“Your Little Lights Aren’t Twinkling…”

If you know me at all, you know that 50% of what I say is movie quotes that have been woven into my normal conversations. My husband does the very same thing, which makes us almost have a language of our own at times (unless you’ve seen the movies enough times to recognize the quotes).

There are six movies in my top five movies of all time (I know…) and most of the quotes come from those. Especially Christmas Vacation. In fact, quotes from Christmas Vacation are so over-used in our family that it’s really kind of ridiculous…embarrassing even! I love that movie! This year alone I’ve already watched it 5 times and it’s not even the middle of December yet.

One of my favorite parts is when Clark can’t get the exterior illumination to light…all 25,000 bulbs. Clark’s father-in-law points out the obvious, “Your little lights aren’t twinkling…” and Clark answers, “I know, Art, and thanks for noticing.”

I love exterior illumination!! At our house we are much more subtle with the outside lighting, but I’m 100% in favor of other people being completely out of control with it!
I love to notice people’s decorations when I’m driving, especially at night.
It always makes me feel happy…
It even makes me feel connected…

In fact, it makes me feel like I can identify all the other Christians in the world that way.
I want to believe that every single bit of exterior illumination marks the houses of those who believe that Jesus is Lord and that this is the season that we proclaim His power and then we set about living it out loud for the whole rest of the year.

I want to believe this: “Oooo! Pretty lights! They’re celebrating the birth of Jesus.” “Oh, look! They are believers, too!”

Yes, I know that there are a high percentage of non-Christians who are celebrating the secular side of Christmas and that they do in fact have exterior holiday lighting.
Yes, I know that I sometimes live in “Alyssa Land”: a world where all is good, everyone knows Jesus, and everyone loves Christmas as much as Buddy the Elf – but for all the right reasons. Deep down somewhere in me, I know that isn’t real life. But I love to pretend.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if that were true?
Wouldn’t it be amazing if all the lights shouted to the world that the people in those houses loved Jesus…and if you needed help or encouragement or a miracle that those were the doors upon which you should knock?
Wouldn’t it be amazing if the people in every one of those houses went on to live as Christians every single day till it was time to put those lights up again?
Can you imagine?

As we seek Christ, as we find Him, as we follow Him, we shall have the Christmas spirit, not for one fleeting day each year, but as a companion always." -T. S. Monson

Can you imagine if we all really lived out this quote every single one of the 364 remaining days of the year? Every year?

What if we left those lights on all the time, year round, to mark our houses so that other believers could find community and non-believers could seek solace and compassion there?

I know everyone will take them down. I guess we will, too, so as not to be the basis for that line in Redneck Woman. But you can bet that I’m going to make an effort to live a life where my lights are twinkling “the whole year through”…where my lights twinkle as much for the Cousin Eddies & Ruby Sues of the world as they do for my family…where I extend grace equally when trees go up in flames, dogs and squirrels destroy the house, or crazy cousins park worn down RVs in my driveway (maybe not as much for emptying the tank into the storm sewer…) as I do when all is well with the world.

It’ll be hard, but I’ll try.

How about you? Will your little lights be twinkling?

Question: How will you live Christmas “the whole year through”?

Shock & Awe

I love to shock people.

Not in the “I just went and had my body completely pierced and sleeved” kind of way…
More in the “you think you have me totally figured out and you so do not, mister” kind of way.

I’ve been told I am a little high maintenance. A little complicated. A tough nut to crack.
Fine by me.
How boring would life be if we were each a Myers-Briggs ESFP? I enjoy being a complex INTJ. It is, after all, who God made me to be…for a reason. And if you know anything about Myers-Briggs and those 16 personality types, you know that my personality isn’t one known for enjoying shock value.

I am absolutely too straight-laced. Therefore, people don’t think I’m funny, so I love to surprise with an off-the-cuff funny remark.

I am extremely opinionated. I keep those opinions to myself a lot of the time so as not to cause too much eyebrow raising, but sometimes I love to listen long and hard, saying nothing, as though I might not care…or know…only to interject my opinion at the perfect moment backed by cold, hard fact.

