how to eat during the holidays (advice from trenton wierenga)

(i was asked by a reader at my chasing silhouettes blog how to eat during the holidays; this is my husband's advice, as found here... merry christmas everyone. :))

God Himself tucked inside a poor girl's arms (by Bethany Ann)

December evenings linger long past dusk:
the streetlights have been trading their watch since before suppertime.
below them, a man pulls cars off a transport and into the dealership lot.
snow falls upon the toque his girlfriend bought him,
filters through tree house rafters across the street.
within the house, three brothers are fighting for bathtub space;
their mother has baby oil and pajamas at the ready.

over on the first concession,
a farmer stretches his toes inside a fresh pair of woollen socks,
rakes calloused hands through hair in need of a barber.
his wife's fingers undo the bow at the back of her apron
as they have every evening the same;
punch faded numbers onto a telephone keypad;
reach toward a jar of balm and the music of a daughter's voice.

it's a night just like any other in December: cold, dark, wintry.
yet each moment -- every place -- is teeming with humanity:
scarred by the day, brimming with hope for the morrow;
loving and wanting and resting and toiling,
all conflicted and radiant.
each person is writing a new story.
every person is working toward a goal.

but what does it matter if the car guy saves to buy his girlfriend a ring?
does anyone care if some farmer's daughter gets to chat with her mom?
old tree houses and fresh haircuts and warm socks and wet bathroom floors --
they don't amount to much. everything we know is so small.
(even those shiny new cars getting snowed upon.)
...carved into a hillside, long ago and far away,
stood a stable where a baby was born.

because his mother was rejected and his father was acquainted with grief,
he had no better place to lay than a feeding trough filled with hay.
yet every star in heaven held its breath as angels shrieked their amazement
at God Himself, tucked inside a poor girl's arms.
His life would show us the power of the Spirit;
His death, the depths of evil;
His resurrection, the height of glory.

but in that little hillside stable, the soul felt its worth.

(i chose this piece of incredibly powerful prose to highlight from this week's link-up... its words teeming with the very humanity that bethany ann writes of... merry christmas friends. taking a break now for two weeks... all my love. e. xo)

*painting by e. wierenga

imperfect prose on thursdays: the hum of something holy (over at The High Calling today)

It’s Christmas Eve and we’re shopping, piling rolls of paper and chocolates and candy canes, stopping now to let Mum rest, and then on to the rows of Pillsbury dough and eggnog. She’s getting that look, the one that says we need to go home so she can sleep, but we haven’t even started on main gifts, let alone dinner.

She laughs as we pull her to the rusted van, sister and I caring for 53-year-old mother who home-schooled us long and made us homemade bread, now confined to a seven-year brain tumor. The snow is falling. Mum reaches out, shaky. The flakes melt fast to her skin, making her sparkle. We sing carols in the car on the way home and Mum’s cheeks are red as Rudolph, her eyes like a robin’s egg.

Mum’s got a glazed look now, and I know it will be hard to get her out of the car and into bed. At home we pull covers tight, pray angels be near and dreams be kind, and may she wake to attend the candlelight service – the same service we attended as children with our other siblings, dressed in outfits Mum had sewn herself, too poor to buy anything new. I’ll never forget my red velvet dress with the white lace collar and how fancy I felt in my eight-year-old skin.

The front door shuts, Dad shakes snow from the hat he’s worn for 20 years and we watch him as he climbs stairs, tired. He looks at us and we say, “She’s down for a nap,” and he swallows.

“How is she?”

“A bit fuzzy,” I say, and he nods. Maybe we should decorate the tree.

But Allison insists on waiting for our sister and brother to arrive. I call up my husband and he brings the turkey. I baste it and stuff it and prep it for tomorrow’s feast, for as much as Mum is fuzzy, tomorrow’s Christmas, and I’m hoping for a miracle.

(won't you follow me, here, for the rest of this story, a re-post which originally appeared in Focus on the Family magazine last year? merry christmas, my beautiful friends... see you in a couple of weeks!!)



1. link up a post (old or new) between wednesday and friday that you feel is 'broken' or 'imperfect' or somehow redemptive
2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)
3. read at least one other person's linked-up prose, and give 'em praise!

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on why i'm giving gifts to my children this christmas

his eyes are the eyes of a thousand sleepless nights and i've never seen such shadows on a four-year-old boy.

"who is that?" i whisper to trent while the children's choir sings and the church is decked out in holly and ivy and Jesus in a manger.

