Today, when we talk about someone who is famous or in the center of public attention, we may say that person is “in the limelight.” But where does this phrase come from? And how can we more deeply understand our fascination with it in our current culture?

According to an article by Elizabeth Nix posted on history.com, in the mid-1820’s, Europeans discovered how to use a substance called calcium oxide or quicklime to create an intense flame-light that could be used for multiple purposes. However, it was not until 1837 that this method of lighting was used to illuminate the players on a theater stage. The actors who were in the limelight were the ones more clearly seen than any extras on the rest of the stage. (That was great for said actors but not so great for the light keepers since quicklime was dangerous to work with. They were extra glad when electric lights became the norm…)

Though we don’t use quicklime when running a theatrical show now, the phrase has stuck with us, with a basic meaning that has not changed in all this time.

We still crave the limelight. Some of us want to be the center of attention all the time. (Others just need to know daily or occasionally that we are noticed in this great big world. And we look to the world for that validation. )

But I posit that what we rightly need is to let the King of the Universe stay in the limelight — the light of glory that belongs to Him — and to be content to live side by side as unique and cherished extras on His stage, basking in the glow of His providence and goodness without trying to crowd His space and hog the adoration of which we are not worthy. Then, we will find confidence and contentment in His quiet, radiating love, and any magnificent moments spent rightly in the brighter rays with Him will bring us more lasting happiness because we know those moments were far more about Him than about us.

That’s the kind of relationship I want to have with such light. And with my Jesus.

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It’s a new year with a new theme. Every week of 2021 (usually on Sunday), I plan to post reflections about a single word or phrase. I hope the coming posts might bless you in some way!

According to my Merriam-Webster dictionary app, the word NEW has several different meanings and usages. And it was first used in Old English before the 12th century, with common roots that sprang out of other linguistic bits tied to “young, youthful, fresh, and tender.” I think about the past year and the new year ahead, so that each meaning leaves a different flavor in my mouth… Here are a few of them, briefly illustrated.

“Having recently come into existence.” (Bland.) The year, never lived before, has just been born on the timeline. Therefore, there are moments when I hold my breath, suspended between worry over what sorrows may lie ahead and hope of all the wonderful that might wait on this present horizon.

“Having been used or known for a short time.” (Sweet.) While I enjoy recent holiday gifts just being initially used, I cherish the enjoyment of newer, cleaner, better-working items. And I smile at the tangible reminders of how much others care about me.

“Being other than the former or old.” (Sour.) Starting a new teaching experience at work this week has tempted me to pull my hair out. But even as I sit on my hands with puckered lips, I remind myself that the more unpleasant things we have to eat can often be good for us/others somehow in the end. Likewise, many have claimed 2021 will have to be better than 2020. But, in truth, we have no way to guarantee it will be so. We only have the promise that we can choose what attitude we will maintain in the face of our own daily growth opportunities.

“Having been in a relationship or condition but a short time.” (Salty.) Only six weeks into the marriage world at the dawn of 2021, I am still very new at this “wifey-poo” role. While it is usually a nice adventure, there are moments where the adjustment process leaves me feeling thirsty for better communication skills and deeper insight into my husband’s heart. Good thing we both have a Well of Grace to drink from as we continue to adapt to life together in the year ahead. ❤

“Beginning as the resumption or repetition of a previous act or thing.” (Savory.) Every year is a new year for us, but it is not new for God in the surprising sense. He knows what will happen. And His faithfulness will appear new and fresh, day by day, in the weeks ahead, just like it has in every past year, since time began. That’s a beautiful taste I hope my mouth never forgets — and never stops craving.

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The final verse of Only a Holy God says, “Who else could rescue me from my failing? Who else would offer His only Son? Who else invites me to call Him ‘Father’? Only a holy God…only my holy God!”

Rounding out the month on generosity and a year about various virtues, I want to provide a short profile of a dear friend.

Her name is Nyla McKinzie, and she moved from her native Hawaii to settle in rural Illinois, to work faithfully beside her dear farmer-husband Jim and raise three beautiful children. Being Hawaiian in an otherwise generally all-white and rather remote area was not the only thing that made Nyla initally different from her neighbors, however. The thing that made her most wonderfully unique was her generous heart.

