turkey out. tree in -- coming prepared. {grace words wednesday}

“let us come into His presence with thanksgiving.”  ~ psalm 95:2
it's thanksgiving eve morning. is there such a thing? why yes, of course there is. certainly for those who will spend the day in the kitchen preparing everything one can possibly prepare ahead -- for that person, thanksgiving eve morning matters very much.

maybe some of us don't have a turkey or stuffing to whip up this week, but we all have something to prepare --- we certainly all have our hearts to get ready.

some of you have joined me for my daily thanksgiving posts this month and i do hope that has encouraged you a little. (if you want to find them all in one place click on: daily thanksgiving posts). it has blessed me to have some posting accountability, but, if i'm honest, it has also been a challenge. there have been some days when i didn't really feel like coming up with another picture or verse or word. that stuff doesn't always just effortlessly roll off the tongue or out of the computer ... sometimes, but not always. but this month of thanksgiving was motivating for me, nonetheless. and i knew, whether there were two or two hundred of you coming along, it was a good and necessary exercise for me. it was good for me to find the thoughts of thanksgiving even on the days when thanksgiving was not my first thought.

one thing this month of continuous posting taught me is that thanksgiving isn't just about feeling thankful, sometimes it's about preparing our hearts so that we can choose to be thankful. sometimes it's about saying the words in order to surrender the way. it's about deliberately preparing a path for praise. preparing.

and for those of you who are cooking the big meal tomorrow, you know all about preparation, right? it would be very challenging to run out last minute today and be fully ready for tomorrow. we all know what would happen if we threw a frozen turkey in our shopping cart on this wednesday with hopes of cooking it up on thursday. it doesn't work that way. and neither do we. we can't just show up at the table and hope for some really good thursday thanks to be ready in our hearts. maybe that will kinda work ... or maybe it kinda won't.

but whether we're whipping up a meal or whipping out some thankfulness it helps to be ready ... it helps to come prepared.

now, i'll admit, i'm not always the most prepared girl on the block. (some of you laugh). i forget items on my list. i forget my list. i even forget to make a list. this frustrates me (and a few other dear ones) to no end. growing up i had visions of how organized i'd be about things like holidays and the hoop-a-la that accompanies them. i grew up with dreams of everything being "just so" ... but rarely is it ever "just so." sometimes it is just so crazy or just so cuckoo or just so chaotic. but since i've given up a bit on the pursuit of the just-so-perfect, i have come to realize it is not really about the meal or the home or the hoop-a-la anyway, but about the heart. and though i've probably forgotten something on my list already today, i do hope, in this month, i haven't forgotten to prepare my heart.

not just for the meal tomorrow. but for the message of this continuous holiday season which kicks into full gear sometime in the midst of tomorrow. yes, i'm talking about christmas. the christmas message. have you ever thought about how the thanks-giving prepares us for the gift-giving?

since we're eating with friends tomorrow, i'm not preparing a big meal (hooray for me). but i will be bringing along one of our family traditions. my friend, diana, who is hosting, asked if we had any to share. now she might have been talking about a favorite dessert or potato dish, but i am bringing the tradition of putting a christmas ornament at everyone's place setting.

christmas ornaments on thanksgiving? yes!

i started this a few years ago with my family. i put an ornament by each place setting to remind us that thanksgiving must proceed gift-giving. we all know as soon as the turkey is taken out to the trash the mad scramble into christmas mode begins. some of us even have our trees in the garage ready to go. turkey out. tree in. it's like a funny holiday dance. we are quick to move on. i get it. i know why we feel like this. i understand the pressure of preparing. we, too, like to put up our tree the weekend after thanksgiving. and there's nothing wrong with that.

this christmas ornament on the thanksgiving table isn't intended to speed up that process, but to slow it down; to remind us to give the thanks before we get or give the gift. seem a little backwards? perhaps. but what if thanksgiving did come before gift-giving. wouldn't the giving be greater, sweeter, more beautiful if done with a heart of gratitude?

as we prepare our homes and transition from one holiday to another, let's continue to prepare our hearts. let's turn our attention toward december desiring to be fully in God's presence, keeping in mind that thanksgiving isn't over, but can continue to spill into this next season. the verse i put on this year's thanksgiving ornament is from psalm 95:2: "let us come into His presence with thanksgiving." we come into His presence. we come to adore Him. we come to give gifts. we come to worship the babe in the manger, but let it be our words of thanksgiving which help lead us into the worship of His holy presence.

because, honestly, is there any gift greater? any gift more worthy of our thanksgiving?

this ornament is a reminder that these two holidays aren't in opposition. they aren't fighting for the lime light, but are working together. collaborating. cooperating. making clear the message of Christ. it is because the Christ-child was born in that manger that we have real thanksgiving in our hearts.

oh friends, let's celebrate the season this week and next month ... let's prepare our tables. let's prepare our hearts. let's enter into His presence.

