b+d

Why do I love weddings so much? Thanks for asking. It's because, given our physiological makeup, our society's influence and our nasty human nature, a lasting marriage in this day and age is almost 100% impossible. 

And I LOVE when people try to do impossible things. 

For those of you who asked, here is what I read at Brandi and Danny's loveliest of weddings. If you think it sounds eerily familiar, you'd be right- I pulled some of it from what I read at Big Guy's wedding here . Artistic license, kids. 

In the book of Revelation, Jesus’ disciple John is trying to describe his vision of Heaven. He is the only man I know of to see Heaven and come back to tell about it. He describes it the best way he knows how, which amounts to a lot of really bizarre metaphors and illustrations. But the one that fills me with the most hope and the most joy is this:

John, trying to cram all of the perfection, beauty and unity he saw up there into our whisperingly fragile language, describes Heaven as a wedding feast. 

He describes the meeting of God and His children as what we just saw, what we stood and rejoiced in, what we marvel over time and time again : a bride, making her gorgeous and thrilling walk toward her first love.

We’re in the middle of something achingly beautiful and sacred. Something that’s been planned for years, something that echoes with significance and eternity.

We’re here today to celebrate the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.

The most important thing I’ve been told about marriage is that we don’t have it in us to succeed at it. We’re all broken – we’re not whole enough or pure enough for things like unconditional love or faithfulness. The best thing marriage will do is throw you at the feet of our God who is.

In truth, weddings are beautiful because God is faithful.

I’m reminded of His faithfulness as I see Brandi walk towards Danny, knowing her journey the way that I do and knowing that she really has been walking toward him for years and years now. I’m reminded of the watch that Brandi wears all of the time and how Danny found it when he was a little boy and saved it, hoping to someday give it to the woman he loved. And his faithful father led him straight to his Brandi-lin. You two have spent your lives seeking and capturing beauty and God led you here, to each other.

This is something to celebrate.

He went before you all of these years, bringing you to this place. And He will go before you always, being the strength you need to choose Love, the grace you need to choose hope and the wisdom you need for all of your adventures.

I’d like to close with a verse from Deuteronomy. It’s from a speech Moses is making to the Israelites – they’ve been wandering the desert for 40 years and at the edge of the promised land, they stop- afraid. Moses stands before them and starts weaving a beautiful history for them, reminding them of their journey to that place and how God has gone before them, faithful, every step of the way.

He tells them:

Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.

He is faithful, He makes us more than conquerors, bigger than our giants (?) and stronger than our fears.

Love goes before you, like He always has.

And Love will always win.




***Like what you read? I'd love if you'd follow me here or on Twitter ( @WerewolfJesusBk) . That's right- this girl is stepping up her marketing game before the big proposal submission. Help a sister out!

WHAT THE- (part 1)

i know i say this every once in a while, when the bro in me wants to warn you, readers, that we're about to dive into something not suited for a first date discussion...but this time i mean it:

it's about to get real.
really real.

drew and i had a nice little chat about Hell before bed the other night. (nothing like some light pillow talk...)
i've been thinking about it ever since.

i took an apologetics class in high school, which is where we were basically taught to 'defend' our faith against those vicious non-believers who would start attacking us just the second we graduated. (and it always seemed a little ironic to me to believe that something is absolute truth but then learn to defend it with my stupid human words.) one question they taught us we would be asked is this:

why would a good God send good people to Hell?

and in some ways, it's a perfectly logical question, given the depictions of Hell most of us are raised on. the movies, the christian conversion pamphlets, Dante, etc. if that was all i had to go on then, yeah- i might ask the same question.
why would a good God turn Gamemaker (couldn't help myself with the Hunger Games reference) and mastermind a torturous prison for people who don't profess faith? if satan is His enemy, why could He build him a volcanic playground and give him people to torture?
in short, why would He use His good powers to create evil?

and in my almost 10 years since high school, out here in the real world, i have yet to be asked that question. and maybe that just means i am not out among the people i should be out among. or maybe my friends just don't care.
but i've personally never had a problem explaining this to the imaginary people who ask me this from time to time.

if you take out all of the cliched images and corresponding assumptions, it really is quite simple.
at least i think so.
then again, i always tend to oversimplify things.

