by MeredithNMills | Dec 19, 2018 | Uncategorized
Maybe it’s an echo of Eden or a yearning for things to come, this drive I have for perfection.
I long for things to be just so, for everything to fit in neat and tidy boxes, for the day to go as planned and all our stuff (aka clutter) to stay neatly organized.
Christmastime is no exception.
Actually, my drive for perfection may be even more intense this time of year. I want the tree trimmed symmetrically (I have been known to readjust ornaments after the kids go to bed), the shopping to be done ahead of time, and the menu to be memory-worthy. I long for quiet evenings by the tree with a cup of tea and a good book. And I want it all to progress slowly enough for everyone to enjoy the season.
But sometimes, most of the time, real life doesn’t fit in my ideal little boxes.
Right now, I’m sitting in front of the Christmas tree and a whole section of lights is out, despite the time my husband spent restringing all the lights (several times, but we won’t mention that frustrating fact.)
And it’s crazy early in the morning right now, but the jet lag from my mission trip 12 time zones away has my sleeping patterns all out of whack.
And the Christmas cards arrived from the printer on time, but they looked so awful I had to have them redone. Guess they’ll be late this year.
I realized, however, that these little details really are minor frustrations. For many people, Christmas is a time of deep sadness. Tears well up in my eyes as I remember friends who’ve suffered great loss recently. My dear mentor told me not a Christmas goes by without her thinking of loved ones not present at their holiday gatherings.
Real life is messy and full of heart-breaking disappointments. Christmas has a way of accentuating that pain.
Nothing in real life is truly Pinterest perfect.
But that’s why Emmanuel came.
Everything was perfect in His heavenly home. Perfectly sinless. Perfectly painless. Perfectly perfect in every way. Jesus was honored and served and adored there.
But you see, He loved these humans He’d created. The ones who’d traded in their perfect relationship with Him for a shot at doing life on their own – and we’ve been living with the fallout from that bad decision ever since (all the while adding our own sinful messes to the mix).
Yet no matter how broken humankind was, God wouldn’t stop loving them. He’d appear in their imperfect world, live among them, and make a way for their relationship with Him to be restored.
He wouldn’t do it our way, though. No royal palace, no sterile birthplace – Jesus stepped down right into the middle of our brokenness.
He entered a virgin’s womb, and everyone doubted his mother’s integrity. He showed up in a jam-packed town and only the animals made room for Him. Smelly shepherds were His greeting committee and foreign dignitaries paid Him homage, while most of His own failed to notice His arrival.
His hometown was despised. His people oppressed. For most of His life, He was simply “The Carpenter’s Son.” Thirty of His 33 years were spent in obscurity.
When His ministry officially began, He defied everyone’s idealized notions of how this Messiah thing should be done. Instead of conquering Rome’s oppressive regime, He said, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mark 12:17, NIV). While others clamored for first place, Jesus took off His robe, knelt before His bickering followers, and washed their filthy feet (John 13).
He loved the unlovely. He forgave the unworthy. He turned the world upside down.
This is the Baby we celebrate at Christmastime. So why on earth do we bustle so frantically to make sure everything is just right?
That first Christmas was a stunning display of God’s ability –affinity even — to create beauty, not in our perfection, but from our brokenness.
He’s present in the process, not just the finished product.
This is our Emmanuel – the God who’s right here with us, with all our struggles and heartaches, our warts and bruises and scars.
God’s idea of the perfect Christmas is vastly different than ours, which is really comforting to me. It reminds me that there’s beauty in this very moment, untidy as it is, if I’ll just be still and embrace it.
His presence is the heart of the Christmas spirit, so life doesn’t have to be perfect to celebrate the season.
As we count down the last few days until December 25th, let’s look for Jesus in each moment, bringing Him our heartaches, our disappointments, our frustrations.
Let’s choose present over perfect, memory-making over striving, and surrender to His plan over clinging to our own.
Let’s celebrate God’s work right now, even as we long for the perfection that will one day be our reality.
How about you? How are you finding rest in the middle of the Christmas crazy? I’d love to hear – please leave a comment below!
by MeredithNMills | Dec 5, 2017 | grace, Hope in the Midst of Heartache, knowing God, ministry, pain, Uncategorized, Waiting, Walking by Faith
Samples. They’re my kids’ favorite part of shopping at Costco. (They might actually be mine, also. I’m just too grown up to admit it.) 
Just a taste. Enough to make you rush over to that cooler and grab your own box of goodness to take home for dinner.
Jesus’ coming at Christmastime was a bit like tasting a sample. For 33 years, God physically lived among humankind. He chose 12 men to be His closest friends and daily opened His heart to them.
He healed the sick and made the lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see. He displayed His power over darkness as He commanded demons to release their hold on human souls. He raised the dead, forgave sinners and birthed hope in weary hearts.
