Christmas Eve 2019, Donation Report, Doors

Can you believe I have been here in Saipan for six months already? Not continuously. I spent several weeks in Iowa packing for the move this fall. Still, I did arrive here June 13th, and today, December 24th, I am sitting on the church porch just like I did this summer, watching the dogs, listening to the birds, cars, airplanes, and wind in the trees marveling at the beauty of God's nature. Or is it the nature of God's beauty?  

My daughter sent me a picture of her Christmas tree. I had an idea of using it to send you all Christmas cards, which didn't happen. I wanted to thank you for your ministry partnership last month and tell you that your gifts directly touched the lives of 20 children and 6 adults, some as compassion ministry (food and such) and some as friendship ministry eating with new friends. Words cannot express my sense of awe that people would want to help me like this. You and I were able to contribute to a Christmas present event here at the church, where every child received a toy and some food. Thank you, dear friends. Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve today. I usually read Washington Irving's Christmas essays, published in 1876, on Christmas Eve but today was full of other thoughts so I didn't get to it. Christmas will be just as good a day to read it, maybe even better. You can find his essay here if you want to take a Christmas step into the past tomorrow too. Some people consider Washington Irving to be the father of what came to be our Christmas tradition in the USA. But that's not what I want to talk to you about this Christmas Eve.

I want to talk to you about doors. I have two doors on my apartment, a front door and a balcony door. The wind blows in one door and out the other ( I am on the second floor), and the views from each door are opposite views. The front door opens toward the mountain, on top of which are the letters P.E.A.C.E which lights up at night and can be seen from almost anyplace on this side of the island. The balcony doors open up toward the ocean, which you can see if you click the picture big and look just to the left of the high rise hotel on the right. Did you know that the ocean's horizon is always at eye level no matter how far above sea level you might be?

Front Door
Balcony
My door -ponderings came from my meditation on Psalm 84, which started just after daybreak. Been thinking about it since then...all day. Drew a picture and thought about it. Ate lunch and thought about it. I am still thinking about it as the sun is going down.

Psalm 84 talks about longings and yearnings. Although the language is the language of a man who knows what it is to wish deeply for a sense of belongingness, I think we can read between the lines and see the emotion Jesus felt when he left his grand estate as Creator God to become the baby in the manger. Jesus was fully God yet fully human, both at the same time, a unique being with a unique purpose. He came to die, and in rising from the dead restored the damaged image of God in every fallen human being who comes to him for healing. We hear, in this psalm, his yearning for home. Sparrows find a home, swallows find a nest, but the son of man had nowhere to lay his head.

Jesus had to find his strength in God his Father. He obeyed his Father in all things. He walked through the valley of Baca here on earth. The valley of Baca is a place of sorrow, a place of weeping. Have you been there? Are you there now? You love God with all your heart, you are following him, obeying him with all your strength, yet tears stain your pillow, and you wonder, "How long, Lord, how long?"

There is hope in the valley. In passing through the valley of Baca, Jesus made it a pool of refreshment, a well of strong water, that, if we drink, we, like Jesus, will go from strength to strength. God hears our prayer, even from within the valley of sorrow. If we allow it, God will turn our sorrow into pools of refreshment for others, blessing we could not imagine when we entered the valley of Baca, blessing that can't be seen in our real-time walk  but only in hindsight. The secret is to stay the course like Jesus did. He walked through the front door of death, and out the back door of resurrection. He walked the path ahead of us, and bids us follow him now. The man of sorrows is well acquainted with every sorrowing emotion you are feeling his Christmas season. The valley of Baca did not defeat Jesus. It cannot defeat us, unless we refuse to keep walking.

Which brings me to the verse I pondered all day today. "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness" (vs. 10).  This implies a choice. Two doors. One door leads to life, the other to death. Which door will we choose in our sorrow? It's a difficult thing to allow God to use sorrow to plow holes of refreshment, especially when our sorrow keeps shouting that we just want to be happy again. We just want the pain to go away.

This is why we need each other. We need to spur one another on toward love and good deeds. We need to link arms, minds, and hearts, to keep each other from believing the lie that some measure of our former happiness would return if we would just walk a little way through wicked's door. Just crack the door open a little. Don't do it! It's a trap. That's a mean-spirited door, full of bitterness, revenge, and anger. No refreshment there.

Instead, allow the door of sorrow to take you into God's presence. Sorrow thins the veil between heaven and earth. Sorrow creates pools of refreshment for all who are willing to be touched by God. The water of comfort spills onto others from those pools. The Spirit speaks life out of the depths of those pools. But this is only true if we allow God to work in us, to obey God, and continue to follow Jesus as we walk together through doors of his choosing. That's what I want for the rest of my life, to walk through Jesus-doors, even if it means that sometimes a valley of Baca hides on the other side. I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than anything else. I want my life to refresh others for Jesus' sake. You too? Lord, make it so in 2020.

Much love,
Amy

My address is:
Amy Trosen
Box 10002 PMB 1041
Saipan, MO 96950

I have a PayPal.Me account  here.
May God richly bless you for helping me do what God has called me to do here in Saipan. Be advised your gift is a personal gift and not tax deductible nor are you receiving from me any goods or services. 

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