It’s hard to believe that this year is finally drawing to a close. But then again, I find myself saying that at the end of every year! There have been a lot of good things that have happened this year. But what interesting about many of these good and awesome things as I look back on them is that I didn’t expect most of them to happen. If you had told me a year before that some of this stuff was going to happen, especially the things I became in charge of, I might have laughed at you or been uncertain that I could. But I am so grateful for each and every one of these experiences, as I know that many of them are shaping me into the person I am becoming.
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Although I originally planned to do a “Top Ten” sort of list, what I discovered is that there were a couple of categories of events that repeated itself in different ways throughout the year. So this list contains ten of these categories, but under these categories there may be several different events listed. There are also some events that I have written about in more detail on different blog posts, so I will link those posts after I describe the event. This will give those of you that haven’t caught all of these stories a chance to catch up. This will also give details to a few events that I wanted to write about, but I either ran out of time or didn’t think there was enough detail to write a whole post about it. There are also not in any exact order or ranking. I hope that you are able to see how blessed this last year of my life has been. Here we go:

​In January of last year, my dad (aka my church’s senior minister) asked me if I was interested in writing and directing an Easter drama for my church to be performed on Easter Sunday. I had only worked on writing small skits and hadn’t directed anything other than kid’s musicals, but I knew it was something I really wanted to do. When we started working on the script and trying to find a different angle for the Easter Story, it turned out to be about the resurrection appearances of Jesus that happened on the Sunday after He rose. We titled it The Door, which is referring to the fact that when Jesus first appeared among his disciples, he got into the room despite the fact the doors were locked. Although my dad did guide me and assisted some in writing the script, the rest of responsibility or delegation was left on me.

There were so many things about doing this drama that I enjoyed. Writing and researching for the script was one of my favorites. It was awesome to get into the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus and translate it into dialogue. I also enjoyed working with the actors. They were an enjoyable group of people to work with. They were also patient and understanding as I was trying to learn how to direct and block scenes properly. I also had a few people that helped with behind the scenes work that were awesome. I think I may write a little more detail about it around Easter this coming year, but this drama was such a great ministry opportunity that I enjoyed so much.

I had two main ministry opportunities over this summer. The first was to work on worship planning with my friend Sarah. My dad approached us about planning worship services at the beginning of the summer, because it would give him a break from doing it and give us an opportunity to use our talents in that area. We loved the idea and enjoyed working with each other. I had worked with planning services with my dad as well as on my internship, but it was nice to work on planning with someone else. Plus, out of all the things I’ve been trained to do in music ministry, the planning of worship services is one of my favorite things to do.
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The second opportunity was to be the music leader for our VBS program. For many years, it was my mom doing music with me as her assistant. But since my mom was Assistant Director this year, I was chosen to be in charge of music for the first time. I had the opportunity to work with a few junior high age girls as my helpers and we had a lot of fun. It was another great opportunity I was blessed to have.

​I also had the chance to be involved in honoring my dad for his 15th anniversary at the church. They had a potluck for him and there were some notes and letters people had written to my dad that we had the chance to read out loud. It was a blessing to know how much my dad’s ministry has touched others’ lives. That’s part of my motivation for wanting to make ministry into a vocation someday. It was a very special day.

​I was also given the opportunity to be in charge of two events at my church over this last year. The first was a free screening of the movie Ragamuffin, the film about the life of Rich Mullins. Although we didn’t have a ton of people come to this screening, it was a lot of fun to get to show a movie that not only impacted me, but has also impacted the lives of many others who have seen it. I was so blessed to be able to share it in this way.

[To read my review of the movie, click here]

​I also got to be in charge of coordinating the Anima Series Tour. You may have already heard me talk about this event, but it was awesome that my church’s leadership not only granted permission for this event to happen at our building, but they trusted me to cover all the other details like advertising. It was much more involved than the movie screening and it was great challenge to put everything together and support one of my favorite YouTube channels in the process.