“let us come into His presence with thanksgiving.” 

~ psalm 95:2

{grace words: thanks * giving * prepare * gifts * His presence *}

dear Jesus, on this thanksgiving eve we long to come into your presence. in all of our holiday preparation help us to prepare our hearts for you. give us words to praise you and hearts that want to pursue you. teach us how to combine our thanks-giving and our gift-giving that we might truly know the blessing of all you've so freely given. amen.

simply preparing

i began a new thanksgiving tradition this year.  i realize some of you might think that at age 43, i am not allowed to do this.  that i can't do this.  but i can.  and i did.  it is true my children are no longer babies.  in fact, one of them will be out of the house in just a matter of years.  all of them growing up fast and furious.  they already have memories of past holidays imprinted in their minds and etched across their hearts. we already have our traditions set. formed. but it is never too late to begin something new.  it is never too late to create a tradition.  i used to think that might be the case.  i used to think if i didn't start something when the children were still small and toddling, then it wouldn't count -- like i had missed the boat or ignored the opportunity. i used to believe that if i didn't start something at the very, very beginning then it would just be one of those last ditch efforts of desperate parents --- a final attempt to pour deeply into children who are halfway out the door.   


but this is wrong thinking -- it is never too late.  the time to begin a tradition is now.   perhaps the fact that i faced cancer this year has something to do with my shift in perspective.  when stopped in your tracks, you tend to look hard at life and the living and the loving.  and it is just natural that a new appreciation for ticking time will follow.  it is only natural to consider what else can i do...what else can we add...what else can be done.  life is short.  we get one chance.  one pass.  we aren't walking this same road again.  not ever.  i think when we are healthy and comfortable and everything is normal we forget.  we just do.

so this year, i did something i've always wanted to do.  something simple and small, but something i plan to make a part of our thanksgivings from here on out.   i gave everyone at my dinner table a christmas ornament.  i wrote in my last post that thanksgiving is the perfect precursor to christmas.  i've always felt it to be kind of a wonderful kickoff to this most beautiful season.  some people look at the month from thanksgiving to christmas as a time to gain weight.  i believe it is a time gain joy.  a time to fill up on beauty.  a time to drink in God's grace.  the ornament was nothing special -- brown. round. a run of the mill ball.  i attached (modge-podged, to be exact) the verse that has been rumbling around in my thoughts this past week.  i mentioned it in another november post.  "if you prepare your heart, you will stretch out your hands toward Him."  ~  job 11:13.  prepare.  have i overwritten this topic?  perhaps.  but just in case you missed it in the other november posts: are you prepared?  i don't mean do you have enough strands of lights or sufficient ribbon and scotch tape.  i'm not asking if you have hung your evergreen wreath or ordered your christmas cards.  i am not worried about which day in december you choose to trim your tree or hang your stockings with care...but, is your heart prepared?  what are you doing to ready your heart for the birth of a king?  the birth of The King?  i'm just asking.


i'm asking because i have spent plenty of christmas seasons wrapped up in the tinsel and trimmings of december.  i have wasted an incredible amount of time worrying about the shopping and the sprucing and the swagging and the cooking and the mailing and the hanging and the arranging and the lighting. i am not a woman who drags home a tree and calls it christmas.  i adore detail. that won't surprise most of you.  and there is nothing wrong with this...absolutely nothing wrong with making our homes special for the holidays.  BUT. BUT. BUT.  i have no doubt, it is wrong if we lose sight of what really matters...of what we are truly celebrating.


a few years back, i had an especially unprepared season.  we had just bought this house and i was swimming -- no, honestly, i was drowning -- in getting everything pulled together.  we had moved in at the end of october and we were up to our eyebrows in house projects.  and then came christmas.  it was a new house.  a bigger house.  and of course for me this translated into more to do.  more to decorate.  it also turned me into a nut --  and a not an especially fun nut at that.  i was wild.  crazy with the need to make it all happen.  to make it all magical.  we had also decided to host a big christmas gathering in our home that year (please don't ask what was wrong with us...we just did).  so you can imagine.  i made a million lists and spent too much money and was completely missing the true meaning.  i mean i kind of pretended i was doing the right things...thinking the right thoughts...but i wasn't.  i know i wasn't.  i was a hustling, bustling holiday disaster... a big old christmas time mess.  


