Christmas Carols - Day 17 - Holiday Haiku Challenge

Welcome to Day 17 of our Holiday Haiku Challenge Today's guest is Alle McCloskey from Finding Eden Media. Alle's day-to-day is filled with old children’s books, large doses of refrigerator art, life-giving music and the world’s best cuddles from her two favorite little people. She prays that by infusing her messy-but-beautiful nest with worship and creativity, they too will learn to become followers of the King. Passionate to see the online conversation filled with the redemptive work of Jesus, she and her husband document the creative journey of brand building and story crafting at Finding Eden Media — where they blend work and play as a freelance family! You can also connect with them over on Instagram — their favorite place to socialize and share online!

Today's Challenge is to create a haiku based on the inspiration of...

Christmas Carols

Perhaps you could select your favorite carol as the centerpiece of your writing, or head in a more general sense of how these Christmas songs find a place in your holiday traditions!

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Christmas Carols

by Alle McCloskey

This past February, my Valentine surprised me with a portable record player and now our entire family has caught the vinyl bug! We look for new records to add to our collection everywhere we go — consignment shops, thrift stores, specialty record spots, and amazon are some of our favorites! 

Our boys’ favorite record is called, Spectacular Space Hits and features themes from Star Wars, Superman, Star Trek, and more. As a result they can now sing Darth Vader’s Theme, the Cantina Band Theme, and Yoda’s Theme from memory. It’s become a bit of a bargaining chip in our home and I can always count on some good cleaning if I put this record on, so thanks for that John Williams!

With the holiday season upon us, we have been so excited to hunt for vintage Christmas records and so far, we’ve lucked out! We found this Christmas with Conniff album featuring the Ray Conniff Singers along that is getting a lot of airtime in our home.

And we also landed some compilation albums that have music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Julie Andrews, and Nat King Cole, to name a few. We’ve even started listening to a four-album set of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet, but perhaps my favorite is the Merry Wurlitzer Christmas record we found at the thrift store — it makes me giggle every time we play it!

This month, I’ve tried to be intentional in the way I create and influence our home atmosphere. By targeting a few of the senses, I’ve found that I can directly impact the natural tone and mood of our family. A disheveled, crazy home makes for stressed out, unhappy people inside it. You can read more about how I’m focusing on the senses of sight and scent to foster calm and peace in our home over here (we even have a coupon code for some beautiful Christmas prints over there), but perhaps the easiest and quickest way to push the reset button in our home is through sound — specifically with music.

We’re a family of musicians, so understandably music plays a huge part in our day-to-day life — whether being played and shared live with our instruments or flowing through our speakers as a record or Spotify playlist. At Christmastime, it’s become such a natural way to impact the entire home with melodies that can calm, excite, or even inspire reflection on the real reason why we celebrate during this season. Traditional carols bring back sweet memories and carry on traditions from one generation to the next while new holiday favorites breath a new life and freshness into the season!

Sometimes, I’ll turn on some upbeat holiday tunes for a quick dance party when we need to get some extra wiggles out. Other times, we’ll pull out the Christmas books for a much-needed, restful break and we’ll be accompanied by some soft Christmas carols. It’s these small touches that are easy to overlook, but that can have such an incredible impact on your home if used with intention and love!

To help you build out your own Christmas music collection, we’d like to share a Spotify playlist we’ve created exclusively for Wendy’s holiday haiku challenge participants! Check it out below!

https://open.spotify.com/user/1265210505/playlist/2BLAyf2GXrbtQnWsk6wGgW

Jesus was a Child - Day 16 - Holiday Haiku Challenge

Welcome to Day 16 of our Holiday Haiku Challenge.

Today's writing prompt, purposed to inspire 17 syllables of your own, is the following quote by Charles Dickens:

"It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself."

(Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)

Speaking of the Christ-child, I recently discovered an author online who wrote a series of holiday haiku two years back. Coincidentally, Luke Knight also penned a beautiful little book last year, entitled, When God was Little (download it for free!)

Here's a summary - because it all pares so beautifully with today's holiday haiku challenge, Jesus was a child.

Grown-up Jesus walked the walk. Baby Jesus crawled the crawl.

This is a small book about a big story. We’ll ask questions like these together:

How did Jesus' life start? What made Jesus so special? How does Jesus’ life potentially inform our view of the divine?

Once we start thinking about the stable, and the hay, and baby Jesus on the lam from nasty old King Herod, we begin to experience the wonder of the Christmas story. Visions of a distant, unfeeling, tyrannical God subside, and a new vision of an intentional, relatable, humble Jesus begins to inform our perspective of the divine.

Download your own free copy of When God was Little.

Search me O God at Christmastime - day 15 - holiday haiku

Welcome to day 15 of our Holiday Haiku Challenge Today our challenge is to pen a haiku inspired by Psalm 139:23-24

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

(Psalm 139:23-24)

A Heart Like His by Katie M. Reid

Matthew 2:1-4 “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’ When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.”

About a month ago I learned something new about Herod through our Precept bible study on Matthew. “Herod was an Edomite who bore the title, ‘King of the Jews.’ Edomites were descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob” (pg. 11, Precept Ministries International, Matthew Part 1, Lesson 1).

Remember how Esau gave up his birthright to Jacob for some stew? (See Genesis 25:29-34 and Genesis 27). Esau forfeited his future position for a here-today-gone-tomorrow portion. So, since Herod was an Edomite, he did not have the same royal security as King David’s line did—the line of blessing from which Jacob came.

Psalm 89:3-4 “You said, ‘I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant, I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations.’”