​I had the blessing of getting to be in the KVTA production of Mary Poppins this fall as a member of the adult ensemble in October. It was so much fun! I hadn’t had the chance to be in a theatrical production of that scale since college. It was also a Disney musical I've loved since I was a little girl. It was great production with such a fantastic cast. Everyone encouraged and supported each other in a special way. Being in Mary Poppins was an experience I won’t forget.

[To read more about my experience in Mary Poppins, click here]

I also had the chance to be involved in my church’s Christmas production. In the past, we did a program we called Bethlehem Walk, in which we recreated a first-century marketplace and had a short nativity presentation. We decided that we needed to make some changes, so we created a new program called Christmas Unwrapped. We basically made the nativity presentation longer and more detailed, and then condensed the marketplace to just a few booths. We also inverted their locations in the building. We wanted the focus to be on the story of Jesus, and we felt this was a better way to do this.

​In addition to being the youngest person on the leadership team, I was part of the nativity drama as singer in costume. I sang the song “Mary Did You Know?” just after they reveal the baby. Aside from enjoying the opportunity to perform this powerful song, it was also a small dream come true. You see, I’d watched my mom sing in the nativity presentation for Bethlehem Walk for years, which made me want to do the same. But I had not had the chance. It was either that someone was more qualified than me to sing, or I was away at college and couldn’t come home that weekend. I was so excited when it was finally decided that I would sing one of the two songs we had in the drama for Christmas Unwrapped. It was such a great experience.

​Over this last year, I’ve had the privilege of making a close friend. At the time and stage I’m at in life, it’s hard to find friends that you are able to hang out with consistently. But I had the chance to get to know Angela over this last year and it has been such an awesome blessing to my life. Aside from our shared love of Disney, we also are at a similar place in our lives and have been able to encourage one another as we figure out what God wants for our futures. 

​[To read the story of how I met Angela, along with other funny stories of how other friendship started, click here]

​Something I got to experience for the first time this year was being involved with social media teams. It was awesome to be involved with using social media for something constructive and getting to connect with new people along the way. Throughout the year, I was a part of three teams, all of which have blessed me in different ways.

​Ragamuffins Street Team

This team was a little different from the other ones. Our primary purpose was to support and promote the upcoming film Brennan, about the life of Brennan Manning. This film is coming from the same people that made the film Ragamuffin that I mentioned earlier. In fact, that screening was done in promotion of the next film. It has been awesome to see what God has been doing as the filmmakers have been working on the movie Brennan. I can’t wait to see what will happen when this movie releases this year.

​As I have been looking back through this year, I have been surprised about how many people that I admire that I have met or connected with over this last year. I would consider them famous in my book, but then again I guess it depends on how you define fame. Anyway, here’s some of the stories of how it happened:

[To read more about the impact Dave's brother Rich Mullins has had on my life, click here]

Dannah Gresh & Dr. Juli Slattery

Although I have still not met these ladies in person, I was blessed to connect with them through the book team for their book, Pulling Back the Shades. I’ve been a huge fan of Dannah’s books for a while, but I didn’t know much about Juli until I read the book. What I love about them both is that they are passionate about declaring God’s truth about sexuality and encouraging women to pursue God’s best through His plan for their sexuality. As part of the book team, I got to participate in two Google chats with them. I also interacted with them some on social media. A few weeks after our commitment on the book team was finished, my mom when to the Hearts at Home Convention where she not only met these two ladies, but she actually got to be Dannah’s speaker assistant! Although I was kind of bummed I didn’t get to meet them in person, I did get a few autographs out of the deal.

Although I did publish my first spoken word poem on YouTube in 2014, I have had the opportunity to develop my skills as a spoken word poet with the release of two more poems in 2015. At the beginning of the year, I wouldn’t have called myself a spoken word poet. Aside from my one poem, I never intended to write another one. But when I found myself on the book team for Pulling Back the Shades, I felt the conviction to use this ability to bring awareness to the topics discussed in the book. As it turns out, it has been my most popular poem I’ve released so far, thanks to some of the members of the book team sharing it.

​After this I still went several months without writing another one, until I remember a topic I was passionate about – modesty. I had done so much research on the subject and knew it so well that I knew I wanted to write a poem about it. It took me a few months to get around to filming it even after I wrote it, but it was so worth it to me. Although it still hasn’t gotten very many views, I know that for now, it’s important for me to be faithful in the little things.

