Both Sides Blog

Birthday Reflections…
Celebrations through the years are like a mosaic made up of just the 2 of us, the lake, and a waterlogged cake. Shirtless babies and cupcakes squeezed through chubby hands. The tulle and toothless grins, plastic swords and water balloons, candles that shoot sparks, colorful balloons, pools and water slides, first sweets, frozen treats. Friends, family, sleepovers. Beach birthdays. Birthdays celebrated on the road between here and there. Shared parties. Solo soirées with just the core 4.

What an absolute gift is a celebration of life. Another year come and gone. Older. Wiser.
A special day to remember all the stories and tell them over and again. Embellishing juuust enough to make them sparkle.

Acknowledging and celebrating God’s faithfulness. Another sunrise. Life lived inside this moment in history. Indeed. A gift.

Grateful to know and serve a humble Savior.

The loudest voices are most often those who are heard...
and believed.
Lies or truth. It doesn't matter.
Surely the loudest voices are to be trusted?
The voices of our culture are shouting all kinds of things.
Battling for our attention.
Our allegiance.
Often, sensational over sensical.

The prophet, Isaiah, prophesied to Israel thousands of years before the Messiah was born in a barn in Bethlehem.
And true to prophecy, the Gospels tell us that the Messiah's approach to humanity was faithful and gentle.
He did not break the bruised or s***f out the wicks of those whose hopes and hearts barely smoldered.

He came to open blind eyes to truth, to free captives from the prison of their minds and release those who sit in the dungeons of their own dark souls.

Indeed, the Messiah would not shout, cry out loudly or raise his voice in the streets. That would not be his way. Yet the message of Jesus, our humble Messiah, is loud and clear but not because he shouted it.
He lived it as he moved throughout the world he created.
It has always been his way. This quiet influence.
He still gives breath to the people of the world and life to those who walk in it.