King's Christmas Letter 2011

{This is the King family newsletter for 2010-11, since we skipped last year. Mom wrote it beautifully, and she writes about little Isaac for those who depend more on yearly letters to catch up with us. She points them to my blog here for the full story. I will link to Isaac's story in the letter, so you don't have to wade through my entire blog to find it. We are so blessed gloriously above all that we could ask or think, and the Lord's mercy and goodness have followed us all year as He has graciously lead us in His footsteps. I hope you too have been drawn ever nearer to our loving Savior this past year. Merry Christmas! - Audrey}

Christmas Blessings from our home to yours!

From prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

“Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent. One waits, hopes, does this, that or the other-- things that are really of no consequence--the door is shut, and can only be opened from the outside.”

On Saturday, our family headed to the mountains to cut a Christmas tree and celebrate Jed’s birthday, but first stopped by the little cemetery to see Isaac’s new gravestone (it took awhile to get because I could not agree on just one scripture-- I wanted to put Genesis through Revelation!). Dusting the snow off of the small, shiny slab, we smiled to see the name and tiny footprints of our little boy along with Rev. 21:4 etched in the granite. We thanked God again for His goodness to us, and this reminder of how much we need Him. This is why He came, and we have much to celebrate. We serve a risen Savior! God is with us! I am reminded of when I was very pregnant with Isaac, and Wyatt (with his limited capacities) seeing my tears, patted my belly and said “No worry baby,” -- he understood. There is no worry or fear that Jesus hasn‘t covered so we might have joy. In the words of Bonhoeffer:

“We call on the name of the One who alone conquered fear, captured it and led it away in a victory parade, nailed it to the cross and banished it to nothingness; the name of the One who is the victory cry of the humanity that is redeemed from the fear of death-- Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified and lives. He alone is the Lord of fear; it knows him as its Lord and yields to him alone.”

Jeff and I just celebrated our 25th anniversary-- he surprised me with a trip to Victoria, BC. We had such a fun, sweet time together. We really shouldn’t wait another 25 years! At least Jed figured out we are married-- when I was due with Isaac, he (then 5) asked me when Jeff and I were going to get married! (Maybe with the 8th on they way, we should think about it? J) Jeff is a wonderful, Godly, tender-hearted husband and daddy, and I remember seeing him with Isaac, and what a picture of Christ it was to me. Jeff and I are so thankful to see our oldest children able to work together on projects, their God-given talents complimenting each other so beautifully, and their passion for truth binding them together. We will also never forget the strength they were to us during our time in the hospital with Isaac, and their strong witness as they joyfully took over in the NICU, bringing the light of Christ in a tough place to be. Nor will we forget grown sons on their knees saying “I love you” and “I’m here, little buddy” over and over to a helpless little baby bearing God’s image...the girls cherishing every moment tho’ their mother-hearts were breaking... tears, but JOY.

Right now, we are busy filling backorders of J.D.’s documentary (after two years of filmmaking, he finally “wrapped” it up in September). Someday he should do a story on making it as it is such a testimony of God’s faithfulness. Since the release, he and Cody have been on the road quite a bit for speaking engagements, radio shows (interviewed by a presidential candidate on one), magazine articles, etc. Visit his website at: www.cryingwolfmovie.com, and read the review by Jim Beers who worked under both the Reagan and Clinton administrations. Please keep J.D. in your prayers; he has taken a bold stand for truth and as the accolades swell, the opposition may as well.

For those of you who may not know about our time with Isaac, God is good, there is much to tell. For now, please do us the honor of visiting Audrey’s blog where she beautifully shares a bit of our journey (many of her thoughts are also mine). www.audreykk.blogspot.com

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift-- the one that can never be taken away-- all that really matters! Each of our lives is but a nano-second in light of eternity, so let’s keep making it count!

In His hands, and with all our love,

Laura for the King family

God was in the Manger

Recently we read these quotes (below) from "God is in the Manger", a compilation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Advent Christmas writings. But thanks be to God! Jesus Christ did not stay in the manger. He has been from the manger to the cross, and has risen victorious to the right hand of the Father, and the knowledge of His Lordship will fill the earth far as the curse is found, and His unshakable Kingdom shall have no end. Christmas is a promise fulfilled, and we can be sure that all His other exceedingly great promises will be faithfully kept as well.

While we live in between the Already and the Not Yet, pain is real. But we find comfort that His pain was real too. In all our trials, He was born to be our Friend. Behold our King in a lowly manger! In His name all things will be set right one day, the path to misery will be closed for good, and tears will be wiped away. In our lives, we will be troubled, but fear not, for He has overcome the world. So we can sing, even in a minor key, "Rejoice."


This letter from an imprisoned Bonhoeffer to his fiancee is achingly beautiful, and something to ponder often during Advent and beyond.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Be brave, my dearest Maria, even if this letter is your only token of my love this Christmas-tide. We shall both experience a few dark hours -- why should we disguise that from each other? We shall ponder the incomprehensibility of our lot and be assailed by the question of why, over and above the darkness already enshrouding humanity. We are being subjected to the bitter anguish of a separation whose purpose we fail to understand. And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives."