"that's one of the *Fritz boys," he tells me, and i turn back to the boy with the tired eyes and i'm crying. for he and his brothers and sisters lost their mama recently, and mothers make christmas, and i want to run up front and pick them up and rock them happy. forever.

so instead i turn to my boys and kiss their fat cheeks harder than i've ever kissed them and hold them until they squirm.

and i will wrap presents when i get home. for the boy with the tired eyes. eyes that never close for searching for her, eyes that will never stop looking for his mother this side of heaven.

and then i will wrap gifts for my boys, too.

for i don't know how long i have with them. and while i'm with them, i want to give them everything i can.

we give to others year-round. we do the world vision thing every december, and the operation christmas child boxes, but why would i give to a child overseas if i'm not going to give to the two in my own home?

why would i deprive my children the joy of opening a gift on christmas morning?

i've been reading blog posts by women i respect, about the concept of giving up gifts for christmas, and i truly believe these women have noble intentions.

yet i fear we're turning infants into martyrs. i fear we're over-spiritualizing christmas and missing the simple joy of tearing into paper and seeing the knowledge of being loved spread across a child's face.

yes, it is Jesus' birthday. but Jesus is alive and well and living in our children, so by giving gifts to them, we are in fact, gifting Him, and he is the one who says, "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (luke 11:13)

we need not give many. we need only give a few, but in giving those few, we are delighting our children and teaching them the joy of receiving. so they, in turn, can be cheerful givers.

and so, i wrap. with trembling fingers. for the boy with the tired eyes, and for the boys God has given me.

for, come Christmas, we are all children in need of the greatest gift. grace.

(*name changed for privacy reasons)

photos by my dear friend, justina gibson

*shared today with ann, jen, michelle and laura

Breakfast with Divinity (by Waystation One)

The local news, this morning, featured the inventor
of the Jesus toaster, which may or may not be a
great Christmas gift but at least

This way you can have breakfast with Him
any time you want, look him in his slightly charred eyes
as you give thanks, before biting His left ear off,

Or let Him know you will butter His toast if and when
He butters yours, but I wonder how He feels
with jam smeared all over His face, does it
have to be sweet Concord grape
for a proper communion.

Being fond of black raspberry, i am
hoping for grace and

Having seen the ones that burn NFL logos
on your bread, perhaps He was jealous
seeing as they already get 9 hours on Sunday
to His one.

Then again, I won't speak too loud considering
the gas station carries 12 inch buck knives,
one inch for each disciple, with His brand
and 'GOD is love' down the handle
for when you need to clean your kill

Honestly, I changed the channel,
I can only take so much news,
before it gets depressing.

(i'm sure most of you have read this brilliant piece by brian by now, but in case you missed it, i'm highlighting it from this week's imperfect link-up... bless you friends, for all you do and for who you are, and for being broken with me.)

imperfect prose on thursdays: when mothers get sick (and first-ever christmas giveaway!)

it's been hours of arms circling the cylinder of the toilet, its white waist rising and i've got a baby in my arms. and i kneel there as if in prayer and puke in my hair and my baby laughs. because he doesn't understand mommy being sick.

and this afternoon, curled up on the living room floor, and both boys just staring, at this prostrate mama. and it wasn't okay, their round eyes told me. heroes can't get sick.

but we're all sick. the question is, how to not let our sickness infect our children.

my arms hug the toilet and i wonder, how to let them know i am human, while still rising to meet their needs each day?

and i turn to the Jesus long ago born and always alive and forever will be, and i weep prayers into the bathroom tile, begging him to save us from ourselves.




(on a side note, i have created an Etsy shop... only a very few of my pieces are displayed right now, but over the next couple of weeks i plan to update it. love you.)

today i would like to give away an award winning digital scrapbook software that is extremely easy and fun to use. My Memories Suite is rated #1 by Amazon and TopTen Reviews. using this software, anyone can create digital scrapbooks, photo-books, cards, calendars and gifts without having to buy expensive and complicated software programs.

let me know why you want this software program worth over $40 (a wedding? a new baby?) and in seven days i will select a winner. thank you!

1. link up a post (old or new) between wednesday and friday that you feel is 'broken' or 'imperfect' or somehow redemptive
2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)
3. read at least one other person's linked-up prose, and give 'em praise!

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christmas is about rediscovering wonder (guest post by melissa feddersen @ one thing blog)

It was the whole point wasn't it?

His coming? To restore, redeem, mend all that is so very broken in us; in this old world.

Christmas, if we cut everything else away isn't it only about REDEMPTION?

I am wondering, what does it mean to join in this work? How do we settle into the plan He has for this family, the good He intends for our lives to bring to the world?

