I call my Mama on a Thursday afternoon, just right before Advent, and we swap tender stories, like we are actually made of stories, like we need stories to be… to breathe.

My phone says we trace the contours of our stories for 47 minutes, but I don’t know how long I stand afterward, over a disheveled pile of papers at my desk, and just let a couple year’s grief soundlessly unload.

Maybe it’s because we’re all in a bit of a Story Skirmish, over which story we tell ourselves in our hearts— about us and life —- and which stories will win in our minds.

“We’re all in a bit of a Story Skirmish, over which story we tell ourselves in our minds— about us and life —- and which stories will win in our hearts.“

And it’s brutally hard living through a Story Skirmish — over which story will be our truest story, when, for all kinds of reasons, we’re wild to change parts of the story we’re in.

For the first time in my life, my Mama now lives hours and hours and a mocking stretch of road away from us all here.

When our phone call’s stretches to the part where we say goodbye, the raw edge of her heart whispers, “I’m just so missing you all, Ann,” she wipes her cheek with the back of her hand,” — just so terribly homesick for you all, that’s all.”

And we haven’t even talked about the unspeakable losses, the chairs that are achingly, permanently, empty at the table this holiday.

There’s no filling them.

And there’s no going back, and how do you keep moving forward in a story when you so desperately want to change parts of the story, when parts of you want to go back to another time where you and all your hope came from?

I pull on boots and wind a trail of questions, through the snow, to the hushed quiet of the woods and sit with a fire, like there’s a way to burn through everything and follow a pillar of fire forward.

A friend texts that her son has cut their family off, severed all family ties. The silence’s scorching her.

It’s the holidays.

It’s almost Advent.

And all our families move tender, and the ache is real, and what’s the realest story we’re telling ourselves, about ourselves and our world, and where have we come from, and where our family’s actually going to?

It’s almost the night before Advent, and if we miss the story that comes before His coming, we miss the point of the story.

It’s almost the night before Advent,

and if we miss the story that comes before His coming,

we miss the point of the story.

Advent begins with the story that comes before His coming — the story of family and broken hearts and busted dreams and estranged relationships.

Advent begins with a genealogy.

That’s what goes on sale always about this time of year: all the genealogy tests.

And it’s also true this time of year: The genealogy at the beginning of the Gospels is a kind of good news genealogy test for all of humanity.

Diety came bodily.

The Maker of human beings has come as a human being.

And it strikes me hard every Advent:

The first heretics where the ones that said Jesus wasn’t one of us.

In all kinds of ways, we’ve all been a bunch of deniers — either denying that Jesus is divine… or denying that He had any human DNA in His holy veins.

The tendency is to deny either Jesus’ actual humanity,

or Jesus’ authentic divinity,

so as a to try to deny that Jesus has any genuine claim over our identity.

The tendency is to deny either Jesus’ actual humanity, or Jesus’ authentic divinity, so as a to try to deny that Jesus has any genuine claim over our identity.

But Advent begins by climbing the family tree of God so we can grip it, hold on to it:

The Maker of every one of us — has become one of us. Really: Jesus is one of us. God, in the flesh, is here, and He is our flesh and blood — and gave all of Himself, to rescue us from all the ache of ourselves.

No matter our story, or our hurting family?

The legacy we can leave for all the generations ahead of us, is the story of all the generations behind us, the generations like us, that fell behind, that fell apart, that fell from grace — still fell into Arms that call them, “Beloved.”

History repeats itself, unless we repeat the story of our history to ourselves.

Our Lineage leads to a Lamb who is Light in the dark and Love in the hard.

Unless we tell the story that we come from a bunch of jacked up down and outers, a bunch who were jealous and self-zealous and closeted-rebellious, that we come from good-looking people who weren’t really that good or faithful —- then we will never know that God never stops being faithful to exactly those kind of people.

Our legacy can be telling all our people:

Our Lineage leads to a Lamb who is Light in the dark and Love in the hard.

If our people don’t know where we’re from, they won’t know where they’re going, and they’ll go in the wrong direction that can never make anything right.

“You are made of stories, and all of your life, you are living through a Story Skirmish. You are made by the Word and you are made of more than cells and what story gets to tell your cells how to be?“

The reality is:

You are made of stories, and all of your life, you are living through a Story Skirmish.

