Bed of Straw and a Crown of Thorns

Oh, thou long expected Jesus
You came in unexpected ways
Leaving Heaven's glorious throne
To claim no riches of your own
Greeted in the dark of night
By shepherds heralding angels' delight
And beasts and birds beheld in awe
God-in-flesh in a bed of straw.

Oh, thou long expected Jesus
You came in unexpected ways
Sabbath Healer, Friend of sinners
Fountain of Wisdom unschooled by men
Rebel leader, radical teacher,
Calling God's people to return, again.

Oh, thou long expected Jesus
You came in unexpected ways
The Holy One - rejected, a "sinner" to die
Victorious death making the dead alive
A suffering Savior, for whom few would mourn
A crucified King in a crown of thorns

Oh, thou long expected Jesus
Come in unexpected ways
Shatter the Christ-shaped idols we hold
Imitations fashioned and carefully controlled
A safe savior, a comfortable king
Giving us all but demanding nothing

Come, thou long expected Jesus
Reign and rule our hearts today
Help our eyes, Lord, to expect you
In all your unexpected ways

May your Christmas be filled with all the wonder and glory of Christ!

Merry Christmas 

from

The Poppens

Filled Full

The holiday season is full of feasting - savory food, tasty drinks and delicious desserts. We filled our tummies full on Thanksgiving and will continue to feast with friends and family at dinner gatherings and holiday events from now until January.

The thing is, no matter how much turkey, ham or stuffing or potatoes you eat, or no matter how many pieces of pie or frosted cookies, or no matter how much egg nog or hot chocolate you drink, you will always wake up the next day hungry. You will always reach for another drink. You may even not make it to the next meal time before thinking about food (at least I don't), and for some (like me), even the sweetest delicacies cannot satisfy the craving for more.

Along with all the thought about food, preparation of food, eating of food, my mind has been meditating on Jesus' claim in John 6:35:

 "I am the bread of life. 

Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, 

and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

Jesus is food for our souls. His presence and power pour into our emptiness and satisfy our deepest longings. Jesus fills us full with life. 

Fills us full.
Full - so that we will never be hungry or thirsty.
Full - so that we don't have to run from place to place or person to person searching for fulfillment and satisfaction.
Fills us full, and then increases our capacity to experience more of His immeasurable fullness.

May our hunger and thirst lead us to Jesus, the One who satisfies.
Just as our tummies growl for nourishment, may our hearts yearn for His presence.
As our minds plan and our hands prepare food for holiday feasts and meals with family and friends, may our thoughts be ever returning to the One who fills us full.

And may that nourishment strengthen us by the power of Spirit, that the presence of Jesus may dwell in our hearts through faith. May we be rooted and grounded in love, that we "may have the power to comprehend with all of God's people what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:16-19


We are FULL of thanks for many, many things - the gift of family, God's goodness, wonderful friends and THIS:

A new home!!
We signed a lease for this rental home and plan to move in on December 31st!!

Hooray for a backyard!

We are thankful for a great school for Zoë and her precious Thanksgiving program and feast:

Enjoy excerpts from Zoë's Thanksgiving program:

Post-feast Dragon Dash

We are thankful for these two lively, sweet kiddos

 

New skills!

Swing, batter-batter!

"But MOM. We just want to go play. 

Are you REALLY going to make us stand here

and take a picture of our turkey hats that we don't even want to wear??"

Yes.

Ha!

Such a fun Thanksgiving meal at the Nelson's home!

And we are thankful for Didi, who was able to spend a lot of time with us this past month. :)

Work: Joy-killing or Joy-giving?

Work.
Sometimes work just seems to get in the way - that pile of "stuff" that looms over me, holding me prisoner to a never-ending to-do list, preventing me from doing the things I really want to do.
Sometimes it seems like an overwhelming burden that leaves me gasping for air or calling out for time to hold still  - a mountain of necessary tasks that only cause stress and strife and take the fun out of life.

Even for my children, work carries a negative connotation.
Cleanup is the end of playtime.
Homework is hard and tedious.
Work keeps Daddy away for long hours of the day and night.

Yet the Bible tells us a different story.
Work is a part of God's very good and perfect plan for life in Paradise.
Work was there in the Garden of Eden before the Fall turned it to laborsome toil.
Human beings were created to create, to produce, to cultivate, to grow,
"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10

God works.
We are part of God's work.
God has work for us to do.

