Month: December 2016

A New Year’s Benediction

December 31, 2016 / Jean / 0 Comments

May we go into 2017 with our arms, hands, eyes and hearts open so that we don’t miss a single thing God has for us this year.

May we shed any baggage from the previous year, lightening our loads as we cast all of our cares on Him to be swallowed up by the unfathomable depths of His love.

May we stop fixating on the unknowable future and start living our right-now lives, appreciating and enjoying the blessings that are right in front of us, no longer missing out on the present good because we’re too distracted with anticipation of what’s to come.

May we learn to relax and savor the journey as we trust Him with our destination.

May we pursue Him with total abandon, trusting Him without reservation.

May we let our roots sink way down deep into His love so that we may stand firm and walk confidently knowing that we have nothing to fear because He loves us.

May we reflect His grace and glory and bring Him praise as we live fully and richly in the present, letting ourselves be filled with the abundance that Jesus came to give us.

May we loosen our hold on this life and hold tightly to Him instead.

May we let go and rest, and know that He is God, and He’s got this, and He’s got us. And He’ll never let us go.

This we pray in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!

A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.

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The Meaning of the Manger

December 23, 2016 / Jean / 0 Comments

Reblogging this post from last year that provides a lot of insight into the circumstances surrounding Christ’s birth. I’m pretty sure this will be an annual reblog because it (the lesson it links to, not so much the post itself) is just that good.

In other news, this blog will be going quiet until the New Year. I wish I could say it’s because I’m going to be taking a work break but actually a lot of work is coming my way starting right after Christmas. Thankfully I’ve got some posts pre-written for the first few weeks of January. So watch for those in the new year.

In the mean time, I wish everyone a very Merry and peace-filled Christmas!

When You Don’t Feel Like Celebrating Christmas

December 20, 2016 / Jean / 4 Comments

Not gonna lie: this time of year is hard for us. And we’re not the only ones. A lot of people feel the exact opposite of jolly during the Christmas season, for many good reasons. Some are coping with grief and loss. Some struggle with loneliness or depression. Some are simply worn out, run ragged by overstuffed schedules and the pressure of meeting high expectations. It can be hard to feel like Christmas is worth celebrating.

For my husband and me, December brings the anniversaries of both our first miscarriage and his mother’s unexpected passing. It’s also a rather in-your-face reminder of our inability to have children. While those initial losses are still painful, enough time has passed to wear away much of the sting. It’s the pain of continued childlessness that is the hardest to endure.

Pregnancy loss and infertility doesn’t just bring grief over what was lost, but also over what might have been, and that latter grief stays fresh. It’s renewed with every anniversary, every due date that comes and goes that should have been a birthday, every time you’re confronted with family, friends and neighbors having and raising children. At Christmas, it’s renewed with every sighting of Santa, every lighting of the tree, every animated Christmas special. It’s renewed when you hang stockings for your pets knowing that no matter how crazy you are about your fur babies they’ll never take the place of an actual child. There’s no getting away from the fact that Christmas is about children.

But when you strip all of that away, you’re reminded that in actuality, Christmas is about ONE child.

ONE little miracle baby who was born into the world to bring healing, restoration and peace.

Thankfully, that baby didn’t stay a baby forever. He grew up to become the Savior of the whole world.

That child-turned-Savior is the only One that can fill the hole in my heart left by the children I’ve lost and am still waiting and hoping to have. He’s the only One that can turn our grief and turmoil into joy and peace.

Whatever it is that defines your hard this season, Jesus can do that for you, too.

And that is something worth celebrating.

Blessings,