New Gifts...to ANYONE...in this New Year...Love to you from the Tuckers!!

Hello, beloved friends on this last day of 2011!!

I have so appreciated our visits together through this blog. :)

This post is a gift to you today from our family. We are at a wonderful conference this weekend in Kansas City that is given by The International House of Prayer Ministry. It has been an incredible time of refreshing and intimacy with God as a family.

The talk below started off our time here with an explosion in our hearts!! I hope it blesses you in the same way!!

Blessings to you!!

The video takes a couple minutes to load fully at the beginning...maybe skip the minutes ahead?...the worship on it is powerful and so is the first talk...but the one we are highlighting to you today is at hour 2 and 5 minutes time...push the timer ahead to hear of how you are a "power and lights district in Christ!!"...do you believe it?...maybe you are starting to?...Do you want this in your new year?..."if ANYONE is in Christ...he IS a New Creation"...

Love to you from Gillian and the Tucker family. Happy New Year...He makes ALL things new!!!

Gifts in Sticky Packages..

Its just like Jesus to give US gifts in HIS season...

...little voices belt out, cracking cause they are singing with greatest volume," OH COME LET US ADORE HIM" in the back seat as we pull into the grocery parking lot... feet dance and skip across asphalt and shivering arms pull me until we are ALL skipping into the warmth of the store...and we finish our our race with another-- racing pennies into the donation bucket down ramps and around slides...2 pennies buy such delight!!

..earlier,we watched with wonder and enjoyment, clumsy little fingers wrapping up homemade gifts for teachers, wrestling with Loooong strands of tape and then unsticking the tangle, leaving powdery fingerprints--their identity adhered in tapey lines all over crumpled packages placed so preciously into backpacks...

NOW they are saying, "Mom, i LOVE to spend this time with you!!".... and "we will HELP you" in our grocery journey to Aldi where two little boys in their vigor throw a weeks worth of produce onto the conveyer belt faster than an "I Love Lucy" episode...one's bobbed blonde hair swinging over his eyes as he grabs and throws and helps with such exuberance that instead of correction i have to just fold my arms,step back to behold him now lifting that Biiiiggggg bag of potatoes over his head and just laugh with joy...

...then for the bagging--oh what an adventure each moment is if we see them as gifts!!..."watch OUT for the SOFT things,guys...HOW about putting the butter on the BOTTOM and then the vine tomatoes?" ...oh,well....it all flies by in cuteness and earnestness and their brand of wholehearted service...love...who can resist this God of love?... who paints my life with children's adoration to Jesus in the candle lights of advent...or who makes little boys run past me this morning in matching red jackets... eager to bring their gifts to school...

...did you run to be the gift in the manger, Jesus?...what gifts did you make for Mary and Joseph in the Carpenter's shop?...how did you gather up pieces of your Creation that you had previously fashioned to now construct into creations of your heart for the ones you loved...yet this time with the hindrance of little boy dexterity ...how did it feel to be a little Jewish boy?...how did you, the Darling of Heaven make YOUR FATHER and the angels smile and laugh?...

...I SEE your JOY and LIGHT..your Father's pleased smile... in the radiance of these ones who love you...who are WRAPPED in YOUR love and YOUR identity...your fingerprints are all over us...we are wrapped in you...

Love, GG


Praying to remember this:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. (From Philippians 2)

Stables,Garages...its all the same to Him :)

Tonight we were in the garage.  We had just brought down our Christmas boxes from the attic and now we were sorting through them. Different children floated in and out of the task when it seemed to become "work" instead of "fun". :)...our "tween", Anderson came in half-way through and started pulling out stockings and stocking holders.  He took over displaying all of our stockings with great pride and he was a cheery buddy to work with.  After a bit, Anderson saw this tiny little stocking and stopped short..

"..AWwww a BABY stocking." He said stroking it..

."Yes, its cute isn't it",

 I was registering that he REALLY loved the stocking as I continued to hunt around in various boxes, organizing my strategy for what and how it was to come into the house...at the end of a longish day Mama was pretty tired in the midst of a task that so requires mandetory cheer!

Standing behind me, still very focused on this stocking, He seemed to be growing quite attached to this bit of Christmas decoration that did not even have enough material to be worthy of the name "stocking". Yet,He went on, "Mom, I really wish she could have it"

 I continued ruffling around in a box of decorative bows fishing out our collection of cookie cutters that must have fallen in there at the end of last season.  His task had halted. And, he gazed at this little stocking.

 "Yes, it would have been so right for her...she would have loved it."

His words came cloudy to my mind.  Her?  Was he talking about his teacher at school?  Was he missing our foster daughter?   I finally was confused enough to ask," Anderson who is 'she?' are you missing..." , and I mentioned our foster girl, M.

 His eyes grew big and tender and as he picked up the little stocking , he pulled me around to face him. "I mean HER. The one God made in you...You KNOW Mom.  The one of us who is in heaven with our other little brother, Joshua.  I wish she was here to put on this little stocking."  He got really quiet as he looked down at it. " Wouldn't it have fit her JUST right?" He smiled sadly. "But I am glad she's spending Christmas with Jesus...."  He hugged me TIGHT...he stroked the little stocking..."I do miss her though..." he whispered.

 This little stocking has now become exceedingly precious to me as I remember the tiny one it belongs to now...Back in August a little baby girl who was being knit together in my womb...was called home to Heaven...to live with the Christmas Lamb.  She is our second child to now reside there ~ to have access to Jesus' LAP!!  To hear angels sing...to KNOW love in a way that we only would have begun to taste here.  The holidays blow my heart and mind to know that I literally have little ones rejoicing in the Presence that we are worshiping and celebrating ~ and then to realize OUR access of Jesus is just as real and as Present Here.  That WE ARE sitting in His lap too.  That His angels move at the sound of our worship and intercessions...That our family here and there share the same joys and wonders for "IN His Presence IS Fullness of Joy" ~ forevermore... {Psalm 16:11}

And, my heart fills with wonder over sweet Anderson tonight.  A boy who also sits with simple trust and love in the lap of his Jesus.  The one who worships with abandon and loves with affection.  "Christ IN" him "the hope of glory"... The compassion of Christ in a child...the discernment in a believing child's Spirit of the season in which they live astounds my heart...messages like this one.. through these little ones...

Much like the packaging of a most wonderful message wrapped up in swaddling clothes!...

I was completely unaware that I was in need of a kiss from my Heavenly Father tonight.  That after seeing the quiet but painful grief of this past semester He would take THIS little moment, IN MY GARAGE to love on me.  Through my tweenager! ;)  Yet He's like that!  Yes, this is the God who likes using stables and water-logged fishing boats and wilderness hikes to show His glory!!

 I love that God-who-sees is always taking heed to and care over the tending of my heart's pulse even when I am unaware, as I was tonight, that I would need ministering in THIS moment....Glory and care in a garage! :)  Let us worship Him for He is GOOD to us.

Love and Blessings,

Gillian

P.S. Much of this was originally sent in a message to my precious friend, Michelle, who is another gift from God in my heart's journey.  All the time but particularly as I have walked through this specific sorrow.  My heart would not be as healed today if God had not graced me with this friend who has loved me so well. He keeps sending such sweet gifts!!