All this was a taste of things to come. God with us showed what God forever with us will be like.
“…Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).
One day, God will walk among us again. He’ll wipe away all sickness for good. Never again will people become lame or deaf or blind. Demons will be banished and sin will be forever gone. And death? It will never sting again.
This is the gospel of the Christ Child – born in a stable, killed on a cross, risen from the grave and coming again soon.
As we celebrate Emmanuel this Christmas season, may the good news of His gospel burn within our hearts and be ever ready on our tongues. May He fill our hearts with hope as we look forward to His return.
May we savor the joys with which He surrounds us and rest in the nearness of God.
How have you tasted the goodness of God (Psalm 34:8)? I’d love to hear! Please comment below.
Related Posts:
This Changes Everything
On Questions Without Answers
God Drew Near
by MeredithNMills | Oct 31, 2017 | fear, grace, growing in Christ, Hope in the Midst of Heartache, Loneliness, Uncategorized
By Meredith Mills
@DazzledByTheSon
Why, God? Why?
Has that question ever haunted you? Does your faith flounder when life deals a low blow, like our punching bag shuddering before my kids’ Kung Fu fists?
Mine does sometimes, especially when logic goes unsatisfied and cliché answers just won’t do. It’s been one of those seasons for me lately as we’ve grieved with several friends over the loss of beloved family members.
If you, too, wonder why, I invite you into the wrestling match within my soul.
Here are some of the questions I’ve been asking God lately:
——————————————————————
If You are sovereign, as Your Word says You are, why do You sometimes allow horrible things to happen? I get the whole “free will” thing – some people chose to hurt others. And if I’m honest, I hurt others at times, too.
But why accidents? If You are good, as I’ve tasted and seen You are, why don’t You stop them before they occur?
I can’t make sense of this. And my heart is afraid to trust You with my future.
——————————————————————
Oh, the comfort of bringing my restless heart to Jesus and listening as He speaks through His Spirit and His Word. 
God led me to the story of Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb (John 11). Remember that time when He could have stopped His friend from dying, but He didn’t? He didn’t get there in time – on purpose.
I’ve never before noticed the connection between verses five and six. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days.”
What?
Because He loved them, He stayed away long enough to let Lazarus die.
That seems utterly illogical. Lazarus’ sisters thought so, too. They both essentially accused Jesus of not loving them because He let their brother die through His tardiness. Divine love often baffles human reason.
Yet Jesus didn’t get angry with their questions or rebuke their boldness. On the contrary, He did something quite the opposite.
Jesus wept (John 11:35).
He knew the miracle He was about to perform – He would command death to release it’s grip on His friend. Within minutes, He would restore Lazarus to life and give him back into his sisters’ arms.
Yet His heart was so deeply moved by His loved ones’ suffering that He, too, wept with them. He felt their pain, and He feels ours, too.
He could have prevented Lazarus’ death, but He saw a bigger picture. Instead, He drew near to the sisters and wept with them.
This is Emmanuel, God with us. Near to the brokenhearted. A very present help in our need (Psalm 34:18, 46:1). The God of comfort restores shattered lives, trades beauty for ashes and replaces heaviness with praise.
He knows the end of our story, too – that for believers in Jesus, death is not the end. One day our suffering will be over. Like Lazarus and his sisters, we will be reunited with those gone before us into heaven.
But Jesus’ knowledge of the future doesn’t prevent Him from feeling our pain in the present or pouring out His comfort in abundant measure. 
After weeping with Mary and Martha, He proved that He Himself is the resurrection and the life. Death has no hold on Him. And one day, it will have no hold on us either.
Until that day, there will be many unanswered questions. Many times we won’t understand or feel the love of God. We’ll have many opportunities to wrestle with Him and choose faith when nothing makes sense, because we’ve found that Jesus alone holds life, hope, healing and peace.
He will set all things right someday.
In the meantime, He is so close, and His nearness is our good.
How has God walked you through wrestling matches of the soul? I’d love to hear – please leave a comment below.
Related posts:
When Life Hurts
When Life Eclipses God
Shields are not Just for Superheroes
A Good Good Father
by MeredithNMills | Dec 25, 2016 | Identity in Christ, Uncategorized, Walking by Faith
“Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and they will call Him Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’” (Matt 1:23) NET.
God.with.us.
Those three words astound me.
For thousands of years, God had been worshiped from afar. His holiness stood in stark contrast to mankind’s sin. A thick veil separated His earthly presence in the temple from those who approached Him.
Until Emmanuel.
His arrival changed everything.
The Eternal One stepped into time and wrapped Himself with humanity. The Creator became one of us. The King who controls armies, who sets up and tears down nations, that King made His first appearance in an unceremonious stable.