I love to be an original and despise being copied. Just when someone thinks they have me figured out, I love to do something completely to the contrary just to keep them guessing. (For this I probably do need counseling, referrals welcome…)

But here’s my favorite: I love to shock people with the truth of Jesus, with the love of Jesus, with the heart of Jesus, and when they least expect it.

I love to shock people by doing things that are so far outside the lines of the secular world in which we live that the non-believer, or even the believer, on the receiving end is so stunned they don’t know how to respond.

Just today I had to call a company about a problem and speak to the customer service rep. I was really concerned about a breech of confidential information and the woman took care of it quickly and put my mind at ease. As we hung up I said, “You have no idea how you have helped me today. I hope God blesses you in return for how you have blessed me.”
Ya cudda heard a pin drop….
“Um, wow…thank you so much, ma’am!” was her response. Clearly she doesn’t get much of that blessing stuff at her job.
Jesus meets customer service…

A few days ago I had to call a credit card company that was trying to send me a card & all I had to do was activate it, except that I didn’t want it. I realized that they had us listed as a pending application, which “Mr. Chad McCool Envelope System” did not want on his credit. Good little Discover Card worker that she was just really wanted me to go ahead and open that account in case I ever needed it…even though I was telling her I didn’t need or want it.
I had no choice but to pull out the shock and awe!
Oh, to have seen her reaction would have been priceless when I said, “Well, we are trying hard to live by the rules of Kingdom Finance and part of that for us is following the methods of Dave Ramsey. We’re working hard to pay off all of our credit card debt and cut up our cards (!), and any other debt, so we can even start to work on the overwhelming task of paying off our mortgage in short order. It’s really going to take a lot of hard work and discipline to do all of that and continue to give like we want to. I know that your job is to extend credit, but I just really feel God laying it on my heart to be strict in this.” She laughed at me. (Hey, it ain’t the first time…and it won’t be the last!) Then she told me that she’s watched Dave Ramsey on TV a couple of times. I thanked her for helping me make sure that card didn’t become active and told her that God would bless her for helping me stay on track. I could feel the shock and awe reverberating through the phone line!
Jesus meets 1-800-discover.


Recently I made a call to a utility company. I explained that I bypassed all of the automated choices because none applied. I had to talk to a real person. I explained that I was calling so that I could pay both the current bill and the overdue bill of a family whom I knew could not pay their own. At first the man on the other end could not even understand what I was trying to do. He kept asking me who I was with, what company I was from. I kept responding with varying versions of “I’m not with any company. I’m one of a really small group of people who likes to go around paying other people’s bills.”
When he still seemed to have a bad case of shock and awe, I finally said, “I’m with Jesus.”
He very slowly answered, “We don’t get a lot of that.”
Jesus meets the utility company guy.

I hope that day that I was the vehicle for God to move for that family. I also hope I was a witness to Jesus being alive and active in this world to the guy on the other end of the phone. Very powerful stuff if I was able to do both.

Now these are some of those stories that I’ve mentioned I hesitate to share, but my dear friend Julie has convinced me that sharing it is where the real leadership is.

But here’s what you absolutely must know:
This is not about me! This is about God. Focus on God. Shock and Awe for God, by God, because of God. And it has nothing to do with me other than the fact that I am daily trying to be His hands and feet out there in my very own community, directly impacting one life at a time.

Jesus will show up anywhere that you take Him.
Oh, I know He can get there on His own, but He’s waiting to see how we’ll pack him up and carry Him with us everywhere we go.
For years I’ve been praying the prayer of Jabez. My territory IS being enlarged. But the world is full of noise and distraction and sometimes it takes more than a whisper to get people’s attention.
Sometimes it takes full-scale warfare.

Sometimes it takes shock and awe to shake the system, to sufficiently rock the boat…
…but WOW, the stories…the power of God in it…the legacy…the eternal significance…

WOW!

Question: Where have you taken Jesus today? How have you shocked and awed in His name?

