Advent/hope

Advent 1: Hope Is Enough

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Hope says,
It’s ok if you’re tired. If your kitchen is a mess. If you gave all you had and it wasn’t enough. If your plans fell apart. If your kid is having a meltdown. If you’re the one having a meltdown.
Hope asks nothing but a small crack in your heart to be left open, just enough for one candle to peek through.
Hope doesn’t need your best, or your bravest.  Hope shines at rock bottom, and in what’s broken.
Hope is not a general wish for something better. Hope is a candle lit by a promise, held by an everlasting arm. And hope springs eternal because its essence cannot be snuffed by winds of temporality, no matter how they huff.

Hope is a light that illuminates the face of Jesus. And he whispers, “It’s ok. This day, hope is enough.” 
~lg
Advent/hope/longing

The Fear of Longing

Posted on by Lindsey Gallant / 0 Comment

We have been walking this road a long time, and have seen a thing or two, oh yes. We weren’t born yesterday. We have been through too many reality checkpoints. Hope can be a dangerous thing in this day and age. We manage just fine without it, feet on solid ground.

And so we have come to a smiling, sterile place where we are afraid to long.

Afraid to long?

Yes, that is it. It’s not worth the taste of disappointment.

For that has been the result of my thirst. A mouth full of sawdust. So I have learned to take the hunger pangs and paralyze them like so many moths in a spider’s web. I have made a web to catch the longing before it takes wing.

Afraid to long?

Yes. I fear where the longing may lead. Out on a limb and into the dark where I have no map. What if it leads to a place where there is no choice but metamorphosis because the ground beneath my feet is no more?

Afraid to long?

Yes, because my discontent may mark me as a stranger. What if my comforts no longer soothe? What if my qualifications no longer serve? What if my riches are no longer palatable? What if my cultural cocoon is no longer habitable? Oh then, I may have to search for another kingdom.

But here’s the thing – when the emptiness of a life without longing confronts me in unexpected moments, the despair is too great. I know it will crush me.

Beauty calls, and it is like thunder. A change is coming on the wind.

If you feel hope calling, why not consider a little journey to Bethlehem? 
Abraham’s Advent is a four week Advent devotional which follows the footsteps of one who knew what it was like to be a stranger in a strange land. Your copy is available here. 

~lg

a life of prayer/afternoon prayer

afternoon prayer :: recalibrate

Posted on by Lindsey Gallant / 0 Comment

It’s midafternoon.

I pause, savour the smell of chicken roasting and the peaceful (for now) sound of children playing imaginary games. There are still crumbs to sweep and bathrooms to clean, and life never really stops. That’s why I need to.

Sometimes prayer is simply standing still. Standing still while the do-lists keep screaming from where they are buried under coffee cups and kids crafts and acknowledging I can’t make it all happen. I can’t control it all.

But the worth of this day doesn’t rest on such things, and my worth is not made by wrestling these 24 hours into a Pinterest-worthy picture.

There’s one image I really need to see when I’m in the thick of it. It’s the one thing that does not move with the ticking of the clock and the checking of the boxes. It is always there, at the center of it all, and I can find it when I simply stand still. No, life never stops, but it actually revolves around Him, and when I am close I can feel it. Gravity.

His gravity gathers me in, along with the fragments of my day. There in the stillness I am renewed. I am re-calibrated.

The day is about to go on, and I with it, but the gravity remains, and it helps me let go of what I can’t control and keeps me from flying off the handle. I remember He makes the day and I will rejoice and be glad in it.

~lg

Abraham's Advent Ebook/Preemptive Love

And the winner is . . .

Posted on by Lindsey Gallant / 1 Comment

Jody Ward! 

Congratulations Jody, you have won a copy of Preemptive Love: Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time! (An email is on its way to you.) 

Thank you so much to all who entered and were interested in finding out more about Preemptive Love. (The winner was randomly chosen.) If you are curious as to what this organization is all about, head over to their website and get an overview. The book is also available there with your donation!

Proceeds my ebook Abraham’s Advent are going to this heart-changing organization in Iraq. Thank you for partnering with peace this Advent. 

~lg