When I was growing up, I remember experiencing time with Nyla as a respectable, honest, kind, and warm lady. But when I got older and returned to her home and community for occasional visits, I understood her and appreciated her in a different, deeper way.

Nyla — who I have now called Tutu (Hawaiian for grandmother) for some time — finds tremendous delight in giving to others as she feels God lead her to do so. Her time, energy, resources, and ideas have blessed so many, both in when she gives (at such opportune times) and how she gives (with such joy).

The truest generosity is born out of a listening heart.

Tutu loves to study and meditate on the names of God. His names in the original scripture languages and their meanings as we grasp them in our own tongue. And those meditations have refined a beautiful soul in her over years and years of dwelling.

The most beautiful generosity is born out of a thirsty heart.

Tutu has the forgiveness of God through Jesus so deeply stamped on her core being that she must tell others (in her natural, endearing way) about how His grace and His invitation changed her forever. And she knows that there are some very “good-hearted people” in the world…but without the goodness of God’s heart transforming each person’s heart with a familial relationship, that person will never be good.

The sweetest generosity is born out of an adopted heart.

Thank you, Tutu, for encouraging me to love like this. I know I can follow your example because you follow the example of Jesus.

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Verse three of Only a Holy God says, “What other glory consumes like fire, what other power can raise the dead, what other name remains undefeated? Only a holy God.”

Charles Wesley is best known from history as being a key founder in what we now call the methodist movement or Methodist Church. But for those who have loved singing hymns, he is better known and loved as a writer of such classic church songs.

I was blown away, however, when I learned that he wrote about 6,500 during his long and faithful life. 6,500! A bit of basic math tells me that of he wrote one hymn a day, every consecutive day, that would have equalled nearly 18 solid years of writing. (I have no evidence that all of his hymns were written in such a fashion; I just say that for sake of perspective.)

The line highlighted in this post’s word art comes from my favorite of his hymns (of the handful I know well!). In this line, I see a prayer and a plea as well as a promise.

As an artist and a writer, I know that my creativity and my worship through designing are both greatly enhanced when my heart’s slate has been wiped clean of sin and fear for a time. For sin chokes the Spirit’s influence on my ideas, and fear holds me back from wanting to share my inspiration with the world for God’s glory. After all, if His name and power are so great, why should sin still bind me, and why should fear threaten my heart?

When I think of Charles Wesley, then, I think of another key aspect of true generosity. In order for us to live with the fullest measure of generosity each of us can display, we must crave the promise of freedom from sin and fear — and claim the promise daily as we walk on in faith. The result, when we embrace such an outlook, can be mind-boggling, for we never know what an impact our redeemed living might have on our present community or what a legacy our unfettered attitudes might have on future generations.

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Continuing this month’s theme, we draw further from the song Only a Holy God. Verse 2 says, “What other beauty demands such praises? What other splendor outshines the sun? What other majesty rules with justice? Only a holy God.”

Today, I pause to reflect upon the ancestor of all humankind, the man we know as Adam.

Like no other human ever quite has, Adam experienced the beauty and splendor of God before anything else and more clearly than others who have walked the earth after him. And then, after he was also first to feel the sting when facing God’s righteous personal punishment, he witnessed a sacrifice for his sin: the loss of an animal life so that he and his wife could have clothing to cover their shame and protect them from the coming harm of the environment outside of Eden.

Adam knew perfection and stunning beauty. And he knew miserable guilt and anguish.

Some would focus only on the legacy of fallen propensity he gave us in the latter. But today I also celebrate the hope he models for us in the former.

Adam didn’t lay down and immediately give up and die. Subtly, we can see how he clung to the hope of the promised One that would come. He lived out his centuries of life, working the land as God entrusted he should do, loving his wife — the helpmate God knew he would need, and helping to multiple the human population. And through the line of his descendants, that promised One came.

In Adam’s perseverance, we see a kind of generosity born out of regret and reflection. It is the generosity that says, “I am going to live my life doing the best I can because I have seen absolute goodness and I have been shown humbling mercy.”