after about four weeks of arduous labor, christmas eve arrived and off we went to our church for the traditional candlelight service.  the finish line was in sight and i was exhausted.  i sat there kind of glazed over as our pastor spoke, but nothing penetrated.  had i closed my eyes i am sure i would have started to snore.  the message ended and the the lights dimmed.  one by one,  over a thousand candles were lit.   and in this beautiful glow we began to sing silent night. 
silent night, holy night. all is calm, all is bright.  
and it was like someone had pulled the plug of my emotion.  the tears began to trickle down my cheeks.  i was so overwhelmed in the true beauty of it all for a minute, i was worried i might start sobbing and hiccuping and doing what i call my "ugly cry."  i did finally pull myself together, but not before i felt the wave -- tidal wave -- of shame slam over me.  i thought about all the hurrying and the hustling and the snapping and the fretting i had been doing for the past month or so.  i was ashamed.  but as the song continued, i was reminded of God's grace.  if nothing else, the birth of Christ reminds us of God's incredible, incredible grace.  and i knew it was not too late.  i had messed up the past month, but it was christmas eve and we were singing silent night and it seemed for those few minutes almost holy.   


i learned my lesson that year.  and in the years since, i've been much better behaved. but i still need to be reminded come that first week of christmas. these brown ornaments at the place settings of my family aren't the answer.  but maybe they will serve as another reminder.  just a simple reminder to remember we are celebrating the birth of our king. it won't be perfect. but i want to be prepared.  i want to be seeking not hustle and hurry, but holy.  to desire not a perfect home, but a prepared heart. 


this morning, in church, our pastor quoted the following: 

"the act of offering thank offerings to God ---even for the bread 

and cup of cost, for cancer and crucifixion--this prepares the 

way for God to show us His fullest salvation from bitter, angry, 

resentful lives and from all sin that estranges us from Him.

        .... thanksgiving--giving thanks in everything--is what prepares 

the way for salvation's whole restoration."  ~ ann voskamp  one thousand gifts

thanksgiving has come and gone, but as we move into the christmas season, i hope you hold it tight in your heart. it is no accident we give thanks before we are given gifts.  fill up on joy.  celebrate gratitude.  give thanks.  gain joy. and as you prepare your home, my prayer is,  you'll prepare your heart for the birth of a king. The King.  and see all that is holy.

prepared

when i first began teaching - like a hundred years ago - i would get butterflies in the pit of my stomach before each class.    i was fresh out of college and teaching high schoolers only a few years younger than myself...some of which even looked a few years older than me.  yes, i was even asked once by a staff member for my hall pass.   those were interesting years.  i would spend hours each evening preparing for the next day's lesson.  researching and reading and readying my notes.  each lecture needed to be perfect.  each activity applicable.   it was a control thing, i'm sure.  i felt if i could just get my arms around all of it....if i could just make sure i left no rock unturned, no question unanswered, no thread unravelled...the day would be a success.   i took tremendous comfort and even pleasure in my prepared-ness.  i am sure pride also entered heavily into the equation.  it always does when it comes to me and my performance.  (i cringe writing that).  anyway, that was eons ago.  i haven't been in charge of a classroom in at least a century.  i loved it.  i miss it.  i also miss that Really Prepared Person.  i wonder sometimes what happened to her.   i am not sure my kids and husband would recognize her today. 


as the years have passed and the children have multiplied my level of preparation has dwindled - dramatically.  sometimes i watch myself in action now days and wonder who is this woman...and what has she done with the real jody mcnatt?  the one who worried and planned and prepared so carefully. so thoroughly.  just recently one of the kids asked me what was for dinner.  it was a stroke shy of the six o'clock hour.  my reply, "umm...i'm not sure, i haven't thought about that yet."   i pretended not to notice the hint of dismay (possibly even disgust) on this young one's face as they registered my lame answer.  "isn't six o'clock a bit late to be thinking about dinner?"  the wise child refrained from verbalizing his thoughts.   he didn't need to.  i knew.   i know.   i know motherhood requires a great ability to think ahead...to plan ahead.  i do this as much as one frazzled woman possibly can.  but often i find myself more and more okay with figuring things out as we go. going with the flow.  i've noticed lately,  life seems to throw some curve balls anyway.   so as i've aged i have pretended to reinvent myself as flexible,  resilient,  easy-going.  i am a woman who knows the fine art of bending.  i bend.  i am a bender.  i have convinced myself this is the mark of maturity and wisdom and confidence....but i am afraid it has more to do with me just being worn-out,  old and exhausted.