Last week I looked at my calendar, then promptly went to the corner where I huddled in the fetal position and wept. Introverts like me get overwhelmed by the very thought of too many people, too many expectations.

I will tell you in advance, I am not going to meet them for you. Then, as I cuddled and cried I remembered that this, this busy? This burden? This is the opposite of what HE has for me this season as I wait for him.

This month? Is only about redemption.

If it doesn't mend or heal or join His great work, I am turning it down. If it is more about busy than being a blessing? I am walking away.

For me, this month will be about weak relationships pulled back together to strong.

It will be about a tired husband inspired to rest.

It will be about a little family in the woods that needs stronger bonds, slower days.

It will be about memories, but not pressure.

I will bake when my kids want to bake with me, and when I don't feel like cleaning the kitchen for the 20th time? I will buy things, instead of thinking I am letting someone down by not making it from scratch.

My husband? Will cheer.

I am not going to plan our two weeks off as an opportunity to 'catch up on things around here'. The only thing that needs to be 'caught' is life well spent.

I am not going to get stressed out when you come over. I am going to enjoy the gift of your company and look forward to contemplating what God has in store for us as he draws us together.

I will sit quiet and not rush into the next ‘big thing’. Even as I prepare for our trip to Kenya with World Vision I will spend more time contemplating how He can use us for redemptive purposes then making to do lists.

I will ask Him, where is your heart for these days? How can I join you in it?

I will rediscover Wonder, because that is how I want my children to remember mom at Christmas.

Wonder-bound and doing everything I can to bring tiny bits of Peace on Earth. That tree that sits crooked (and huge) in my living room, with bottom heavy ornaments?

I'm leaving it just as it is and each day when my boy runs in gasping, asking to add more?

I will let him and we will lay down under it and look up and think about all the beauty we can find, even in the broken.


(i know, i said i would only choose one post from the imperfect prose link-up last week, but this one from melissa @ one thing blog was too good to pass up... so here is another guest post, and i look forward to featuring more in the weeks to come. in the meantime, join me here, wednesday, for the weekly link-up and a CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY :) love you all. e.)

on how to live a merciful life (guest post by kath @ listening space)

Irritation makes her bark and bristle, so I lean closer. I speak softer and I skirt raw spots as we trace her story. She lived a childhood unprotected, and has lived it over and over again. She's not the only one who teeters on the edge of shouting or shaking. They are here, drowning in a welter of loss. Everyone seems to have lost. A husband, a childhood, peace of mind, safety. Gone where?

His polished smile and prepped answers draw me in. It's a performance he's perfected. He's saying its all OK now, but is it? Does gut-tearing shame heal like changing the TV channel, or from reading inspiration in the Women's Weekly? He almost convices me that it does. But when he speaks real, honest words, I can see he's on the edge, too. Of tears. Of giving up. Of seeking real change.

This place of pain and of struggle and the wrestle between life and death. The mingling of despair and hope, where all I can add is my pittance that 'it will be OK'. And this says nothing substantial, or solid, to cling to.

I can listen, too. Especially to the feelings and thoughts that we're not supposed to have. Like being angry at your husband who just died, leaving you to mop up his life. Or that you wish you were dead because the hole you are in feels endless, and dark, and crushing.

So many rules about how we should feel, how we should act, how we should live. I think about religious men questioning why Jesus didn't follow certain customs or rituals, and his answer I'm reading over and over. Puzzling how to absorb it and live it.

I desire mercy not sacrifice.
It's not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick.

What does it mean to live a merciful life, and then also know that I'm one of the sick, too? A merciful life, but not a proud one.

Remembering that I'm welcomed in the same way - embraced with my messy heart and unruly feelings - needing mercy too. Us and them just doesn't work. It needs to be me among all of us. All of us sinners who need mercy. All of us lost, needing to be found. Everyone sick and needing a doctor.


(over the next few fridays, i plan to choose a post from the weekly imperfect prose link-up to highlight through a "guest post" .... this one is by kath at listening space; make sure you stop by her beautiful place, friends. love you.)

imperfect prose on thursdays: the virgin mary's drug-free birth

on occasion, when i'm feeling too lazy to get up from the couch to get myself a snack, i remind my husband, quietly, of the drug-free labor i went through four months ago with our second son, Kasher.

it's losing its effect. perhaps once a day is too often, but trust me: after 19 hours of contractions, screaming "just pull him out!", and second-degree tearing, the respect was there, scrawled all across Trent's features and he couldn't bring me enough ice chips.

and Mary had no ice chips.

