Christmas stories...

We're always saying that we love the Nomura's here, but today was just another reminder of the fact that I learn something everyday around this wonderful couple.

Today we went to our third nursing home of the month, and sensei did a little magic trick/sermon/story starting at creation and explaining why Christmas is important. Since this was the third nursing home, I've seen/heard this story over three times, but today it once again struck me with its simplicity.

Sensei starts with a piece of cloth--green cloth, that stands for garden of Eden, and the life of joy that humanity had before the fall into sin. Then he tells the story of Eden, explaining that the word "Eden" means joy. But our joy was broken as sin entered our lives, and satan came whispering things like, "You're so good, you don't need God." or "It's better for you to decide your own right and wrong." A dark string that symbolizes evil loops around and is knotted over the green cloth, the same way that evil comes and ties up our hearts. But Jesus comes to free us from the evil that we allowed to enter our hearts, and sensei then pulls out a red string (symbolizing Jesus), inserts it between the dark string and the green cloth, and with a tug suddenly the green cloth is free from the dark string of evil and connected to the red string of Jesus' cleansing blood. Then sensei goes on to explain that this is why Christmas is such a joyful time. The world needed a Savior, and Jesus came to save us...

I've watched people's faces as sensei tells the story, and sometimes there are smiles of joy, and sometimes faces of pain. Today a young lady who's my age came with us to the nursing home, and my smile matched her own as we grinned at each other over sensei's message. Across the room, the guy who plays guitar with me had his eyebrows furrowed as if thinking...this has also been his third or fourth time to hear the story, and I wonder what he thinks of it.

Christmas is good, but man, this year, it's downright painful. Does it ever get easier, I wonder, to see the people around you and realize that they are still stuck, tied up on this dark string, unable to experience a love that has no ending...??

One of the things that I can't put into this posting is sensei's voice as he tells the story. He's talking to older people, so he uses easier Japanese. He speaks knowing that most of the people listening have no history with Christianity, so he doesn't use Christian lingo, but just uses down to earth words that everyone knows. And the thing that made me want to cry today was his voice--a mixture of gentleness, heartbrokenness, love, and urgency that makes the simpleness of the story come to life. That's what the Holy Spirit does, huh? :)

Sigh. Recently, I've been so confused over the future, and wondering if you just work somewhere because there are needs, or if it is selfish to think of working here in the future, or if I'm just losing it altogether and really can't work anywhere and should think of fast-food restaurant work my whole life... :) Thank God for moments where a person can see other Christians working and being used by the Holy Spirit...thank God for moments of clarity where you can say, "Ah! That's what living in love looks like..."

More to come, ne...