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A couple weeks ago at Cub Scouts one of the little boys was singing a Christmas song. His leader put a stop to his song by saying it is not Christmas, to which the little boy replied with the question, “Why?”

I say indeed, why is it not Christmas? However, even though it is not Christmas time, that fact does not mean we cannot learn from Christmas or, (at least at my house and not Scout meetings) sing Christmas songs! Anyway, a few weeks back the sermon at church was about bitter versus broken, and I though of the Grinch.

Dr. Seuss’ character gives us a vivid picture of someone choosing to live in bitterness for fifty-three years. Every year the Grinch would harden his heart against the “Whos,” (the inhabitants of the town just down the mountain from him) more and more until his heart had all but shriveled away. I don’t know if you have ever had the experience of meeting someone in real life who has done this sort of thing, but I have and it is very sad.

Unfortunately, a lot of us can carry some degree of bitterness around without even fully realizing it. Maybe it seems like just a little thing. That coworker you resent because they were promoted instead of you, but of course you are always polite to them. Maybe it is the slight from a family member that has hung around in your heart for years: you smile at the family get-togethers, but it still hurts underneath. Bitterness does not always shout from the mountain top the way the Grinch shouts in the story.

We all experience hurts in life. The question is whether we are going to remain bitter about it or allow the brokenness to soften our hearts and allow Jesus, the healer, to come in and mend the broken places. Bitterness says, “No thank you,” to healing. Brokenness acknowledges the hurt and pain and humbly receives the healing. Bitterness is usually out for revenge of some kind, like the Grinch determined to hurt the Whos as much as he thought they had hurt him. Brokenness is more honest and can cause us to see the blind spots in our own lives and seek forgiveness.

The good news for the Grinch as well as us, is that bitterness does not have to be permanent. Even if you have lived with something for fifty-three years, (or longer) this can be the day to let it go. This could be the day when forgiveness can flood into your heart and allow it to expand. When the Grinch finally experienced forgiveness his heart grew three sizes!

At the end of the story the Grinch and the Whos all join hands and sing. The Grinch not fully knowing the words or the melody yet, but still singing his newly-expanded, forgiven heart out. When we find the forgiveness that Jesus has for us, for everything in our lives, we can’t help but sing–even if it is Christmas songs in March!

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26

Each of us has a way we identify ourselves and our role in the world: I am a teacher, I am a mom, I am an engineer and so on. Those labels are harmless for the most part and are usually what we tell another person when meeting them for the first time.

However, there are far more insidious labels we use for ourselves that for the most part we would never share with anyone. Unfortunately these can be things that were put on us by other people, usually when we were quite young or at a vulnerable place in life. And like name tags with super-glue, they have stuck with us for life.

These are labels such as fat, ugly, trouble, no good, worthless, mean, and the list goes on. Most of us have learned how to hide these words using a variety of methods. We might work really hard to live the exact opposite of a negative label or we might give in to the label as part of our identity that it is useless to try to change. Sadly, we also can self-medicate the label away with any number of vices or addictions many of them masquerading as “good things” such as work or service.

Thankfully, there is another thing we can do to remove these labels and live in real freedom. We can allow Jesus to give us a different name. Believe it or not He has all kinds of wonderful labels He attaches to you: beloved, child of God, kind, beautiful, precious, unique, clean, pure, worthy, wise, lovely, valuable and this list goes on as well.

We simply need to be willing for Jesus to remove our old names and receive His new name for us. He promises that He will renew our minds until those old thoughts and old patterns are healed. It can be scary and difficult to trust that Jesus has anything positive to say about us, but I challenge you to just ask Him. He has been waiting for you all your life with a new name that He has chosen just for you.

“You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem in the palm of your God.” Isaiah 62:2b-3

At one point in my past, I worked for my friends who are beekeepers. Their specialty is not honey as you might suppose, (although they do produce and sell delicious honey) but rather queen bees. If you know anything about bee hives you know that in order to have a happy, healthy, thriving hive, you need to have a healthy queen. This is where my friends come in, they specially raise queens to sell to other beekeepers.

My job was to go around and collect the newly ready queens from small hives that they hatched into. It was so interesting how each of these small hives had their own personality. I would know which one was likely to be a little cranky, which one was more mellow etc. However, they all had something in common, if the hive was missing a queen for more than a few days they would be very upset! The hive would be so agitated that I almost knew right away that looking for a queen would be futile.

After I became a mother, I began to see some similarities between my home and the beehives. If I would have to be gone for a length of time doing errands or something, my kids would not do as well as when I was home. The younger ones would become cranky and the older ones would be naughty, trying to get away with things that I didn’t allow!

I have been on this mothering journey for over 18 years now and it hasn’t changed. My little ones come to me regularly during the day for a quick hug or snuggle and even my 18 year old checks in at least once a day.

The other things my kids have in common with the bees is the “humming.” As long as things are going well in my home, you can hear this kind of low level buzz as kids hum or sing as they do their schoolwork, chores, or play. Of course, things are not perfect and frequently there will be an outburst as someone infringes on someone else’s rights, but for the most part things buzz along fine.

So I was thinking what the take away from all of this is for us as adult Christ followers. I think the question for us would be: how often are we checking in with Jesus during our day. Would we be more happy, calm and content if just like my children we were regularly going to Him with all the cares that come up in our day? Honestly, sometimes I simply go so fast through my day that the thought never enters my head to include Jesus in a decision I have to make or ask Him for help with a difficult task.