(will you join me, here, at A Deeper Story, for the rest of this post? and please, feel free to link up below. love e.)



1. link up a post (old or new) between wednesday and friday that you feel is 'broken' or 'imperfect' or somehow redemptive
2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)
3. read at least one other person's linked-up prose, and give 'em praise!

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Auto-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.

on why i'm slowing down blogging this Christmas

i caught a glimpse of myself in the window today as i rocked my baby and i looked older than i've ever looked, hair tied back, glasses, apron for the baking and all of me, mother. i looked like a mother. and i liked it.

i've been missing them lately. my children. and i'm always with them.

but part of me is always somewhere else. and that part of me will never have this time back. these holy moments at home when it's mama and boys and toys and stories and sometimes, the days seem too long--but never after the fact.

after the fact, i wish for it back, for longer dances and more kisses and soon, they'll be in school and all i'll see is their tiny back-packs as they bike with daddy down the road to kindergarten.

and so i'm slowing. in the spirit of the season, i'm pausing, waiting, coaxing the seed out of its shell, the miracle that i so desperately long for: the truth behind the tree and the tinsel and the turkey.

i'm no longer content with nostalgia. i want Christ. and i find him most clearly in the eyes of my children--pupils fresh from heaven.

so i'm spending more time this month looking into their faces. seeing him.

i will still be doing imperfect prose on thursdays once a week until december 21, when i'll be breaking for two weeks.

i love you friends. but i love my kids more. :) i'll see you here, wednesday, for imperfect prose. rest hard tonight. e.

I salute you! There is nothing I can give you which you have not, but there is much, that, while I cannot give, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take Heaven. No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take Peace. The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet, within our reach, is joy. Take Joy. And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away. (Fra Giovanni)

finding Jesus as we decorate the tree

snow, falling like the ideal christmas all fat and gentle and aiden clapping hands and us clamoring into hat and mitt and jacket.

the first saturday in december, and it’s time to get the tree, and christmas isn’t christmas without a real tree.

and we drive to oma and opa’s and get the old blue and red farm truck, the one no one would steal for its color and oma brings hot chocolate and we drive down the road and park, pile into the bush and aiden drinks hot chocolate with opa while trent and i find a tree.

and it’s standing apart from the others, waiting for us. a spruce, and it’s the perfect height.

trent uses his grandpa’s saw to cut it down and we stare at the initials on the handle, “G. N.,” and remember the towering silent man who used to run the ferry. and it’s a fast memorial and soon we’re in the truck again and driving home and watering tree and tying it to the wall and finding lights that work.

and trent finds christmas music on the radio, and i un-wrap the nativity, eager to show aiden baby Jesus and he’s nowhere to be found.

Jesus is missing.

we set it up anyway and joke about it being a commentary on christmas, but it’s the nativity trent bought me when we were dating and we’re both searching desperately for the missing baby.

aiden is hanging bulbs, tens of them, from the same branch at the bottom of the tree and i leave them there, clustered like grapes. kasher gnaws on something on the couch and Joy to the World on the radio and trent insists we each hang our own ‘baby’s first’ ornament.

and an angel steals me away. i sit on the couch staring at her pink wings remembering the friend who gave it to me in elementary school.

then we turn off the lights and the tree is wrapped in memory and garland and it’s Silent Night now. trent and i finding each other’s hand in it all.

and Jesus isn’t missing; he’s right here, among us, and we bow over burgers and wine, our communion dinner, and give thanks.


(linking with ann, jen and laura)


676. novel completed and sent in, and waiting now... :)
677. family christmas and gifts and kasher in a santa suit
678. family time in bed in the morning, reading psalms
679. trent's wildberry wine
680. the taste of food that i didn't have to cook
681. your love, you people--all of you, i am so grateful for your friendship. (thank you)

Life as Art (Guest Post by Erika Morrison)

"Listen to your life, see it for the fathomless mystery it is." ~ Frederick Buechner

It's raining grey drops on the outside, peppering the asphalt and earth-dirt with heaven's impartial, christening water.

It smells like creation's church and my imagination is pressed close to cold panes of windowed glass and I can almost feel the taste of liquid silver on my tongue and this absurd little human-heart inside a chest-of-flesh flips over and oh dear God, the sound of it on the roof?

Makes me school-girl giddy; if my spirit were to rise any higher, it would be away and gone from it's body-home. There is the fog descending, too, to join nature's tryst, offering his filmy, floating-fluctuation and dewy-dimension to autumn's canvas.