i am very often the woman scrambling out the door in the mornings.  kicking myself in my lack of prepared-ness.  wondering why in the world i didn't think to pack a bag or a lunch or the car the night before.  i've been caught in the checkout line without my wallet...in the carpool line without my shoes...and in the dinner hour without even a hint of supper.  i've been caught in a rainstorm without umbrella...in a car without gas...and in a frenzy with no plan.   i can't say i am proud.  but i do choose to say i'm resourceful.  i can bend.  and i do. often.  it has a lot to do with attitude.


there are some things, however, for which we really can't prepare.  cancer might be one of them.   i wasn't prepared.  it wasn't on my radar.  i wasn't watching and waiting and ready.  not one bit.  i had no plan in place. i heard the news and my first thought was, "you've got to be kidding me."  seriously.  i almost couldn't absorb it all.  it seemed unreal.  an impossibility.  surely God would have prepared me.  given me a warning - some kind of dramatic literary foreshadowing.  surely.   but it seemed not.  there it was...rain out of the blue, blue sky.  me in the midst of my running around ... and then voila! foot-sweeping news.  an unexpected blow to the gut and i, once again, felt like a woman unprepared.  a woman scrambling through the door of life with no Plan B.  no escape clause.  no evacuation route.  i spent at least a week or two in the "you've got to be kidding me" phase.  i mean i just couldn't figure it all out.  i simply wasn't prepared.


but as the weeks have gone on, my eyes have continued to open wider.  to become a bit clearer.  i am seeing things i hadn't noticed originally.  i am recognizing the marks of God's preparation.  He was very much readying me for a time such as this.  He was.  i wasn't aware of it.  i wasn't listening for it.  but it was there.  little things.  big things.  even that literary foreshadowing i mentioned above.  it was all there.   a friend pointed out one example - something i had written a few weeks prior to my diagnosis.   in my Being Still blog i posted an entry on march 25th, "moonlight and holiness"....  i write in that piece the following words...

  but what if we have to be burned?  what if we have to taste tears of pain and disappointment and even,  sorrow?  can that hot-white piercing of moonlight be good for us?  you already know my answer.  i am not pretending to like it.  i don't.  i already confessed my instinct to nestle down deeper into the soft flannel comfort of numb.  i would rather not see my dirty layers and dusty soul exposed for what they are.  with pricking and piercing comes tearing and torn.   i am not always ready for that kind of abrupt exposure.  i am hardly ever prepared for that kind of pain.  but it comes.  i cannot stop the moonlight.  i cannot secure the shutter always.  forever.  i may desire to languish deeply in comfort, but my God desires to work even more deeply in me.  His work in me is more than moonlight through the haphazardness of loose shutter.  there is no mistake in His piercing.  no accident in His pursuit.  He wants me.  all of me.  He wants the deepest recess of my heart.  it belongs to Him.  and no matter how much i yearn to pad it with the cooling items of ease, He will expose it.  there is light to be shed.  there is dirt to be seen. and there is healing to be had.

i wrote this 3 weeks before my diagnosis.  at that point cancer had not even crossed my mind.  this post came though with great conviction.  conviction that God really does bring us into the fire for our greater good.   for holiness.  for something better.  i realize this seems fraught with paradox.  it doesn't make sense.  i get that.  i certainly didn't have any idea just what He was leading me into. but read the entire moonlight piece if you get a chance.   i know some of you are reading this post and this blog and all you can think is, what kind of drugs are they feeding this woman.  no drugs.  not yet.  (that will be for next week - i plan to take them, by the way, needed or not).  i know this stuff is hard to wrap your head around.  but stick with me...there is a next chapter to all of this.  even if we don't always have the chance to read it...it will be written.

but back to being prepared.   sometimes we are and we don't even know it.   God's timing is perfect.  i am trusting that.  i had other plans this spring.  this summer.  but He has brought me to This instead.  i am not completely sure about The Why just yet.  i might not know that answer here on earth.   but i am here.  and though i feel, at times, like that scrambling morning woman searching for her keys and shoes and sanity...i know God is leading me.  whispering to me.  calling me.  holding me.  ahead of me.  behind me. preparing me...  
preparing FOR me.

"no eye has seen,

no ear has heard,

no mind has conceived

what God has prepared

for those who love him ----"  

~ 1 corinthians 2:9