2017: A Retrospective

2017.  What to say?  This year has me at a loss for words, and that's not something that I usually struggle with.  This is the first year, in our nearly 20 years of marriage, that I did not put out a Christmas letter.  I just didn't know how to even begin to describe this year, and felt overwhelmed at the thought of trying.  2017 was hard for us, and it was hard for A LOT of people we know and love.   There has been much too much loss in 2017 for far too many people.  It's hit me particularly acutely this year - each unexpected death or tragedy has just cut to the core, because of what our family has gone through.  SO MANY HURTING PEOPLE in 2017!!  Coworkers and friends, and patients and family.  And our nation, the world as a whole.  So yes.  2017 has been hard.  Yet still overwhelmingly good for us Ahos, in that we have each other, we have security, we have our jobs.  The blessings still outweigh the hardships by a million-fold.  For that we are eternally grateful.   I didn't want the "hard" to be any part of our Christmas letter, and so much of our year was shaped by "hard".  We're still here, though.  We're getting back on track as a family, and I have no doubt that 2018 will see life march forward in positive ways.

As much as I feel the relentless roll of time moving forward, and I want to hang on to the precious days of my children's youth... I am not sorry to see 2017 go.  Goodbye 2017.  Welcome, New Year!!

God bless us, everyone!

Verse of the Day. It's NEVER Faith alone. And it's NEVER Faith vs Works.

How is this still an issue in the church today?  This is so clear to me as to be inconceivable that anyone misunderstands it any other way anymore.

^"For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus . . . the only thing that counts is faith working through love."
Galatians 5:5-6

Faith taps us into the love of God, which we are commanded to show to the world.  We are simply a conduit.  If we have works without faith... that is nothing, true.   But, as Paul so eloquently puts it above, the ONLY THING THAT COUNTS is faith working through love.  Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind and soul.  AND THEN LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. 

On this alone will we be judged.  How well we LOVED.  And love is an active, not a passive thing; just as Christ coming to earth, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, helping the poor, and then dying for us are ACTIVE things.  He could've just preached at us, and commanded that we believe what He told us.  But He didn't.  He ACTED. 

If we're acting in our own strength, on our own accord, then we will never, never be "good enough".  Luther felt this, and it depressed him - and rightly so, because he didn't understand that he was understanding it wrong.  But if we tap into the will and love of God, and do as HE would have us do, through HIS strength as a simple conduit, well... anything is possible.  The lives of the Saints show us this over and over.  THAT is why God's glory is made manifest in the weak, because it's utterly clear that this child, or this lowly person, could NEVER do such amazing things on their own.  They are simply exhibiting faith working through love.

On Confession.

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.^[6] – Matthew 16: 13-20

²² And when He had said this, He breathed on them and *said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, their sins ^[c]have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
-- John 20: 22-23

Why do we confess our sins to a priest?  Why do we not just talk to God himself?

"Even if you do not confess, God is not ignorant of the deed, since he knew it before it was committed. Why then do you not speak of it? Does the transgression become heavier by the confession? No, it becomes lighter and less troublesome. And this is why he wants you to confess: not that you should be punished, but that you should be forgiven; not that he may learn your sin—how could that be, since he has seen it?—but that you may learn what favor he bestows. He wishes you to learn the greatness of his grace, so that you may praise him perfectly, that you may be slower to sin, that you may be quicker to virtue. And if you do not confess the greatness of the need, you will not understand the enormous magnitude of his grace."

— St. John Chrysostom

“Confession, believe it or not, is about happiness. It is about how to get rid of all those nagging feelings of guilt; how to be relaxed and at peace, knowing that God loves us. It is about preserving that peace and happiness throughout this life, with the cheerful expectation that it will continue in our next.”
-- Father Francis Randolph

Falling in love with God

"To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek Him the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement."

— St. Augustine of Hippo

Meditation of the Day: God's Purpose for Us

How I love this, and how I need to hear this..... over and over and over!

'As God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk.'

No one can do better with his life than that; no one can put it to a better use. Any life must be perfect in proportion as it does what it was made to do. There are many lives that are brilliant failures; they strive after many things that they were never intended to do and fail in that one thing. It seems strange that a reasonable being should never ask himself why he was put upon earth, or that it should not occur to him that the reason must be found in the will of his Creator ...  At the end of the day of our earthly life, we have to answer to our Maker whether we have been employed about our own work or about His, whether we have even made an effort to find out what He would have us do. A life that is inspired by such a motive is sure to be a success, for of this we may be absolutely certain: that each of us can fulfill in our life that for which we were created. We cannot be sure that we have the gifts needed for any other purpose ... For God, in creating us, equipped us for the work for which He created us. We have every gift of nature and of grace, of mind and body that is needed for this work."

— Fr. Basil Maturin