God-painted leaves dance their colors under the wet in a lover's waltz with the subliminal brush of a wandering by, hands-in-his-trouser-pockets-with-a-whistle kind of breeze. They know it is their highest praise just to be and I am noticing, my eyes eating elements and landscape like soul-food. It is my own high worship, the watchfulness and mindfulness. The listening.

::::

The kitchen clocks turns 10:32 pm and we've scrubbed our teeth clean and checked on the kids and turned off all the lights but one. It's early-to-sleep for these usual midnighters, but in the midst of this going-to-bed routine, something about the soft glow of the last-on 40-watt bulb; something about how the kitchen air hung so quiet and weighted like a stone . . . hooked my attention and slow-motioned my spirit. I knew I was being seduced by Someone to go deep into this ordinary moment and these words were invoked from my heart as I turned un-hurried to my husband, "Hey hon, do you know what we've never done before?" He angles his head out the bathroom door and says "what?" with a smile and his fingers sliding the contact from his left deep-brown eye. "We've never sat at this table, at this time of night, with just this light on." My lips, they curve at the corners, soliciting him with a silent invitation and this 11-year-spouse of mine, he knows that I want to make a memory, make some magic out of what seems like thin-air-nothing.


We bend our tired bones in the kitchen-table chairs and stay there in a mysterious time warp of uncharted minutes and let The Mystic unfurl around our skin, He whispered His presence in the space between us and never has our life-sharing or soul-connecting been better then that hour and a half of unexpected, unplanned intertwining.

::::

It started with morning meditation when I announced to my 3 little guys that today, today we were going on a grand adventure, with Jesus, in our imaginations. "You can go anywhere in the world, the universe even, with Jesus . . . Anywhere . . . Where is He taking you? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel? What is He saying? Take the next ten minutes of silence and have fun on your journey!"

And they look at me with the eyes that twinkle like far-out unblemished stars and their little bodies threaten to explode with energy, as their excitement escalates into a series of barbaric WHOOOO HOOOOO'S!!!! - even though they know it's time to dial down, some things just cannot be contained and their belief in Impossible Goodness is pure and uninfected-still-and what could be better for the guileless heart then partaking of His presence?

The hollering is out of their systems and silence falls like grace on our heads and the four of us sitting motionless on the living room rug go long beyond the realm of physical parameters . . .

"Boys, where did you go, what did you do with Jesus?" I ask when the silence-time is finished. We sit together in a circle, knee to knee, my heart leaning into their stories.

Jude tells me that Jesus took him to Panera Bread for lunch and bought him a cinnamon roll. "Oh, Jude, that sounds AMAZING! I would LOVE to go to Panera Bread with Jesus!" He's beaming and I bend forward to kiss the soft spot of his cheek and whisper, "That is SO special Jude, Jesus sure does love you . . . and He knows how much you love cinnamon rolls!"

Gabe's turn to share and he tells me all sensitive in his voice that Jesus took him to a battle scene between good and evil and said this to his heart: "He told me not to show aggression and to love my enemies and fight for Love!" My mama-words affirm strong, "That is SO beautiful, Gabe." My oldest son, who is so fascinated with all historical war, is being reminded that love is always the first response of Christ's heart.

I turned my eyes to Seth to find his face looking at the floor and my palm cups his chin to lift his head towards my searching vision, "What about you, Seth? Where did you go with Jesus?" And the son who looks like me has tender puddles of salty-water spilling down his 7-year-old features and barely past the clog in his throat, he manages to say this: "I went to Mount Everest to see Jesus and I found Him praying and when He was done praying, He said to me, 'I must go.' Then I said, 'Goodbye.' And Jesus said to me, 'It is not goodbye forever . . . when I go to see God, you pray, then Love will spread throughout the air.' And when He left, I prayed."

And I can not breathe for being a witness to my boy-child crying because he had had a union experience with the Spirit that left him undone in his young heart. He was crying because he had been with God and my whole body wept with joy that I had created the space for this to happen between him and God.

::::

This is Life Art: I believe, when we intimately witness and thoughtfully compose every moment of living--that we humanly can--into a story of unspeakable depth, with the Spirit of the living God being the medium by which we craft ordinary-life-components into fine art . . . Just a little brush of the fingertips against the velvet veil.

"Take any day and be alive in it. The world is to open. You are alive. It needn't have been so. It wasn't so once and it will not be so forever. But it is so now." ~ Frederick Buechner

Are you a life artist too?


(friends... if you were as moved as I was when reading this, please, let Erika know, by visiting her blog, here... thank you.)