And in his life, we see how the father of all reflects the Father of all who wants to show us the most true definition of generosity we will ever need to read.

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This month’s four posts will briefly profile subjects as inspired by the words of a song. Not a traditional holiday song, but a modern hymn written by the team at CityAlight and Dustin Smith. Each week, I will focus on a verse, a person, and an elemental truth that defines the virtue of generosity.

Verse 1: “Who else commands all the hosts of heaven? Who else could make every king bow down? Who else can whisper and darkness trembles? Only a holy God.”

This week will be a bit different in that my profiled person is not a human but an angel. Gabriel is his name, and being an ageless yet created being, he has witnessed the whole span of known time, from before existence of our space, to creation of light and all that was perfect, to the Fall and the fall, to the lines of our history and his obediently announcing the coming baby king who would set all things right again. He saw that baby grow to live and die and crush the eternal hold of death. And he exists today, obedient still and anticipating with all creation a day when complete newness will obliterate brokenness.

He has dwelt in the presence of God most holy and stood watch over the few-pound form of God most fragile. He has witnessed the beauty of Eden and wept in the shadows of Calvary. And he, through it all, has modeled generosity.

For to be generous is to hold nothing back. And that includes, fundamentally, our very being. It is to be who we were made to be and live out of that core being for the glory of God. In obedience and in truth, even when that means facing what is not easy or pleasant. Because to ignore this inherent need to walk with an open heart and life before our Creator is to starve the life essence of any created being.

Is this a new thought? Certainly not. Yet, neither is it an easy one to live out in a death-courting world, nor a natural one to embrace when hiding and retreating seem so much more comfortable for we who cannot throw off the weight of our own shame.

But there, in the song lyrics, we see the reminder that God’s voice and presence make darkness tremble. So, may we, like the faithful herald He sent, take a chance, be bathed in the light of holiness, and dare to generously show ourselves to the world, that the world might know Him.

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Ending this month’s gratitude focus after a sweet Thanksgiving celebration that followed an even sweeter wedding celebration, I want to briefly step back further in time to focus on one ancient couple, to profile two people who were overwhelmingly delighted in and grateful for each other.

We find much of what we know about their relationship in the biblical text called Song of Songs or Song of Solomon. And while many Bible readers have tried to write off the contents of the book as more spiritual than physical, as an allegory about Christ and the church, I wholeheartedly embrace it today as a exquisitely woven reflection of gratitude for the gifts of sexual expression, trust, and physical design as rightly celebrated and embraced only within marriage between one man and one woman.

What does such gratitude for one we love look like, according to the mindset of these two people?

For the husband, called Lover in this epic poem, it means he is thankful for and attracted to his bride among all other women (2:2). He is also overwhelmed with the beauty of who she is all on her own (4:7, 9-10, 12), and grateful that she is content right in the place where she knows she belongs: at his side (7:10).

The wife, simply called Beloved, is also equally grateful for the loving husband to whom she has been joined. She is thankful for what he does (2:4), who he is (5:16), and how he can dwell contentedly in her arms (8:10).

While the Lover highlighted in this poem and blog was, sadly, not married to only one woman exclusively due to both political conventions and cultural norms, the rejoicing and pure revelry we see highlighted in that small book points to a kind of love and an accompanied attitude of thanksgiving that each married person is invited to embrace and nurture. It is one that will even make those observing say, “We rejoice and delight in you, we praise your love…!” (1:4). And it will reap a harvest of beautiful, faithful years together.

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Last week, we looked at one grateful group from the New Testament era. Today, the day of my own wedding, we will look at another.

A dear friend named Kathy gave me a card recently in which she wrote, “May God keep you and Paul, and bless your union as Jesus once blessed the wedding at Cana.” I smiled because of her good words, but I also smiled because I had already planned to profile the Cana wedding guests as the focal point of this next post.

In the story of the Cana wedding, where Jesus performed his first recorded miracle, some characters tend to get criticized. Mary might be called a meddling mother. Jesus himself could be called reluctant to publicly start His ministry. And the wedding guests? Well, I have often figured they were already so joyous from wine imbibing and celebration that their comments sent back to the bridegroom after tasting Jesus’ miraculous supply were just off-handed silly talk from drunk people.