And such would be His life – a homeless Miracle Worker, a traveling Teacher, a King rejected by His own people.
He came not impress us, but to save us. Not to condemn us, but to restore friendship with God.*
He came to do what we could not do – to keep the Law of God, and die as if He hadn’t. To taste death for us, then render it powerless so we could be set free.
He came to tear the veil that separated a holy God from His people, and to make us holy, too.
This is Emmanuel – a God so in love with His people that He would walk among us, know our pains, experience our emotions, and die in our stead.
And He beckons us, even today as we celebrate His birth, to draw near to Him as well.
As we give and receive gifts this Christmas day, may we remember the greatest Gift of all time. And may we offer ourselves back as a gift to Him.
Merry Christmas!
This changes everything
* If you’re curious about how to begin a relationship with this Jesus, please check out In Case You’re Wondering.
Related Posts:
The Sunrise of Christmastime
The Wonder of Christmas
What’s Inside
by MeredithNMills | Jan 7, 2016 | Uncategorized
It always makes me a little sad, taking down Christmas decorations. All the tinsel and lights and evergreen beauty – even as an adult, it still seems a bit magical. But now it’s over and time to get back to work.
And then there’s the new year.
It used to fill me with excitement and hope. I would dream of what lies ahead and celebrate with anticipation. But I’ve noticed an unwelcome change in my heart over the last few years. Maybe I’ve become pessimistic. Maybe I’ve just come to love a simple life and don’t want things to change.
Actually, I think I’m afraid.
Afraid of what lies ahead. Afraid of losing what I love or of the discomfort of change. Fear can wield such a vise grip on my heart. Indeed, it has been one of the greatest struggles of my adult life.
This is no small matter for a follower of Jesus, because fear sabotages faith.
When fear moves in, joy and peace get pushed out. Trusting God is replaced by anxiety and “what if’s.” And the longer fear is entertained, the more it takes over. Where fear once was a nagging thought, it begins to command center stage. Instead of walking by faith, self-preservation becomes the goal. Instead of eyes fixed on Jesus, I’m distracted by myself and my surroundings.
But thank God, He’s the Lifter of my head. Thank God, the Holy Spirit is my Teacher. Thank God, He doesn’t leave me here. Thank God He still quiets raging storms – even storms of the heart.
And He reminds me…
He is completely in control. There’s not a ruler or a nation, an organization or a terrorist, a tragedy or a trial, a sickness or even death, that He is not Lord over. He is more powerful than any “giant” I will ever face.
He is abundantly good. There is a lot in life that is not good. A whole lot of things are just downright horrible. But our heavenly Daddy is always working for our good. While He allows free will and human choice, while the evils of a sin-ridden world run their course, He promises to bring good out of it for His own. His intention toward us is kind. Love is the heartbeat of our Redeemer. And He Himself is well-acquainted with grief, so He’s able to comfort us when we need it.
I am of great value to my God. When Jesus taught His disciples about overcoming fear, He based His command “Do not be afraid” on this fact: God notices every bird that falls to the ground. We (whom Jesus calls His friends!) are of much greater value than the birds, so there’s nothing to fear! Nothing in heaven or on earth could cause Him to forget His friends. He is ever attentive to our prayers and our plight.
I am never alone. Sometimes I catch myself dwelling on “what if’s.” But if I stop to think about it, I realize that the presence of God is noticeably absent in these scenarios. Here’s the reality – never will I face a trial or a struggle on my own. The indwelling Spirit of God, with all His infinite power and wisdom, is forever my Companion.
So when fear invades, this is how God is teaching me to respond. (This, of course, relates to unwarranted fear. In truly dangerous situations, fear can be a God-given response compelling us to “fight or flight.”)
Ask God for discernment. Is there a legitimate danger I need to face or flee? If not, then…
Notice whose “voice” I’m listening to. The devil’s native tongue is deceit, and he’s a master at distraction. If I’m entertaining fear, I’m most likely believing something that’s not true. Or forgetting something that is true.
Seek God for the truth that counters any lie.
Respond in faith, based on the truth. Quite often, the response of faith is opposite of what fear is driving me to do.
So, as I face the new year, I rejoice that our God became man, conquered death and is forever with us through His Spirit. He has good things stored up for His kids, and one day He will set all things right. In the meantime, His nearness is our good.
“But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works!” Ps 73:28.
May we treasure that nearness and trust His heart.
What about you? How do you respond when facing uncertain times? I’d love to learn what God has taught you!
Don’t take my word for it! Check out these passages:
Ps 31:19; 89:6,8; Rom 8:28,39; Eph 1:5,9; Zeph 3:17; Isa 53:3; 1 Jn 4: 8-10; Matt 10:29-31; Lk 12: 4-32; Isa 49:15-16; Heb 13:5