I have been deeply convicted by this quote about work from Sharon Simons (my teaching leader in Bible Study Fellowship):

"Doing God's work satisfies us like nothing else.
Doing God's work God's way brings great joy,
but doing God's work our way is a joy-killer."

Do I find satisfaction in the work I am doing? Am I a joy-killer in my own heart and home because of my attitude toward work? Am I doing God's work but doing it out of my own strength (and failing)? Or am I doing things that God has not called me to, as I fill my schedule with activities and efforts to impress or please people, or prove something, or do out of guilt to fulfill an expectation? Am I missing out on satisfying, joy-giving work God has for me each day because I am distracted and too busy doing what I think is most important?

This past month, the kids and I meditated on Romans 12:11 as one of our memory verses. The call to "work for the Lord with a heart full of love for him" replayed over and over in my head reminding me of God's desire for my work, and transforming my heart's approach to the work God has called me to do.

I don't have to.
I get to.

I get to do laundry and dishes and grocery shopping and floor mopping, working "with all my heart, as if for the Lord," (Colossians 3:23) and doing it out of heart full of love for God, my Provider, and love for my family - even when my children are ungrateful, track in mud or become a raging tornado of toys, and even when my husband doesn't fully appreciate my efforts or isn't able to help in the way I desire.

I get to teach, train and discipline my children, being gentle and kind and patient in the face of defiance, stubbornness and violence, bringing peace into chaos and quarreling, being by example a "model of good works" (Titus 2:7) and "doing it all through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).

I get to work in my community, teaching children to love music, teaching children to love Jesus, serving friends and neighbors and strangers "all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31) and "in the name of the Lord Jesus" while filled with thanksgiving (Colossians 3:17).

I get to - because God created me to work and do good work.

Work done out of a heart of love for God, for the glory of God and by the power of God satisfies and sustains.

May the Lord continue to transform my heart that all my work will become (and remain) joyful - done out of a heart of joy and bringing great joy to me and my household.

We enjoyed a wonderful visit from Didi!

Queen Elsa at the K-1 Storybook Parade

One cute little snowman

Boo at the Zoo with Didi and Auntie Judy

Elsa showing off her magical ice powers. 

Neighborhood Trick-or-Treating

These two can melt any frozen heart. ;) 

Treading Water and Running A Marathon: A PhD Update

If the two experiences of treading water and running a marathon are combined into a single experience, you have a glimpse of what it’s like to be in the middle of a PhD program. Given how long the process is (especially since most students have completed previous Master’s degrees), the constant grind of read, write, discuss, think, write, read, discuss can feel like treading water. And because so much “road” stretches out ahead of me (at least three years still), it often seems like a marathon.

And it is lonely. More lonely than I expected.

I entered into this process knowing that it would be isolated and individual. But I’ve been surprised at the depth of that loneliness. Even though I have a family to come home to at night. Even though I have friends, both local and in various places around the country. Even though I’m well-supported by the staff and faculty here at Brite. To be a PhD student is to be lonely.

The isolation can be physical and emotional. Yet most of the loneliness is in my mind. When you study, you are locked in a constant struggle between what you know and what you are learning. If you don’t know anything about a topic or issue or event or concept, the process is relatively struggle-free (unless the material is rather dense). If you do know something about the material, it can be difficult as you decide what to keep and what to remove to make room for new understanding. And since this struggle happens in the mind, the PhD student is adrift in a sea of concepts and arguments that very few see or hear.

This isolation has some merit, though. The PhD process allows people like myself to live on dangerous borders between the accepted and the unknown, the ecclesial and the academic, the safe and the dangerous, the possible and the impossible. This journey has allowed me to anchor myself to a point and swim into murky waters and obscured currents that I would have otherwise avoided.
The PhD student is not some super-person who can easily deal with difficult information; I am often rocked by what I learn and experience through my studies.
But this work is necessary. This work is important for communities, some of whom I have yet to know.

Enough of the existential. Let’s transition to something more concrete. For my area of research, I have shifted slightly from my previous path. Now, I am concerned that some (predominantly white) Christian traditions are not aware of a period in our nation’s history: 1863-1877 - the period of the Reconstruction and Post-Reconstruction (the periods directly following the Civil War). I am concerned at how certain theologies that arose during that time continue to impact our present understanding on issues of justice, especially racial injustice. In other words, I want to investigate how certain pockets of Christianity used the texts of the Hebrew Bible to dehumanize the Other, particularly African American men. And this is a timely issue (even without all the turmoil stirred up by Trump’s campaign). On October 7th, the documentary “13TH” was released. The central argument is that the 13th amendment, which is regarded as the amendment that abolished slavery, merely transitioned slavery from the landowner to the prison industrial complex. I won’t go into details here, but I implore you to watch it (though it is graphic at points).

