Hello dear friends and blessed Happy New Year to you! I hope your Christmas holiday season was joyous, peaceful, and filled with beautiful memories with those you love and wonderful reflections of our Savior Jesus Christ.
For my husband and I, our Christmas was unusually quiet this year but as I advance on this life's journey, I'm learning to appreciate and resonate with the familiar saying that 'silence is golden'. I’m at a point in my life where I bask in the moments of stillness and quietude.
It's certainly an area of my life that I'm looking to cultivate more of. One reason being, is that life sometimes throws some unexpected curve balls and in between you need a timeout.
A time of rest. Refreshing. Recalibration. A divine call to catch your breath. Take time to lay limp in the Lord, pause, lay back and get your second wind.
I don't know about you but it is "my" plan to begin the new year slow and easy. After the few weeks that I've had, slow is the way to go. Taking time to marvel in God’s Presence. Be more intentional to carve out sacred moments with Abba Father. To just be still and know that He is God. Listen to what HE has to say from His Word and His whispers. To let go of the weights. To be still and know that He is God.
From the knowing of my inner knowing, I recognize this call to respite to be God's wooing me. Drawing me with His oh so tender tug on the hem of my heart amidst life happenings.
God's drawing me closer to Him is something so remarkably special, timely, and an awesome reminder that He is with me. Assuring me that I'm not forgotten.
You, my dear friend, are not forgotten.....
God is omniscient and He knows the end from the beginning and He is fully aware of the crevices in time when there is a deep need for sacred pause.
For this, I’m immensely grateful to God for blessing us with these sacred moments with Him. Junctures in time that wow us, and we just know it’s Him, because it's so profoundly reassuring, precise, personal, beautiful and it makes you just want to capture it, linger in it, store “it” up. Be still, bask, bow and be burrowed in His Presence.
God in His lavish love and pinpointed providence also blesses us with moments of precious pause with those we hold near and dear to our hearts. You know those extraordinary moments of being with family and/or friends.
The captivating moments that you know in your inner knowing that this specific moment in time is some kind of wonderful. So in time. Undoubtedly unique and peculiarly blessed that you wish that you could press pause. Linger. Bottle it up. Capture it for a rainy day.
I’m sure you know the feeling. When your heart is so full of love, a quiet but vibrant joy, and a peace so grand that you can't quite comprehend or express with words.
It feels like it just may be a touch of heaven here on earth and you just want to stay, and steep right there in it.
One thing for sure, these divinely designed moments in life don't happen all the time, and they may only be for a little while, but for whatever time God blesses you, you’re fully aware that you're amidst the makings of and feel the undeniable markings of an exceptional, beautiful memory.
I had the sheer pleasure of experiencing this recently; it's what I like to call a 'precious pause'. It happened during a visit with my daughter and her family a week before Christmas with two of my grandsons.
It has been a family tradition for a few years now to make gingerbread houses for Christmas with the grands. We all look forward to spending time, building, and decorating the gingerbread houses and for my grandsons, with the additional bonus and special perk of the enjoyment of the candy for the gingerbread house while we build.
As they decorate it's one piece of candy for the gingerbread house, one piece of candy for themselves. So if the house looks like it could use a little more Christmas candy décor, now you know why.
This year my husband and I decided to go another route and buy a gingerbread house kit that seemed a bit easier to assemble. Our thinking was instead of building from scratch with graham crackers, cookies, frosting, and bagged candy we'd get something a bit easier, less hassle, and a whole lot less messy.
Building from scratch would take more intricate work, measuring, cutting, making sure the dimensions were just right etc. but we'd soon come to realize that the kit that we thought would be easier, more convenient, and less messy was even more messy, intricate, and timely.
Now, I must mention that it was not the manufacturer's fault. They gave us everything we needed to build a sturdy gingerbread house, we just didn't look close enough.
See, after taking all the materials out of the box, we saw no instructions on the inside of the box. We thought it strange, but the building had to go on. So, with the Jackson Five’s Santa Claus Is Coming to Town song playing in the background we got going.
We were building, frosting, singing, placing pieces together. The boys enjoying candy gum drops. One for the house one for the boys. After a while we finally got the house built, and lo and behold it slowly began to fall. We tried our best at rebuilding it but it caved in again.
We could not figure out why the house would not stay standing. Was it the frosting? The gingerbread pieces? I mean, the house looked just like the house on the box minus the candy décor and frosting. Why wouldn't it stay standing?
After a few minutes of trying to figure it out my husband said, “It would be nice if we had the instructions.” Then one of my grandsons with the box in hand says, “Here they are!” The directions were on the back of the box! How did we miss that?
After reading the instructions my husband learned what the problem was. It was the foundation. The foundation was not laid and therefore no matter how strong the frosting was, how perfectly precut the gingerbread pieces were, if the foundation was not laid properly it would fall every single time.
His divine power has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue. 2 Peter 1:3
My husband now having the instructions began to lay the foundation firm, secure so that it would hold up and we began to build again and it stood strong.
We began to frost, and decorate it with the candy. One piece for the boys, one piece for the gingerbread house.
What a grand time we had. This time spent with our grandsons was one of those precious pauses. A memory in the making. One for the books. A day like never before to hide in our hearts. Bottle it up for a rainy day. The Christmas gift I needed at that pinpointed time.
Yes, we had a little mishap but isn't that just like life?
In life, we will have obstacles, trials, but we keep going. We keep building. God has given us everything we need to build upon in the Person and finished work of Jesus Christ to live overcoming lives for His glory. So, no, we don't give up.
Like the house, we may begin to cave under the weight of life but we don't give up because we are being intentional at looking to Jesus, looking closely at the instructions of God's Word, following through, doing them and they guide us, enable and empower us to build our houses on the Rock.
No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is in Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:11
In this new year, I pray you have more moments of wonderful with those you hold dear. Remember that nobody is perfect, much like our gingerbread house. To the natural eye our house may look a little different, lines not perfectly straight, it may even look a bit messy such is our lives at times but when God looks at us, He no longer sees our imperfections. He sees the righteousness of His own Son. God doesn't look at the outside appearance He looks at the heart.
I thank God for the blessing of building, bonding, loving and laughter with my grandsons. I'm immensely grateful for the beautiful building blocks of memories that my grandsons will hopefully remember and my husband and I can reflect on with glad hearts.
My heart is full and I fully know that it's not about how perfect the house is but about the people you build the house with. Most importantly it's all about The One who we build our houses upon. The One who is able to keep us from falling and present us blameless in the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. (Jude 1:24)
As we are now in 2025 (can you believe it? 2025?) I want to encourage you to keep building your houses on the Rock of Jesus. Search out God's instructions and build your “houses” on them so that when the rain and storms come, when the winds blow you will be kept standing because you have built your house not on sand but the infallible instructions in the written Word of God and the unconquerable Living Word empowered by the Spirit of God.
Make it your aim to not build alone. Pray, seek God and partner with co-laborers in God's kingdom who will help you build, labor in love and in earnest prayer with you and for you. Those who will encourage you; one to other.
Keep your eyes on Jesus and share Him with those who don't know His saving grace.
No matter what life throws your way be sure to carve out time to be still and know that He is God.
Receive God's absolute love and grace and extend it to those who need it the most.
There are going to be days when the person who needs it most will be you. So be sure to extend yourself love, grace and compassion.
Some for your "house": some for others.
It is my prayer that you will blessed with moments of precious pause, sacred quietude, remarkable awe- filled glimpses of God’s goodness, faithfulness and mindfulness toward you and those you love.
In all that you do, do to the glory of God and keep on building!
Love and prayers,
Shannon
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