​After all this, I have started to think of myself as a spoken word poet. I hope and pray that God will be able to use this talent I’ve discovered for His glory in the future as I figure out the best way to use it for Him.

​It’s hard to me to believe that I have been writing on this blog for a year now, and have written about 35 posts. Blogging and writing is something I’d wanted to do for a long time, but just never got around to doing it. But I finally came across a website builder I was happy with, I decided to start writing when I felt led to write. When I became a member of the Pulling Back the Shades book team last January, I started trying to publish a post every Friday. Although I haven’t always kept up with that, this did at least get me into some sort of routine. Now, I’m getting to the point where it feels like something is off if I go too long without writing something. This is something that I hope to keep doing for a long time to come.

​There you have it. These were some of the highlights of my year. Of course there were other good things that have happened as well as bad things that have come to pass in 2015. But through it all, the Lord has been there with me, either blessing me directly or blessing me by being present in the difficult times. I hope this will be the same next year, and for every year as long as I live. I hope that all of you are able to find the same thing. I also hope that you might continue to share in my journey through life by reading my future blog posts or subscribing to my YouTube channel. I appreciate those of you that have. There are some good things to come in this next year, so stay tuned!

Some of you may be surprised to discover that this is not my first blog. In fact, there was a time when I was managing three blogs at once! Back in the days before Twitter or Facebook even existed, or even as Myspace was gaining popularity, the most popular "social media" site (although that term hadn't even been invented at that point) among my junior high and high school friends was Xanga, which was primarily for blogging. At first, I had one personal account, but then I was interested in being involved with some fandom groups. I ended up making two more accounts, one about my favorite music group of the time Jump5, and the other for The Lord of the Rings.

What was so interesting about what I did with those accounts though is that instead of just blogging about how much I loved these fandoms, I wanted to keep the focus on Jesus. My usernames on these accounts were Jump5lovesJesus and LOTR_LordofAllKings. I started to write devotional thoughts around lessons I’d learned from this film trilogy and music group. When I went back to these sites a few years ago, although I was kind of laughing at some of it, I was also surprised at how decent some of these devotions were. There were some pretty solid thoughts, considering I was 15 when I wrote them!
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When it came to the LOTR ones, most of the thoughts were not totally unique to me, for a lot of LOTR devotional books have talked about things like Aragorn’s servant/king journey, or Sam’s loyalty to Frodo, or even the boundaries changed by the trans-racial friendship of Legolas and Gimli. But as I was looking through these old blog posts, one of them stood out as being the most unique thought I shared, which was a comparison of an LOTR character with a prominent character from the Christmas story. And this idea has stuck with me ever since.

​Frodo Baggins was shocked by everything Gandalf was telling him. He was only a Baggins of Bag End, a hobbit of the Shire. And it was just a simple Ring he had received as an heirloom from his Uncle Bilbo. Yet Gandalf told him that it was an instrument of absolute evil being sort out by the Dark Lord that created it. The Ring of Power, so it was called.

​If something was not done soon, the life of peace his kin-folk had known in the Shire would be gone forever, and this evil would eventually take over all of Middle-Earth. Gandalf told him that those seeking the Ring would be coming for it very soon. So the Ring could not stay the Shire anymore, and Frodo was the most likely candidate to take it out of the Shire since he had the Ring in his possession.

Somehow, Frodo sensed that this task would be his to bear. Yes, he was afraid of what would lie ahead for him. He wondered why he was one that had this task fall into his lap. He wondered if he really could succeed with all this evil set against him. But somehow, he knew that this was something he needed to do. In the film version, when he comes to this realization, he takes hold of the Ring in his fist, and then he asks Gandalf a profound question without hesitation: 

Gandalf did not want Frodo to go on this journey alone, so when he found Frodo’s gardener under the window outside the house, he told Sam that he was go with Frodo with the instructions to never leave Frodo.