Vera

I had to go to the Wal-Mart Vision Center today. I was already not thrilled to be going there because a.) I had a mile-long list of other stuff I needed to do today, and b.) I’d already been there twice and couldn’t get someone to understand what I needed/wanted (or I couldn’t articulate it so that they could).

Already not excited to be going there, my less than stellar attitude collided with complete impatience when my friend and partner in rescuing the poor and down-trodden called to say we should meet for lunch. “I can’t…I’m at the Wal-Mart Vision Center”, I explained. Her response was “that’s a pretty darn good thing, cause I’m on my way to Wal-Mart to buy shampoo right now!”

She’s a spontaneous sort of gal…I have a lot to learn about that…so out the window went the to-do list for today, but based on a sermon a few weeks ago, I thought that God would be proud if I could be a little less rigid in the name of authentic relationships.

Little did either of us know what He had planned for us today…

With no one really understanding my needs yet in the vision center I was forced to wait for no reason, but just listen to what God did during that wait time:
**My friend paid for her stuff and came and sat with me.

**We watched a lady, who maybe wasn’t the most fashion-forward, try on some super-cool and ultra-funky glasses…her whole face lit up. Her confidence grew. She knew her cool factor rose about 50 million points in that moment. We both told her she HAD to get them. Then we eavesdropped while the worker told her the price and we prayed (yes, I do mean literally) that she’d be able to buy them. I was prepared to step in if need be. Every person deserves to feel good about herself.

**Everyone in the whole joint looked grumpy…now I wasn’t too thrilled about being there myself at first, but once you’re there you have a choice to make: suck it up and make the best of it, or wallow in it. I choose the first one…AND I’m pretty much going to make you go to that happy place with me…Your light (or darkness) can absolutely change an entire room. (Google “Fish” by Lundin, Paul, & Christensen if you need a little help with that!!) So….friend and I started talking to the people around us, talking a little louder, talking with a little more animation, talking with a little more laughter. And the whole room changed. (This little light of mine…I’m gonna let it shine…)

**As they called me back I thought, “that wait wasn’t so long”…(because I changed!)

**The doctor, a different one than last time, not only listened, but solved my issue quickly (LOVE that!). Upon leaving, smiling broadly, I said, “Thanks so much for really listening to me! I truly felt heard…and that was the kind of customer service I was looking for.” …Compliments are meant to be spoken…

AND here’s the real kicker:

**My friend struck up a conversation with the “Have A Nice Day” lady on the way out (I don’t think you can call her a greeter when she’s at the exit saying goodbye…). Her name is Vera. We've never met this woman, mind you. She was a sweet, darling, little old thing…maybe in her late 70’s. As we spoke with her, really listening…so she would feel heard…we learned that she loved her job at Wal-Mart. She never wanted to quit, but she might have to quit because she can no longer see to drive. She told us that she loved working, and she had just put her dog of fourteen years down and she cried every day about it (talk about speaking straight to my very own heart!). She told us that if she couldn’t come there to work she’d be so lonely and would probably “sit down and die”.

WOW!

You can argue with me six ways from Sunday on whether or not God hangs out at Wal-Mart, but you can never convince me that the two of us were not supposed to talk to this woman.

In the course of our short conversation with her, we’d arranged transportation to and from work starting next week if it turned out that she really did need it. We’d proved someone cares. We’d validated her work ethic. We’d shown her friendship. We’d let her know that age is just a number and that no one has to “sit down and die” if he or she still has the desire to make a difference & spread a little joy! And we’d witnessed about Jesus in Wal-Mart.

Jesus. In Wal-Mart.

WOW!

And we left with tears in our eye, knowing that He orchestrated the whole darn thing for the good of those that love Him, for the opportunity to be presented, to see what we’d do in response, to make available to Vera His hands and feet.

I have many stories like this. I’ve hesitated to share many, believing that my works should be anonymous. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe if we all talked a little more, supported each other a little more in these kinds of efforts, challenged each other a little more, the world would be a different place.

Keep your eyes and ears open…the Veras are everywhere and God is just waiting to see what we'll do!

Question: What can you do today to witness, to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to an unlikely person in an unlikely place?