if we believe in a perfect God, then He would necessarily be perfectly just, perfectly peaceful, perfectly loving, perfectly kind, perfectly fulfilling, etc etc etc. if this good, perfect God creates us with free will and asks that we love Him and choose to be with Him eternally and we-by profession or action-reject Him, we would be rejecting all of the things He is.

do you follow me?

that means that Hell is not a place He masterminded to punish people who don't like Him. that would just be so silly and petty and...human. Hell is the perfectly logical outcome of our rejection of His invite. it's a vacuum created when Love, Peace and Kindness are removed. it's what we're left with when we opt out of The Giver of every good thing. and that makes perfect sense to me.

so no, i don't think Hell is a parallel dimension that also somehow exists at the molten core of Earth. i don't think demons will poke us with their forks and toast us over fires. i think Hell is what a soul feels when it's left with its choice and that choice is the absence of God. when the Mercy and Goodness woven throughout our broken world is lifted and the soul is crushed with the weight of everything imperfect. everything unGod.

yes, the Bible says that there will be groaning and gnashing of teeth and burning fire. but, in the same way that Heaven is not really a wedding, something tells me that Hell is not really a lake of fire. but really, how else would you find the human words to describe the harrowing sorrow of an existence without Goodness. we humans, by sheer Grace, have never known that feeling. we've never been touched by that white-hot anguish. it's hard to even imagine, much less capture in our helplessly small words.

so, why WOULD a good God send good people to hell?
He wouldn't.
and He doesn't.

more to come.

for samurais and leprechauns.

I don’t know if it’s the samurai or the leprechaun in us, but from the stories my parents tell, my brothers and I were some spunky little kids.

they tell how my big brother received a tinfoil bravery medal for calmly riding his kindergarten bus from one end of the route to the other when the bus driver forgot to stop at our house.
 they tell how mute little toddler me found my voice to scream at playground bullies picking on my brother.
they tell about little Ryan, sitting through 22 stitches to his 4 year old face.
we had some guts, some grit.

Little kids are spunky. Little kids have bizarre reserves of courage.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about courage as I write this Katniss series and fight my own battles. Sometimes I look at my life and think ‘when did I get so fearful?’ ‘what happened to that little lioness, finding her voice and facing her monsters?’

It seems the older I get, the more aware I am of the harshness of this world and the more fearful and guarded I become.

Am I the only one who wishes she had the courage of her 5 year old self?

We use the term ‘bravery’ a lot with little kids, in the very physical sense. Tinier versions of ourselves had a lot of things bigger and scarier than us to face. Big dogs, big cars, big noises, big Chuck-E-Cheese characters. As adults, our ‘strangers’ and ‘bullies’ and ‘monsters’ take on the form of less tangible fears. Illness. Failure. Depression.Unemployment. Death. Divorce. Loneliness. Debt. – and bravery becomes less quantifiable and more elusive. More complex.

I’ve been attending a Presbyterian church and the service has more liturgy than the services I am accustomed to. I’ve grown to love this liturgy – the steadfast cadence of tradition – it makes me feel grounded and surrounded. One of my most cherished components of the Presbyterian tradition is the “Extending of Peace”. In the most modern sense, this is a “meet and greet” portion of the service, where you greet your church family and welcome visitors. But the hard core Presbyterians actually use this time to extend peace, which thrills me. The first time it happened, I was having a dark day, fighting some battles and feeling stormy and anti-social. An old woman approached me and before I had time to look busy or run to the bathroom, she asked me my name. I told her and she took my hand in both of hers, looked into my eyes and said my name and then simply “the peace of God.”

Now I’m not a person who is given to dramatics or exaggerations, but dammit, if I didn’t feel peace coursing through my veins, calming my storms.

I so often forget the power of the Spirit that we as God’s children have living in us. I forget how the deep calling out to deep can shake the foundations of my day. I forget that we’re agents of peace and vessels of the Spirit, passing peace from soul to soul.

And I wonder if something similar happens with courage.

Bear with me.

I’ve shared how it’s been difficult to start writing again. Difficult to face my monsters and be brave, put on my armor and fight. It seems whenever I’m ready to lay down and give up, someone sends a message or writes a letter or gives me a little pep talk that encourages me.

I mean it literally fills me with courage.

And I wonder if that’s the key. 