-ak

A Christmas Poem

The Word made flesh and blood and bone,
The Lord of all without a home,
The Son of God made Son of Man,
The Creator enters creation's land.
He parts the stars, dons tiny frame–
His glory hid in earthy shame–
Eternal One confined in time,
Sent to fulfill the ancient rhyme:
To crush the Serpent's head, we're told,
To restore anew our Eden old,
To save us from all death and sin,
To save us from what lies within.
The babe, Who is the Great I AM,
The Lion born to die a Lamb,
Good Shepherd laid in manger bed,
(With His own flesh his sheep are fed).
In Bethlehem inside a shed
Is laid the One called Heaven's Bread.
He'll feed the hungry, heal the sick,
And wear the curse of thorny sticks;
The Sinless One becoming sin,
Mocked and bruised by sinful men.
Upon the Skull He'll place His heel,
The pain and wrath of God to feel,
That tiny One from Mary's womb,
Will rise victorious from the tomb.
The world's last hope hangs on a thread,
A single cord that's dyed blood red;
Our only hope is born tonight,
To pierce the dark and raise the light–
The hope of all the ages born,
The dawning glory, history's Morn.
We wake today in simple awe
that Jesus Christ has done it all!
The fragile Child of God above
Has saved us by His mighty love.
By His own flesh and blood and bone,
The Word of God gave us a home.

Merry Christmas!

-a

Christmas Musings with a dash of Chesterton

This Christmas was good, in all senses of the word. We put up a tall tree one week before Christmas (we ran out of time and had to buy it). I got all my shopping done 4 days before Christmas. We went caroling at a nursing home, and were blessed by those dear faces. We drank eggnog and hot cocoa. We lit candles for Advent, Dad read Christmas devotions. Mom read John Piper's The Innkeeper; and it really touched me again this year (I highly recommend it to you). We watched the most classic Christmas movie of all time, and a personal favorite, It's a Wonderful Life. We were blessed to have each of us here under one roof, together. But mostly, this Christmas, like every Christmas, and every day, was good because the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and God saw that it was good.

Since creation and hearts fell in the Garden of Eden so long ago, the world has spun upside-down. When the realization of the curse hit Adam and Eve, God spoke a Promise to the serpent, and to mankind. "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." (Genesis 3:15)

From that time forward, God's people looked for the Promise. Abraham a caught glimpse of it in the stars when God promised that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He saw it again with Issac as they stared at the ram caught in the thicket - God would provide. Moses looked for the Light and caught a glimpse of it in a bush that burned but was not consumed. He took off his sandals because he stood on holy ground. The Israelites wandered, looking for a place to call Home. With hangdog hearts, mankind stood condemned, "but the tide turns now at Bethlehem."*

The earth almost went to Hell. Instead, the greatest paradox of history, Heaven went to earth, and even further below. Christ, the God-man, was born in a dugout. "That is perhaps the mightiest of the mysteries of the cave. It is already apparent that though men are said to have looked for hell under the earth, in this case it is rather heaven that is under the earth."**

The stars parted, and God placed His foot on unholy ground. Finally, a war cry went out into the silent night, and the powers of darkness trembled. It was the cry of an infant. The shepherds came to see Him, the Good Shepherd, lying in a hay manger to become food for His sheep; to be the perfect Lamb, not caught in a thicket, but willingly offered for His people. The wise men sought true Wisdom and found it in a Child. Jesus had no place to lay His head, but He became a Home for us. Jesus had no sin, but He became sin for us, so we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

And that, my friends, is why Christmas is so good. To wrap up, I give you a Christmas poem more eloquent than my ramblings:

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.

Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost---how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wife's tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

- By G.K. Chesterton

*Lyrics from This is War by Dustin Kensrue
**From G.K. Chesterton's book, "Everlasting Man", chapter titled "God in the Cave".

Dear Santa

I'm not sending you a wish list, don't worry. I'm just thinking...

You've been around for a while. Every year, you come back and make an appearance. There are many songs written about you. Movies about you come out each December. I have fond associations of you. But I think that something that was once good has been led astray for a while now.



Once upon a time, in the 300s A.D., you lived in what is now Turkey. You were a real person, and your name was Nicholas. Back then, you knew the meaning of Christmas. You took Jesus' words to heart, spending your whole inheritance to care for the less fortunate. You suffered persecution and imprisonment by the Roman Emperor Diocletian for believing in a Babe lying in a manger. On Dec. 6th, 343, you died.



I'm sure that you wouldn't approve of your metamorphosis into Santa Clause since then. They really have ripped you out your context. Round and jolly, you help sell Coca-cola bottles this time of year. They say you make a list and check it twice to find out who's been naughty or nice. But...you're not omniscient or omnipresent. You're not even around anymore.


But, God is. And He has a naughty and nice list too. But on His list, everyone is naughty with a capital N. Nobody is good, no not one. No one, except One, that is. And thankfully, God gave His best Gift to naughty children like me. And children need to believe that much more than they need to believe you can fly around the world with reindeer, distributing gifts in a single night. Not to mention the absurd physics that would be involved. They need to know Who really knows when they are sleeping, and knows when they're awake.

Now don't get me wrong, I think giving gifts is definitely a good thing. It is legitimate to give and receive during Christmas for the simple reason that the Gift we received 2000 years ago was not just wrapping paper and a meaningless box. There was Something inside that Gift, and it gives meaning to all the ribbons, cookies, lights, stockings, eggnog, and traditions...even you, St. Nick, if you don't try to replace it. The birth of our Lord has made all the difference in the world. And that is worth celebrating!

"You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
- Matthew 1:20-21

Merry Christmas!