So this week as I go about my day to day life, I am going to remember the bees and try to receive peace and calm from Jesus. And just maybe, like my kids, I will find myself humming through my tasks.

“Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek out the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.” I Chronicles 16:10-11

Don’t answer too quickly, it is a deeper question than it might appear. It might seem easy to say, “Of course I want God’s best for my life, that would be great!” The problem is when we say that, most of us are envisioning that His best is synonymous with the easiest. We picture God giving us happiness, health, maybe not wealth, but definitely enough money to be comfortable, and fulfillment in whatever we do. We do not think that God’s best could include illness, a car accident, or a lost job.

And I hear your arguments: those things come because there is evil in the world; Satan is behind the bad things; we all make choices; and probably a few more. Yes, all of those can be true, but they weren’t true for Job in the Bible and sometimes they aren’t true for us either. Sometimes God actually allows things we don’t see as good at the time because He can see the end from the beginning. He knows how much we are going to grow through the hard stuff.

I actually thought of this question recently as I was contemplating something that I view as very important and have been hanging onto rather tightly. I realized that the loss of this item might really be God’s best for me and He might have things planned for my life that I can’t even imagine at this time. BUT am I willing to accept His best or am I going to stay in the safe, known, not so best?

It comes down to another “ouch” question. Do I truly believe that God is who He says He is? He says He is a good father who always keeps His promises–and even when I have been impatient–He has. He says He will never leave us or forsake us–and even though I have been through some extremely dark times in my life–He never has.

So, after much contemplation and soul-searching, I am going to answer yes to my question. As scary as it seems to me right now, I am going to say yes, I want God’s best in my life, no matter what it might look like!

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'” Jeremiah 29:11

I would love to hear some of your thoughts about this question too!

We have all seen it, little babies, wide-eyed, soaking in the world around them like cute little sponges. From the moment our eyes can focus we are looking at our surroundings, taking them all in and trying to figure them all out. One of my favorite things to do with my babies once they got to this stage was to walk around holding them, just showing them stuff. The more they were interested in something, the bigger their eyes would get!

It is wonderful for children to learn. Unfortunately, around first or second grade children are no longer as enthusiastic about their education and it takes a lot more effort to get them to learn, at least in school. It is so important though, that as we grow we fill our minds with knowledge which hopefully turns into wisdom.

At a certain point in our lives, most of us have acquired a fair amount of knowledge, life experience and wisdom, this is when we need to start “wringing out the sponge.” We need to begin sharing with people who are not as far along in their journey as we are. This doesn’t mean that we all need to become actual teachers, but I believe teaching opportunities are everywhere, beginning in our own families. The obvious teaching in a family is from parent to child, but grandparents are invaluable as teachers as well. Children love to hear stories from their grandparents’ younger days and also stories from when their own parents were young. Uncles and aunts, older cousins, even older siblings can all have a part in sharing wisdom with younger relatives.

As we do begin to share with others, there are a couple things we need to be cautious of. One is whether the person actually wants to learn the information we are trying to teach. I heard a quote recently that says unasked for advice is just criticism! The other is that we do not want to be abrasive sponges. There is a huge difference in gently shepherding someone and harshly instructing.

Obviously, just because we are to a stage where we can start teaching, it doesn’t mean we stop learning. One of my goals personally, is to stay receptive to what God wants to show me, to stay nice and fluffy like a natural sponge and soak in His truth. I don’t want my mind to stay small like one of those little artificial sponges! So how about you? Are you ready to do a little “soaking” and “wringing?”

“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.” Colossians 3:16

Just recently I was talking with a friend, sharing some tough things I am going through personally. My friend commented, “Wow, God is making you really shiny!” I had to laugh, even though the process of becoming “shiny” is not so funny most of the time.

I have no idea why God has designed us to grow so much more when circumstances are difficult, but most people I talk to agree, we grow more in the winds and storms than in the sunshine. The process that my friend was referring to, what the Bible calls the refiners fire, can be downright painful. Zechariah 13:9 says, “I will refine them like silver and test them like gold, they will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.'”

God does not take us through hard things for no reason. His goal is to make us more like His son, to take the things that don’t look like Him and refine them right out of us. To bring us to a place eventually where we can say, “The Lord is my God.” I don’t know about you, but I feel like I have a lot of refining left to go!

The Bible refers to those impurities in our lives as ‘dross.’ I looked up the word dross, and some synonyms for it are: refuse, trash, impurity, dregs, scum and waste. Yes, I definitely don’t want any of that lingering around in myself. However, sometimes that fire begins to feel so hot that I begin to think that maybe just a few trash bags in the corners of my person aren’t so bad! I have found though, that God is not okay with dark corners. He is perfectly holy and wants to bring us into the freedom of the perfect holiness of His Son.

That may sound a little strange to some of you, most of the world would not equate holiness with freedom, but there is an amazing sense of freedom when we are able to let the yucky parts of ourselves be healed. When we allow Jesus to come into every part of our lives and comfort us. When we can be super-honest with Him about our struggles. Holiness is not us just trying harder to be “good,” it is about Jesus Himself coming in and doing the work in our hearts.

So while I am still not to the stage where I can do the happy dance when I enter a season of difficult refining, I am getting to a place where I can see the results more quickly, such as more patience, or more peace, and I don’t kick and scream quite as much as I used to when facing a hard time!

“Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the silversmith.” Proverbs 25:4

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” I Peter 1:6-7