Why focus on this? Because our theology creates a language and that language reinscribes a reality. What we believe impacts how we live. It’s important to know how Christians have interpreted the texts of the Bible because any ignorance, whether willful or accidental, will result in a repetition of previous mistakes. When those mistakes indict how certain theologies have treated of people of color and other marginalized folks, I cannot think of a more important research topic that addresses how churches today should decry and dismantle systemic problems like racism in order to fulfill the commands of Jesus to love our neighbors and to exercise compassion as we stand in solidarity with oppressed peoples.


This is only half the update: here are some pictures (as narrated by Larissa) of the past two months. :)

Someone turned 30!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

We had a great time at the Fort Worth Stockyards

Isaiah got to ride a pony...

And Zoë rode a bull. ;)

Zoë has been in school for 2 months and she is LOVING it! It has taken our family awhile to get used to the new school routine and other additions to our schedule as a family, but we are getting there. I am seeing the influence of the Montessori Method on Zoë's play and work at home. She is continuing to blossom in her creativity through building, artwork, music and writing. Outside of school, she enjoys playing with friends, dancing at ballet, playing piano, tumbling at gymnastics, and coming up with her own "projects."

"Turtle" from art class

Ra-ra TCU Frogs!

"Peacock"

Isaiah is fully embracing his goofy side. He loves to make others laughs and thoroughly enjoys laughing at himself. He loves cars, puddles, trains, construction machines, riding his bike, Paw Patrol and Mommy. He really wants nothing to do with Daddy, or anyone else for that matter. :p Isaiah has been talking up a storm and using an extraordinary vocabulary for being not-even-two-and-a-half-years-old!

 
Cars and puddles = great combination!

Look at him go!

He sat here at the Rhino exhibit for a really long time.

We finally got around to seeing some animals.

When they are not fighting, they are best of friends. ;)

Be Brave. Be Kind. Be True.

We sent off our baby girl to Kindergarten this morning. Feelings of excitement are jumbling with feelings of terror and anxiety and mingling with feelings of grief.

As we prepared for her first day, I shared with Zoë a few words of my hopes and prayers for her as she heads out into this great big world, to help her navigate through the new places, new people, new rules, new skills, new knowledge...and long hours and long days.

Be Brave

There will be things that will be hard.

There will be things that will be scary.

But be brave, dear one.

Try new things, and know that it is ok if you fail. 

Just do your best and try again.
Stand up for what is right, even if it means standing alone.

And always remember God's promise:
"Do not be afraid, for I am with you."

Even at school. Even on the playground. Even in the cafeteria.

Be brave.

Be Kind

Show God's love to everyone.

Speak words that build up, not words that tear down.

Give compliments, form friendships, offer a helping hand.

Remember to treat others as you want to be treated yourself,

and be more focused on what you can do for others than on what they can do for you.
Let someone else be first in line.
Be quick to share.
Ask them what they would like to play.
Be kind.

Be True
Be true to your word.
Make promises and keep them.
Be true in your words.
Remember that lies only make a trap around you,
but telling the truth sets you free.

Be true to your feelings.
It is ok to have big emotions.
It is ok to feel really sad, or really lonely, or really angry.
Speak your feelings. We are always here to listen.
It is ok to feel really happy, or really excited, or really proud.
Tell us!

Remember how to express your feelings in ways that are appropriate and healthy,
and ask for help when you are having a hard time.
Your teacher is there to help you, and we are always here for you.

Be true to yourself.
You are the only YOU.
There is no one else just like you, and you can't be anyone else. (So don't try.)
Be the best YOU that you can be!

Remember who you are:
Creative
Talented
Empathetic
Tender-hearted
Beautiful
Comedic
Dramatic
Managerial
Intelligent

But even more importantly,
You are deeply loved by God,
You are cherished by Jesus,
You are precious to us.

So, be true. Be you.

Such a little girl and a big school!

But she is very excited to be a Daggett Dragon!

Zoë is going to have a great year with Ms. Daniels :)

We hope you have a wonderful first day of school and enjoy every day of Kindergarten!

Love always,
Mommy and Daddy