​Mary was shocked by everything the angel of the Lord was telling her. She was just a simple, ordinary girl from the town of Nazareth in Israel. She was just trying to live her life the way she should, as she was preparing for her marriage. Yet this angel told her that she was to bear the Son of God himself, even though she was a virgin and had never been with a man.

​This child would not only be God’s son, but he would also be the Messiah that had been prophesied to redeem Israel for thousands of years. He would bring the salvation everyone had been hoping for. Not only did this not make any sense, but she also knew the way that this would look to everyone around her, including her fiancé. There was the possibility of facing a premarital divorce or public disgrace. She knew it would be impossible to convince others it was true.

​Yet somehow, she sensed that this must be her task to bear. She wondered why she out of all other women had been chosen, but the angel told her that she was favored in God’s eyes. Yes, she was afraid of what the future would hold, but she realized that this was something she needed to do. After the angel told her how it was going to happen to her, she responds humbly without hesitation: 

​The Lord did not want Mary to go through this alone, so when her fiancé Joseph was ready to divorce her quietly, the Lord sent the angel to tell Joseph not to leave Mary.

​For that point on, Joseph supported Mary, but also guided and comforted not only by those that had greater spiritual wisdom than she: not only the angel, but also her relative Elizabeth. Although it was not easy and she had no idea what the future would hold, she knew that this was the task God had given her to complete, and she would be faithful to the task, no matter what.

Although their stories and their tasks are very different from each other, it’s interesting to see how similar their callings are and the support they received along their journey. As I look at their responses, I see two different ways that we may be called to respond, depending on our situation.

Frodo was called to action. Something bad was going to happen and the clock was ticking. Although Gandalf didn’t directly tell him what he needed to do until he asked, Frodo understood from what he was told that something had to be done fast. Since the Ring was already in his possession, he was the most likely candidate to take the Ring out of the Shire. Eventually, when the Council of Elrond is trying to decide who would have the task of taking the Ring all the way to Mordor to be destroyed, he realized it had to be him. He declares that he will take the Ring to Mordor. When the Fellowship of the Ring is chosen, Boromir tells Frodo in the film, “You carry the fate of us all, little one.” But from the beginning, Frodo knew that he had to do something about it.
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Mary was called to faith. The angel told her what was going to happen; she just had to be willing to accept the task she had been chosen for. She didn’t technically volunteer for the job, but she accepted God’s decision with the greatest of humility. She just had to let it happen to her. Once she was pregnant, she simply had to live out each day and each situation she found herself in by faith. No matter what she faced, she had faith that the Lord will fulfill every single promise He had made to her. She simply had to do what He asked. It would even mirror the decision her Son would make the night before He was crucified, when He told the Father, “Not my will, but your will be done.” They both needed to surrender to the Father’s plan, no matter what the cost.

​I think that most situations we find ourselves in will require us to respond in faith, with action, or maybe both. But I find the examples given in these stories to be so striking. I feel like any of us should give one of those two responses any time God places something in front of us for our future. You probably won’t be called to destroy an evil ring in a volcano and you definitely won’t be called to bear a child as a virgin, but we will be called to action or faith throughout the circumstances in our lives. To ignore these callings is to ignore God’s best for your future. To accept will demand much, but will be more fulfilling that living our lives exclusively within our own plans. So next time you know God is calling you, remember these two responses:

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​To conclude this post, I thought I would share a video I uploaded to my YouTube channel a few years ago that was inspired by my original blog post. Its clips from The Lord of the Rings to the song Breath of Heaven by Amy Grant. I think a few people thought this was a little strange when I first started sharing this, but those of you that have read my thoughts here will better understand the point I was trying to communicate. 

​Two lines worth paying attention to in regards to how they relate to Frodo’s story:

One more thing I almost forgot:

I love traditions, don’t you? At this time of the year, many dearly held traditions of gatherings with family and friends are revisited, and despite the fact that we've done it all before, they never get old. From the games to the food to the movies, we love our holiday traditions. We get comfortable with the way that we have always known things to be. We would never call these traditions into question. We continue to do these traditions as long as we are able, hoping that they will never change.
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We tend to feel this way about out traditionally held beliefs too. There are many “facts” about the nativity story that are merely traditions mistaken as facts. They can be hard to spot, because we are so use to thinking of these traditions as facts. There are also several parts of the story that confuse us because we struggle to understand biblical culture. I want to address some of the confusing parts and traditionally accepted “facts” of this great story, using my personal research and study. I do not claim to know everything, and there are some things that we cannot know for sure because the Bible simply does not tell us. But my hope is to help you better understand what the Bible actually says happened, and not to rely on traditional beliefs.

