Best Friend

“Jesus is my best friend
I can always go to Him
tell Him everything
I’m thinking of
my friend Jesus
whom I love.”

~ Twila Paris, My Best Friend
Bedtime Prayers CD

I put this song on a lullaby CD I made for my boys.  They listen to it every night as we’re tucking in and rubbing backs.  Lullabies seem to really boil ideas down to their basics, and listening to it has given me the opportunity to let the simple messages really sink in.  For me, the joys of the Christmas season usually include small pockets of melancholy for some reason, and this year is no different.  I’ve noticed a sense of loneliness in my spirit even though I’m almost constantly surrounded by people.  I want to sing this song.  But right now, I don’t know if I would describe Jesus as my best friend–a friend, a Saviour, to be sure, but not necessarily my BEST friend.  I want to live this song.  I need to.  I want to rest in Emmanuel and feel the nearness of “God with us.”  I want to approach Him as I would a person, to run to Him with the latest news, to share with him my thoughts and feelings, to rely on Him for encouragement and advice.  I want to love Him–all the more as I celebrate His birth.

12th Day of Thanksgiving: We Gather Together

We gather together
to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens
His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing
now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His name,
He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us,
our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining
His kingdom divine;
so from the beginning
the fight we were winning;
thou, Lord, wast at our side,
all glory be thine!

Lyrics: Nederlandtsch Gedencklanck; trans. by Theodore Baker 
Music: 16th cent. Dutch melody; arr. by Edward Kremser (1838-1914)

Curveball

“November resembles a curveball.  Just when you think you know where the ball will go over the plate it shifts on you and you’re swinging wind.”

~ Outfoxed by Rita Mae Brown

Ornament

“When Eve was brought unto Adam, he became filled with the Holy Spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appelations.  He called her Eva, that is to say, the Mother of All.  He did not style her wife, but simply mother,–mother of all living creatures.  In this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of a woman.”

~ Martin Luther

steady

“troubles they may come and go
but good times, they’re the gold
if the road gets rocky, girl
just steady as we go” 

~ Dave Matthews
“Steady As We Go”