You are made by the Word and you are made of more than cells and what story gets to tell your cells how to be?

The story that severs?

The story that cuts you off from all hope of change, that slices you off from being wanted and seen and always beloved?

The story that lies, that says there isn’t enough love in the surging heart of God to suture your wounds, that your heart’s too busted and bruised to be bound back together by the scarred hands that hung the stars and hung on a cross because your name was engraved in His hands and his heart is hung up on yours?

The story that hisses that your life, your story, your sin, your choices, your trauma, all your scars you never asked for, somehow slice you off from a new hope, a new heart, a new healing rising, to make you whole?

Or is there a more consoling, more comforting story that is infinitely deeper and truer?

It could happen:

The story that wins in our hearts and minds, can be the one that has already won, the winning one, the one tells your cells that you are always soul safe, that you aren’t being abandoned but are always being made new, that you are wholly seen and wholly surrounded by a love story for all eternity.

“The Word writes belovedness into you bones, and certain eternal safety into your spine, and is rewriting and rewiring all the curling neurons in your mind to wind around the tenderness of His touch, surrendering to the caressing ways of His hands.“

The Word writes belovedness into you bones, and certain eternal safety into your spine, and is rewriting and rewiring all the curling neurons in your mind to wind around the tenderness of His touch, surrendering to the caressing ways of His hands.

And that is what all our kids, all our people, all our families desperately need to know right now, this Advent, that this is the story that’s coming for them.

There is one true story that tells your cells where you’re really from, and you get to Stay in that Story, unwrap that story, the love story that’s been coming for you since the very beginning —- one each of need to know in the marrow of our bones, to heal the cracks of our broken hearts:

You are from out of this world and you are birthed from the love dance of the Trinity, and you are from the breath that breathes whole galaxies and from the imagination that strings up the stars.

You are from I AM and manna and miracles and bread and wine made into more, and you are reborn at the tree of Calvary and renamed because your name has always been on His lips and etched right into His skin.

You are from holy ground and Mount Zion and hope that rolls back stones to always keep rising and you are from Holy Spirit and Son of Man and Abba Father and and you are from Love, and you, and Love, both, are never going to end.

Your realest story is that you’re from relentless resurrections and split seas and walking on waves and littlest loaves and fishes always multiplied and the smallest mustard seeds of faith made into impossible mountain movers.

You’re from the smile of God and His infinite delight in you that moves Him to crooning love songs over your soul.

You are from glory, through glory, to glory, so all is gloriously well, you living a glory story from this moment right into forever and always, without end.

Every living human being is living a Story Skirmish in their cells, a war of words that determines the way that will be —- and which word will win and have its way in our veins?

Only when the Word has the final word in the very real story skirmishes within your cells, your cerebrum, your souls, do you finally really win.

And the way the Word has the final word in your interior word wars, about you and your heartbreak and broken dreams and all kinds of grief — is to Stay in the Story, the story that consoles, comforts, that whispers God is one of us, that He gets our family tree, He gets our heartbreak and went to the Tree of Calvary, the Lamb of God who brings light to our darkest worlds.

This is the Story that wins.

Stay in the Story that wins in the end — because this is how to be winning now.

The way through trials is not to put God on trial, but to lean on God, talk to Him, stay in Him, through yours.

And in the dark of the woods, I sit under snow blanketed trees, in this season of trees, and there’s a family tree we all need to hold on to, the genealogy of God, that is the Story of Hope that we could give to each other:

All of us out on a limb are grafted in.

And I read it, there in the poem I read to the kids every year on the The Night Before Advent:

And I’m warmed right through.

All of us lonely and far from home, all of us feeling burned and cut off, we are enfolded in His love, and belong in His fold, right there with the wee flock of sheep, who were the first to welcome His first Advent coming.

The legacy we can give each other this Christmas is the Light of the Lamb.

Because this is the Story that wins wars, the one story that wins back all the dark and ignites our hearts.

Sitting there in the snow with the lambs, the dark of the woods look all lit.

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On the Eve of Advent, we all get to share a better Story —
the story that wins all our wars

And for your “Night Before Advent” Party?!
the whole Christmas Love Story, from Creation to the Creche,
3 Advent Books For the Whole Family:

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