​Joseph not only saved the lives of his soon-to-be wife and her child, but he also chose to accept the same criticism Mary was receiving about the child being illegitimate. In other words, Joseph had to accept the fact that everyone was going to think he was the baby daddy. This is not often discussed, but I think it’s another example of the faith that Joseph had to place in God in order to fulfill the Father’s plan. He would legally adopt Jesus as his son when he named him on the day of his dedication, but in the meantime, there would probably still be questions and judgements from those in their community. It was probably for this reason that they were eager to go to Bethlehem for the census and eventually chose to settle in Bethlehem after Jesus was born.

​Despite the popular traditional belief, the Bible mentioned nothing about Mary riding a donkey. The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem was only 70 miles, which would have taken 3 or 4 days. Joseph probably would not have been able to afford to buy and keep a donkey, considering that he was a newly married craftsman. Although it can't be confirmed that she didn't ride one, the fact that it is not mentioned in the biblical account calls it into question. She most likely had to walk. The text also mentions nothing about the difficulty of the journey because it was a normal kind of trip in those days. It wasn’t quite as difficult and treacherous as some film versions make it out to be.

Because of the size of the census, they had to go to Bethlehem as soon as they could, but they probably had to wait for their turn to register. It was probably during this waiting period that Mary’s time came and she gave birth. If she had been in labor when they arrived, it probably would be have been detailed in the gospel written by the Luke the physician, since he is often very detailed in his accounts of illnesses and ailments in other places in his books. They also may not have had the time needed to gather things such as the swaddling clothes if the baby had come that soon.

It is also a popular tradition to portray their rejection by several inns before they found an innkeeper compassionate enough to squeeze them into their stable. However, this part of the story is completely made up! The text says nothing about them knocking on doors and being rejected by other inns in Bethlehem. It does say there was no room for them to stay, but this is misunderstood to mean several things that it doesn’t.

Those that interpret this passage this way have a major misunderstanding of Jewish culture. The Jews had a high sense of hospitality, and it would have been highly unlikely for them to turn people away, especially a young couple with child. The fact that the place where they stayed still found somewhere for them to stay even when there was no room illustrates this kind of hospitality. If they had gone knocking on several doors and had been rejected all over town, it most likely would have been recorded.
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This is also a misunderstanding of the concept of an inn. Inns were a Roman concept, and Bethlehem probably didn’t have a real inn since there were such a small town. Most people that would have wanted to stay at an inn probably would have gone to Jerusalem, which was only 5 miles north. The word “inn” is probably better translated as “guest room,” inferring a private house. It is also quite possible, since Joseph was from the family of David, that whoever took them in was actually a relative, who would have been unlikely to turn them away. This may be confusing to those of you that have the picture of the wooden stable in your mind, but that is probably not accurate either. Read the next point to see what I mean.

​Although the wooden stable is a dearly loved tradition, the Bible mentioned nothing about a stable. The only thing that implies a stable is the manger. Wooden stables were not common in Israel because wood was scarce. In fact, stables separate from the house were also rare. This tradition also relates to a cultural misunderstanding of what an inn was verses a guest room. Based on biblical research, there is a high possibility that Jesus was born inside a private home, not in a stable. To show you what I mean, here’s a diagram to illustrate.

​This diagram illustrates the way that many houses would have been set up in Jesus’ day. The room for the guests was on the second floor. The main floor would have probably been the last place that would have the room and privacy needed for giving birth. This main area of the living quarters would have had a manger for when they usually brought the animals in at night. Mark Moore’s commentary, The Chronological Life of Christ, suggests this paraphrase of Luke 2:6-7, “Sometime after Mary and Joseph came to Bethlehem, Mary gave birth. Since the guest room was already filled, she delivered in the main living area of the house and used the manger as a crib.” (Moore 50) Now that’s quite different than our culture tries to imagine it.