Is this why kids are so brave? Because we tell them all of the time that are capable of winning their battles? That they are worthy of the fight? Because it’s so easy to tell a kid he is smart but somehow so difficult to tell your coworker that they are patient. If we see a little girl on a bus, it’s so easy to say “well don’t you look pretty!” but when is the last time we told our aunt she looks pretty or told the cashier at rite aid that she has a nice smile?

Like the passing of peace in a Presbyterian church service, can we pass courage to each other? Like the lighting of candles at Christmas eve, could we make each other stronger and braver?

I’ve talked about fighting, I’ve talked about armor, I’ve talked about being each others’ shields. But what happens when all of those things are in place but you’re lacking courage?

What if you’re an adult, facing your adult-sized monsters and you just don’t feel brave?

I understand that our courage should come from Christ, that perfect love casts out fear, that He that is within us is greater than that which is in the world.

I know that.

And I know we all know that.

But perhaps there is a function of the Body here that we’re overlooking.

I saw a quote on Pinterest the other day that summed it up well:

“we could discover the mysteries of the universe if we could stop being dicks for 5 seconds.”

(sorry for the language, Mom) but this is what I'm really trying to say.

How different, how much braver, how much more proactive would we all be if we took the time to extend courage to each other? Maybe it’s because I’m a New Englander and we are notoriously cold and reserved. Maybe all of you big-hearted Midwesterners and laid-back West Coasters and sunny Southerners encourage each other all day long. Maybe Boston is a little too long on intellect and short on goodwill.

As my brothers and I were growing up, so full of scrappiness and zest, my mom always quoted Thumper,  that wise Disney sage: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But to reverse Thumper’s logic –

If you have something nice to say, SAY IT.

Make someone brave. Extend courage.  

Let’s be nicer to each other. Let’s win some battles.

katniss part 1.25

oh my GOSH it's embarrassing to share with you how many life parallels i felt while watching Bridesmaids. there is so much i want to share about how (sadly and comfortingly) i am kristin wiig's character, annie - but first, i should explain:
i am the type of person who gets sucked right into a movie- any and every movie. i find someone in the movie i relate to and i just...embody them for the next hour or so. this is probably why i don't do so well with war movies and horror movies. and why Homeward Bound was so confusing.


at the point in the movie when the cop-with-the-great-accent (wish i could remember his name and wasn't too lazy to look it up) is pushing annie to start baking again, i looked down and realized my knuckles were white. i have some bony-ass hands and i was clutching the armrest so hard my skeleton was popping through. i became aware of the MASSIVE amounts of tension i was feeling on behalf of annie and myself in my weird, movie-fusion mind.
we (annie and i, that is) couldn't believe he would suggest such a thing!
our bakery just went bankrupt a year ago!
we had poured our heart into it, not to mention our life savings!
doesn't he know it's not so easy to just "get back on the horse"!!??


sometimes the things you love - be they cupcakes or books-  turn on you. like a beastly little snapping turtle, they whip around and bite you. and heart-healing isn’t so easily remedied as a snapping turtle bite. there’s no protocol, no frame of reference, no ‘if symtoms persist after ___ time, consult a physician.’

speaking less cryptically, it has been hard to start writing again.
i’ve spent the last year and a half kicking a rock down a road- if a rock was my manuscript and the road my mind. it’s hard to understand sometimes why things don’t work out and how resources disappear and when to keep trying and when it is wiser and gentler to put things to rest.

like annie, i guess i have been worried that if i try again, if i open up my dreams again, with all of their fresh skin and scar tissue, that it will just be another sadness, another disappointment for myself and everyone in my corner.

but after all of that katniss talk and the responses that came in, i have to admit: that’s no way to live. hiding doesn’t count as living. and simply living doesn’t count as fighting.

so i will take a cue from annie and just bake one cupcake.
a baby step.
a baby blog post.


and i'll just end with this:


in my first katniss post, i talked about the armor of God being open on the backside - a sure sign we're not meant to retreat.
well, the second thing my mom told me about the armor of God is that the type of shield referenced as the 'shields of faith' we are to be wielding is an interlocking type. so this armor we've been left with and the fight we are fighting is not meant to be a solitary one, as much as it may seem that way sometimes.