The news of the Messiah’s birth was a major threat to Herod’s comfort and crown.

When Herod, the current King of the Jews, heard from the Magi that another had been born King of the Jews, he was disturbed. His insecurity rose and turned to contempt as his high position was threatened.

In Herod’s fury, using his current authority, he killed.

Matthew 2:16 “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.”

I don’t want a heart like Herod’s.

When I compare or feel threatened by others I want to quickly exchange my hardened heart with the knowledge of my royal position— found in Christ. When I let envy rule, I lose footing on the platform that I’ve constructed in the kingdom of self.

My security topples when I try to reign in areas that aren’t rightfully mine. My anger surges as I view others as a threat instead of a treasure.

No, I don't want a heart like Herod's... I want a heart like His.

He is the One that wise men came to worship. The One sent to save us from hard hearts of sin. The One wrapped in swaddling clothes then stripped and whipped on our behalf—that we could unwrap His grace through ripped flesh.

Jesus, Messiah—worthy of honor, glory and power (see Revelation 4:11).

I want to be a wise woman who passes by the here-today-gone-tomorrow portions, and positions herself in worship at the feet of the King of Kings.

With Grace, Katie

Katie M. Reid is a tightly wound woman, of the recovering perfectionist variety, who fumbles to receive and extend grace in everyday moments. She delights in her hubby, four children (and one on the way) and their life in ministry. Through her writing, singing, speaking and photography she encourages others to find grace in the unraveling of life.

Katie is a contributing writer for God-sized Dreams, iBelieve and Purposeful Faith.

Connect with Katie at katiemreid.com and on Twitter and Facebook.

Herod - Day 14 - Holiday Haiku Challenge

 Welcome to Day 14 of our Holiday Haiku Challenge  

Today's guest, Kelli Stuart, is a writer and a storyteller at heart. The author behind the wildly popular blog Minivans Are Hot.com, Kelli has traveled extensively, constantly honing her craft at weaving words into tales as she experiences life and the world. Kelli can now be found at KelliStuart.com where she shares her encouraging message to never give up on your dreams and passions with mothers who often feel lost in their mothering tasks. Kelli currently lives in Tampa, Florida with her perpetually patient husband and their four rambunctious children.

Today's Challenge is to write a haiku inspired by the earthly enemy of Jesus, the protagonist in our Christmas story:

King Herod

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In the Shadow of the Enemy

by Kelli Stuart

I heard a sermon not too long ago about the birth of Christ. It was one of those heady sermons that you wish you could listen to over and over, because the information was so deep and rich that you couldn't wrap your mind around one sentence before the pastor moved on to another.

He drilled down deep into the birth of the Savior. He went beyond the manger and the wise men, and he told us of the irrefutable evidence for Christ's miraculous birth. From the eclipse that likely hung a large, bright star over Bethlehem, to the time and date stamps that were most probable to Jesus' birth, the sermon was one giant revelation from beginning to end.

And then he hit the crux of his story. The climax, the birth, the moment when God entered this world wrapped in the flesh of a baby. Small, vulnerable, the perfect embodiment of God and man. With the star hung high in the sky, scientific evidence offered to prove it's existence, the Pastor fed us one more beautiful morsel:

Jesus' proximity to Herod.

It's quite possible that Emmanuel was born within five miles of Herod's palace. God not only ushered His Son into the world as a baby, but He placed Jesus right there in the presence of His enemy.

The King of all the earth, as small and frail as they come, born in the shadow of the king of the land. Herod trembled at the news, rage, selfishness, and fear all mingling together, dictating his hunger to remain in power.

It's horrifying and beautiful, all at once. How often does God send us to the place that seems most dangerous? How often do we find ourselves in the presence of those hostile toward the faith? How desperately does He long for us to trust Him, to believe Him greater than the proximity of danger?

Yet in the end, we see it. When God tells us to be still and know that He is God, when He commands us not to fear, but to place full trust in Him - He does not do so as One unacquainted with danger. At His most vulnerable, God became man, and He placed Himself within Herod's reach.

It seems silly to boil this depth down to 17 syllables. Is it even possible to capture the beautiful dichotomy of Christ's birth inside a manger in Bethlehem, while Herod hovered nearby, anxious, simmering, willing to keep his throne at all costs?

Gloria in Excelsis Deo,

Kelli Stuart

Adoration - Day 12 - Holiday Haiku Challenge

Welcome to day 12 of our Holiday Haiku Challenge. Today's writing prompt is the word

Adoration

When Susan Shipe, author of hopehearthome.com, shared this haiku with me I knew that today's theme would be a fun one!  "Oh, come let us adore Him..." Don't we all love the lyrics? And yet Adoration, this coming to adore Christ must be more than a Christmas carol, more than a Christmas theme, more than our Christmas song. It is our daily anthem.

Adoration: Inhaling His Word and exhaling His praise.

(Sara Hagerty, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet)

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Adoration

By Susan Shipe

We sing this very old carol as a worship song all year long at our church. To remind us, as Christ-followers, we are to go boldly to Him in faith, with joy and triumph because of His great redemptive work at Calvary.

Let us adore Him, today and every day.

Merry Christmas,

Susan

Susan Shipe loves the Lord with every fiber of her being, and it simply shines both in person and through her written words. Her heart's desire is to "...walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, bearing fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." (Colossians 1:10, NKJV) She records each step of the journey on her blog, hopehearthome.com. Susan is a lovely example of a Titus 2 woman in my own personal life - follow along with her and I know that you too will be blessed.