It is very popular to depict animals at the birth of Jesus, because of the belief that he was born in a traditional wooden stable. However, the Bible mentioned nothing about animals at the birth of Jesus. Again, the only thing that indicates animals is the manger. But the only animals mentioned in the entire nativity narrative are the sheep of the shepherds outside of town, and the account implies that the shepherds abandon their flocks to see the baby. If Jesus was born inside, and the house was crowded enough to have people staying the main living quarters that night, there probably did not have the room to bring the animals inside. They probably stayed tied up outside. Besides, the animals obviously couldn’t use their feeding trough! And again, if animals had been there, it probably would have been recorded.

​Although we celebrate Jesus’ birth on this date, most scholars agree that Jesus was not born on December 25. The most obvious argument against this date is the shepherds. The shepherds, who are described as being nomadic, simply would not have been watching their flocks at night in the winter. It is not practical or logical. Also, the idea that the governor would have called for a census right at the start of winter is not practical or logical. We are unsure of the date of Jesus' birth at all, although it is more likely to have been in spring or summer for these same reasons.

​It is very common to portray the angels that came to shepherds outside of Bethlehem singing their message of peace and goodwill. It sounds nice, but it is simply not true. There is no mention of these angels (or any other angels in all of Scripture) singing their message. It clearly says that they spoke their message. Besides, I personally think that the shepherds would have been less terrified by a company of heavenly hosts singing than to them than by the heaven hosts speaking with a mighty unified voice.

​It is a commonly held tradition that there were three wise men that visited Jesus, because they had three gifts. Tradition even made up names for them. However, we do not know the number of Magi, or their names. Magi is the plural of Magus, so the only thing we know for certain is that there were at least two. There may have been three, but it is also likely that there was a bigger group of Magi that studied together that made the decision to travel to Bethlehem. I have heard someone argue that Herod would not have been so disturbed about the announcement of Jesus’ birth if only two or three Magi had come to Jerusalem to see him.

​ - Second, Herod had to ask when the star had appeared. This is very interesting clue that is often ignored. Most people did not realize the significance of the star, because it says that all of Jerusalem was disturbed, or shocked, along with Herod by what the Magi said. No one had taken notice of it. It took scholars that studied stars to realize that this star indicated the birth of a Jewish king. If the star has been as bright and out of the ordinary as it is often portrayed, Herod would not have had to ask.

- Third, according to what Herod learned from the Magi, the star had appeared two years before. The Magi said they “saw the star when it rose” (Matt 2:2 ESV). The star had risen in the east two years earlier, either when Jesus was born, or possibly when he was conceived. It is because of Herod's knowledge of this timing that he orders the slaughter of the baby boys in Bethlehem that were born in that time frame.

​- Fifth, it is unlikely that Jesus could have been dedicated at the temple on the eighth day (as is recorded in Luke 2) if the Magi had arrived at his birth. Bethlehem is so close to Jerusalem (5 miles south on the main road), that Herod’s order to kill the baby boys probably would have come within the week and they would have had to flee from the baby slaughter before they could have gone to Jerusalem. Mary would have also been unclean from the birth, and therefore unfit to travel by the Law of Moses (A woman was unclean for 7 days about giving birth to a male child, until she offered her purification offering on the eighth day). If the slaughter was a few days later, it still would have been unsafe for them to go to the temple if Herod was looking for the child.

- Lastly, if these events (the birth, the shepherd’s visit, and the Magi’s visit) had overlapped each other, it most likely would have been recorded in both accounts (Matthew and Luke) 

​Hopefully, this inspires you to look at the nativity narratives again with a better understanding of what the Bible says and you are able to see some of the areas in which our culture has embellished the story. It's crazy for me to see how off some of these traditional versions of the nativity story have exaggerated what is actually written. But even amid all the traditions and alterations that this story has gone through over the last 2,000 years, one thing remains the same: