanuel, ‘God with Us’?

Come with me for just a moment to the words of a man named John. He wrote the story of a man named Jesus, but he didn't start with a star-filled night or a young girl birthing her son under the open skies of Bethlehem. Instead, he mimicked the words of Genesis; "In the beginning…" and spoke his name as something as holy as God's own Word with a capital W. His words bounce with joy from life to light filling darkness…

When my nephew Joey was three or four, we were traveling to the beach for the week with my parents. He and I sat in the back seat together and he leaned in close to me. “Do you smell that?” he asked me. When I replied no, he leaned in closer, putting his little nose close to mine – almost touching. He sniffed the air, asking again, “That – do you smell that?” It tickled me that he thought if my nose was close to his nose, I would be able to smell what he was smelling.

That memory is closely connected to another memory that took place many years later. It was late. Sunday night. The room was dark. My sister Kathy had been waiting for death to come to rescue her from this life of suffering. Cancer was consuming her from the inside and her hope and patience were long gone. She was tied to her hospice bed with tubes delivering release from the constant pain. I was on the reclining chair pulled up as close as possible to her bed. If only I could I would have climbed into her bed with her and placed my own eyes next to her deep brown ones. I was holding onto the same conviction that four-year-old Joey had believed – if I could get close enough, I would be able to see what she was seeing through her eyes.

We have a worktable at the back of our family room. It is cleaned off only a couple of times a year, layered with a tablecloth and candles and china when we have family over for dinner that numbers beyond 12. Otherwise, that table is always filled with tools and the remnants or beginnings of projects.

Pictures are framed, guitars are rewired, cushions are recovered, presents are wrapped, props for film are created. There are toolboxes and crates and drawers filled with paint and glue, hammers and screwdrivers, and stapleguns. A sewing machine is close by on a shelf. This is part of our everyday life; repairing what is broken; taking what was old or discarded and making it new.

You just don’t know how quickly the time passes. They tell you, those older folks – but when you are in it, the days of diapers and complete dependency seem like they will last forever. I remember feeling like I was drowning in responsibility and exhaustion. I remember daydreaming of what two weeks of nothing to do could possibly feel like. Heaven, I imagined.

I loved my two children to death, but wow… juggling being the best mother ever and carrying a full load of high expectations at work and remodeling our house while living in it and having absolutely no family living anywhere nearby was – a lot.

Do not think the journey will be easy. It will not. I wish someone would have told me before I started out on this path. Oh, wait a minute – they did. God’s word is filled with forewarning. Enter at your own risk. Do not take up the plow and turn to look back. Take up your cross and follow me. Those were the passages I didn’t like so it was pretty easy to ignore them, to skip over them and race ahead to the happier stuff.

A few weeks ago when I was teaching the family stories of Genesis, a woman asked about the story of God instructing Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. She shared that her father couldn’t get past this horrible story; he couldn’t trust a God who would ask such a thing. I agreed and tried to explain how God was teaching Abraham and a world to come of the great sacrifice He would make when His own son would be sacrificed on the cross for us. I knew my answer brought no relief from the horror of the request.

I wander through the rain-soaked back yard humming "Morning has broken, like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken like the first bird…" on repeat. It is too wet from the night's storm to set up camp on any of my outdoor chairs, so I wander back inside and feed the dog – which is not my job – but she just looks so hopeful I can't deny her.

And I know what I have to do. I have to sit down and write. Write what - I don’t know. I only know it is a feeling, not unlike the bite of the mosquito that left its mark on my toe last night as I sat outside and talked for hours with Lauri. Hours later my heart is still filled with the joy of being with her and I am aware that there is an itch remaining that is demanding to be scratched.