i'm blessed with people in my corner who fight with and for me. people who hand me over to my heavenly father and sit with me in silence when there are no words to say. of course, much like annie, my first, second and third reaction is to refuse help, choose to fight and flail alone, and then cry about how alone i feel.
this is selfish
and it is a choice - one it took me a while to realize i was making.
if you're fighting your fight and feel like you are alone, look around. what are the choices you are making? do they alienate you from the rest of the Body or do they link you in for protection?


you are a piece in a larger picture.
your shield-your faith- is a piece in a larger machine.
stop pulling your cog from the machine.
stop withdrawing.
stop it with the pride.
stop depriving the rest of His Body from the life-giving joy of loving you.
because you never know who else is left exposed when you take your shield and strike out on your own.


don't be like us. (me and annie, talking in creepy unison) don't let months go by before you give in and ask for help/admit you're sad/let someone lift you up. because falling back into a line of shields that link with yours is probably the greatest strategy of all.

katniss part 1

I rode on a motorcycle for the first time the other day. It was a rash decision, which is very unlike me but very much like Katniss. As I sat there, clinging to the driver, I thought what the hell am I doing? I’m flying through the dark, going 60 mph up the deadliest highway in the nation, wearing a t-shirt for protection. 

I pictured the Grim Reaper pulling up next to me on his death-cycle, fueled by fresh souls, my hand involuntarily shooting out to give him the middle finger. He just shakes his head wrong move, lunchmeat.

I’m going to die.

And yet, in the very next second, I was filled with total calm – almost an indifference.

Whatevs, if I fall off, I’ll just tuck and roll, like Katniss would do. If my arm gets all torn up and riddled with gravel, I’ll just make a salve from native plants and tie my bra over it. No big deal.

Who is this Katniss and why is she making me so stupid?

I’ve been reading the Hunger Games and who knew I would see reflections of God in a tween book series? I don’t want to ruin it for others, so quick synopsis:  it’s a futuristic series about a girl named Katniss who is chosen to participate in The Hunger Games, which is her country’s take on the gladiator games. She and 27 other children are thrown into the woods to fight to the death for the entertainment of wealthy spectators who watch via hidden camera.

Twisted, politically charged and totally addictive.

It’s been putting me in this weird combative/survivalistic mindset. I see everything as a challenge, an obstacle to destroy. I imagine my life as a battle and somedays that doesn’t feel so far off.

Sometimes you go through something so horrific that, by human instinct, you build armors around your soul. You bury your most precious selves so they won’t get damaged. You grow scaly shields of sarcasm. You go numb. You barb your words. You retreat quietly. You hurt before you can be hurt. You hide. Psychologists say that these types of reactions can be lumped into two categories: fight or flight. I think we all like to think we are fighters – that we’d win the Hunger Games if such a thing existed. But the truth is it is much easier to flight - to hide - and at times, just seems smarter, safer. 

I told a friend I saw myself in Katniss and she said she was hesitant to say so, but that she thought the same thing. At first, I was flattered. I am such  a badass. Until her words sunk in. I was hesitant to tell you. In the end, Katniss isn’t really a character to be admired. She is a survivor – but because she deals in cowardice, manipulation and apathy. What I first saw as courage on her part ends up seeming like recklessness. She is someone who has nothing to lose. And that's not someone I want to become. 

I was talking to my mom recently, telling her about my battles. Telling her how weary I feel. How I feel constantly under attack. And she reminded me that at the end of the day, people who chase God have an enemy in this world. There’s a powerful darkness that resists goodness, grace and love. It would be stupid to act like there isn’t – there’s evidence all around us. We’re all in some form of turmoil. She reminded me of my Sunday school days, learning about the armor of God. How it’s real- it’s not just a silly teaching tool. 

And the Katniss in me sat up to listen.

My mom said the first thing you notice about the armor of God is that it leaves your back exposed. Apparently, God didn’t create us and equip us to retreat. He prepared us for a fight. 

And this is somewhat startling to me. 

I guess I associate fighting with rash people, with angry people, with reckless people.  I guess I thought that angry people fought and Christians loved. Christians surrendered. Christains said “well, God has a plan in this”.

We use a lot of soft words in American Christianity and maybe it’s because we live in a country with serious relational voids, but it ends up making me feel weak. Like amidst all of the meekness and forgiveness and Grace and humility, the word “fight” feels too sharp. But the more I learn about love the more I realize that real love – not romantic comedy love or soft, spineless love, but Bible love-is synonymous with strength, with battling and grappling and FIGHTING. 

In His words to us, God tends to place love in direct contrast to fear, time and time again. Sociologist Robert Griffith Turner tells us “you must choose love or fear, you cannot have a little of each.” 

Love is not passive. Love is not a retreat. Love is not hiding.

Love is fighting.

Jesus – the physical embodiment of Love- left us with armor. He gave us belts of truth and breastplates of righteousness and swiftness that comes from the Gospel of peace and shields of faith and helmets of salvation and swords of the Spirit – not so that we can haul them off to some cave and wait out the pain and hide from our attackers. He left us all of that stuff so that we can fight through this life. He says in Ephesians “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” In other words, fight until you have nothing left…and then fight some more.

I’ve heard it said “be kinder than necessary – every person you meet is fighting some sort of battle”. I believe this. The bad things in this world don’t just happen to us. We were thrown into this arena for a reason. If you’re running from your battle, thinking it’s safer, smarter, more self- preserving, more Christian to hide, hear me when I say this:

turn around and fight.

Reject fear.

Choose love.

Fight for the things that truly, in-the-name-of-Love-ingly matter. 

Fight for your family. Fight for your marriage. Fight for your sanity. Fight for your relationships. Fight for unity. Fight for wholeness. Fight for forgiveness. Fight for justice. Fight for growth.  Fight for your health. Fight for joy.

Because at the end of the day, you weren't meant to be a Katniss. You were created to fight for things that matter- not because you have nothing to lose, but because in a world of thieves that come to kill and destroy, He chose to give you life. and He died so you could live it to its fullest. Hiding and retreating doesn't count as living. 

He’s given you everything you need. Now say a prayer and turn around.

shriveled.

i've said before that the writer i resonate closest with is the apostle paul. he was the guy who grew up religious and followed all of the rules and then one day realized that following rules would never get him to Heaven. so he went around telling people about the silly relief that comes from free Grace.

but (it's about to get real now, readers) lately i haven't felt so paulish. it's been a strange year for me and lately i have felt less like a fiery intellectual and more like a...david.
david is the lovable screw-up of the Bible. the gilligan, the joey tribbiani, the george o'malley. he is the guy who loves God fiercely and earnestly but just can't seem to get it together. 

i know from the outside, most people don't associate me with this type of person. and there are a lot of things that i do have together. but on the train, under starlight and on the backs of my sleepy eyelids, i see it. i see my shadowlife. and i'm a david.

she who flounders.

i love God. i love Him ferociously. but i just can't seem to stay faithful. and it's not that i blatantly reject Him - flip off the heavens and chase a life of hedonism- it's just that i...wander.

and i think i understand part of what my problem is - what david's problem was: we understand Grace and unconditional Love. and we understand it maybe all too well.

i was raised by such beautiful parents - by such a loving father - that i've never had the trust issues that i see in so many of my peers. i'm not so surprised when people love me or so grateful when they are gracious to me. i take it as my due: that is how people should act.  and i don't say that to sound like a jerk, i say it to make a point.

you see, i think that i spend this life walking on the edge of a swordblade between paulish ways and davidish ways. i learn to take my facedown gratefulness for His pure unconditional Mercy and balance it with the other extreme: the tendency to take His goodness as my due. the sad habit to so wholly understand the pursuing God that i walk over Him as i wander away.

does this make sense?

i started this post with the vague goal of discussing the tension between discipline and freedom. but now all i really want to say is this:

if i'm being honest, the reason i haven't written in so long is because i have been empty. not in a dramatic way. but in the way i can imagine that david felt when he wrote psalm 42 saying "my soul pants for you, God". i've always wondered what that would feel like, to want God like water.
but the more i think about it, the more i meet my inner david, the more i realize: you don't ever WANT water. i think thirst is different than hunger in that we get some sort of pleasure from eating. sure, we need food to live, but eating is so often a social thing - a pasttime, a habit, a craving, a reward. thirst is usually just a need.
pure survival.

i'm realizing that maybe david didn't write psalm 42 because he was such a faithful pursuer of God and had a such a fervent zeal for His law. i know people like that but i'm not one of them and i know david wasn't. we wander and we flounder and we stumble after Him. not because we're so good that we want to but because we are human enough that we know we need to. we don't wake up hungry and say 'mmm i could really go for some God right now'. our skin starts to flake off and our lips crack and our tongues dry out and we start panting and admit 'ok, i need some God.'

and that's the big difference.
i need God because when i'm not in touch with Him, when i wander away, i have nothing to share. no good fruit to show. no good words to write. no good stories to tell to you, readers.
and sometimes it takes me months to dry out, to shrivel, to realize and admit that i need water. but here it is, after months of famine:

readers, i need some God. and i pray and hope that someday, like david,  i will get grey and wrinkled and wise and somewhere along the line, i will learn to wake up every day, greet the morning and greet my God and fill my cup with His goodness.

kingdom.

here is a post i wrote right after christmas but have since kept in blog purgatory, unsure of whether it made sense or not. but then, after a candid performance review- type meeting with my boss, i decided you know what? everything doesn't always have to be perfect. sometimes it just has to be something i enjoy and work hard for. so here it is.

as you probably know by now, i have - as my friend Mike says - "very specific feelings" toward many things.

like sequels.
generally, i'm not a fan of unplanned sequels. most movies or books that were meant to stand alone should stay that way. nothing good can come from adding on. there are, of course, exceptions to this rule, including Sister Act- in which the second clearly surpasses the first, due to the addition of Lauryn Hill; and The Might Ducks trilogy, which I don't even feel the need to justify. But for the most part, sequels like Legally Blonde 2, Dumb and Dumberer and The Land Before Time (parts 2 through....13?) ruin it for everyone.

that being said, i was wholly against Shrek Forever After, the 4th installment in a series that was already pushing it.

but this is not a movie review blog. it is a blog about jesus and i'm getting there.

it wasn't until christmas eve this year that i noticed how often Jesus is spoken of as a king, especially in christmas songs. maybe it's because these songs were written in monarchial societies or because "king" rhymes so well with "sing" or "bring" or "5 golden rings"... i guess sometimes phrases like that tend to fade into white noise after a lifetime of christmas eve services. but this year i was surprised to find myself full-out crying during 'joy to the world' and realized that something's shifted.
and i think it's safe to blame shrek 4.

(spoiler alert... but seriously are there any other adults out there, lining up to see this movie?)
in shrek forever after, shrek gets a glimpse into what would have happened if he was never born. in a world without shrek, princess fiona was never rescued and the kingdom of far far away falls into the hands of the evil rumplestiltskin. this beautiful and peaceful kingdom falls into ruin -  it becomes a land ravaged by famine, void of justice and patrolled by witches who throw molotov pumpkins. good people are either forced into rumplestiltskin's service or forced to live in hiding. it's all around depressing.

i guess before this year and before Shrek 4, i always thought of christmas as just kind of a pre-easter celebration. it always seemed a little grotesque to celebrate the birth of a baby because we know He grows up to die for our freedom. but this year, standing in christmas eve service, caught up in that surreal warmth that the candlelight songs always give me, my mind kept looping back to the idea of a kingdom without a Good King. if Jesus was never born, Goodness never would have been introduced to our human existence. sin would still be free to ravage our world and our kingdom - chucking molotov pumpkins at our souls.

and i heard them read those words they read every year:

" the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. "
and i think the human heart can only bear so much significance, so much beauty, so much gratefulness, before it starts to spill out of our eyes.
so as the music swelled and i looked out into a sea of tiny lights, i thought of a world ruled by a bad king, suddenly receiving it's true King. a king that ancient books say we will call Wonderful Counseler, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. and i realized we're not just celebrating the eventual sacrifice of Jesus (although yes, that is the worst/best thing ever), but rather the defeat of a bad king. the rescue of our kingdom. the introduction of light and hope.

and maybe this is something that every kindergartener already knows and i'm just late to the game. what else is new? but i warned you that this post was iffy.and so yes, joy to the world -  not just because He died, but because He came to stay. we celebrate the birth of a God who is called Emmanuel. a God who has been, since that silent night, everlastingly, delightedly, firmly and decidedly AMONG US.
because just as darkness is merely the absence of light, hell is a kingdom absent of God. He will bring us GOODNESS AND LIGHT. He is very near and He is redeeming this kingdom.