Skip to main content

Featured

How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....
Post a Comment
Read more

Santa's List

I’m six years old and I walk up to Santa Claus, trying to ignore the crowd of parents and kids who are pressing into the little white picket fence in the middle of the mall.
            
Santa pulls me onto his lap. “What’s your name?”
            
“Katie,” I say, trying not to back away from his bad breath.
            
“Have you been a good girl this year, Katie?”
            
“No, I’m a dirty rotten little sinner,” I say it as a matter of fact.
            
Santa Claus forces a laugh, “Oh, no you’re not.”

I don’t smile. “Yes, I am.” The plumpness of my stocking does not look promising.
            
I knew, even then, that no amount of good deeds would outweigh Santa’s scale of bad ones. A year later, I came face to floor and met the concept of grace because Daddy had told me countless times that the only kind of person God will allow into heaven is a perfect one. That leaves out…
…
…
Everyone.
            
Except Jesus.
            
You got that?
            
There’s no counting. There’s no list of good deeds in heaven. There’s no naughty or nice list. There’s just a book.
            
“And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:15)
            
When I was seven, I knew I wanted my name in the book. So I stacked up my good deeds, like they once stacked the Tower of Babel and the deeds were “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). So, I threw them all away for Christ.
           
Ephesians 2:8-9 “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”
. 


Popular Posts