But I think I see them differently now. I consider that maybe they were genuinely happy and even grateful to have really good wine to enjoy as the party rolled on. They just didn’t know exactly who they were to be grateful to. The credit that belonged the Heart of Heaven went to the wedding host instead.

That is the thing about gratitude. It can sometimes be misapplied or misaimed. But that does not make it any less sincere. However, how sweet it is when gratitude is not only sincerely felt but also rightly attributed.

Then, how Jesus must smile.

My Paul has often asked me in the weeks leading up to this day how he has been so fortunate to find a lady like me who would want to love him and share my future with him. And I often smile and just remind him that we are both equally blessed and a gift of God to each other.

As I stand up to marry my love and he marries me, we will be grateful. Certainly, we will appreciate each other for so many reasons. But we will not only be thankful to each other. More importantly, we will be grateful to Jesus for each other. Because He is the one who brought us together and He is the one we will live for, together.

Paul, ultimately, does not deserve my primary gratitude. Just as I do not ultimately deserve his.

We both must always first be grateful to the Maker of the richest wine.

And, when we are, He will smile.

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Photo: Rachel Anna Dohms

A new month of posts about what has so often become a seasonal virtue or a circumstantial virtue rather than a constant virtue peeks for a moment at a group of people rather than an individual.

Who were they?

An eclectic collection of followers from many backgrounds, all banded together with their newfound love of the world’s greatest teacher. Yet in their enthusiasm to join that family and share life together, they sometimes had to be made aware of their personal weaknesses and stumbling blocks, of which they so desperately needed to let go for their own good and for the good of the group. They were infants in faith and they were trying to grow quickly in the midst of a confused culture.

They were the early believers at Corinth.

What can we learn from them about gratitude?

We so often wish we could avoid suffering, correction, admonishing, and struggles in this life. But those who have experienced more of such things and not been crushed by them, those who have kept faith and grown to love more deeply and not taken anything or anyone for granted because of them: these are the people who show us by their maturing lives how thankful they are for the multiple chances they have been given to start again.

Thought of another way, a person’s life is like a clay cup. And the things we go through can stretch that cup as it is formed, to make our cup wider and deeper. And if we will learn and grow and see the blessing in each struggle, our heart will have so much more room to hold a greater volume of love and thankfulness.

Let us choose today to empty out any bitterness so that our cup can be filled to the brim with gratitude.

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Rounding out a month of posts on purity: a glance at what it means to be pure mentally.

Who comes to mind if you think of the phrases Biblical woman and mental purity? Mary, perhaps? Or Lois? Yes, certainly.

But today I want to shine a quiet light on the woman from Luke 7. She was not respectable enough to be known by any other name than “woman who had lived a sinful life” among her neighbors in that community. But she was worth so much to Jesus that He would both love and forgive her — and that He would have her story recorded for a millinea-long display.

We don’t know her exact sin(s), but we can guess what they likely included. And yet, no matter what she had done or what had been done to her, she certainly ached, as shown in her sacrificial display, to scour her mind, heart, body, and soul of what she had done, of what had been done to her.

Here, in her story, we seen a beautiful domino effect of truth. Perhaps mental purity is the most miraculous purity of all. And it is the one that must be sought and granted every day of our lives in a fallen world. Because the person who craves it cannot undo what they have done or unsee what they have seen or unknow what they have known. But the bitter tears that have flown down can be collected to baptize that mind, and the redeeming gifts and blessings that come after can slowly but surely staunch the craving to renew that mind to what it was meant to be.

And now, a final short poem in the series:

~ Purity 4: Woman (That is Me) ~

Does the salt in my tears

Sting the scratches on Your toes

The way it burns up from my soul? I need

These tears to say what my mouth cannot:

A prayer that You would choke

Memories of horror and missteps I took,

That You would uproot those weeds

And let a grove of olive trees —

Peace-filled branches —

Sprout up in their place. Pour back

On me sweetness and kisses so that

I will again dance: renamed, renewed.

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