Praise to the Lord who has carried us!

 "The LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this point." Deut.1:31

"Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you." Isa. 46:4

"Thus far the LORD has helped us." I Sam. 7:12

What wonderful verses from Daily Light to close this old year...this year full of both challenging burdens and yet also unexpected blessings. As I think back over this year, how apparent the Lord's sustaining care has been. He truly has "carried" us through some hard, dark places. I can remember many mornings where I wept as I read His beautiful life-giving Word and cried out to Him in prayer. And He was there--carrying, sustaining, encouraging, guiding. How I thank and praise Him for His tender care and grace.

But He also carried us through spacious places of joy and celebration,  New life, new dreams, new hopes. And it was all Him--"every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17) How can we not praise and thank Him who not only carries and sustains us through difficulty and sorrow, but who also blesses us with every good gift, large and small?  

Charles Spurgeon writes of these verses in Isaiah: "When we grow old, our God will still be the I AM, abiding evermore the same. Hoar hairs tell of our decay, but He decays not. When we cannot carry a burden and can hardly carry ourselves, the Lord will carry us. He made us, and He will care for us. When we become a burden to our friends and a burden to ourselves, the Lord will not shake us off, rather He will take us up and carry and deliver us more fully than ever. Let us not dread old age. Let us grow old graciously, since the Lord Himself is with us in fullness of grace." 

I still have a little black rock that my dear friend, Beth Page, gave us ten years ago when Janie was unconscious in the hospital. Beth had written on it the words of I Sam.7:12, "Thus far the LORD has helped us." What a reminder of God's faithfulness and sustaining care--not just in that frightening time but in all the intervening days, months, and years since then. Oh how He has been faithful...and good...and true!  If He has "helped us thus far"--and He has!--He will continue to help us--and, of course, He will!  He always keeps all His promises!

I don't know what this new year holds for any of us. But I do know we are called not to fear but to faith, for our God has promised He will carry us through it all. We can look to 2023 with hopeful anticipation and joy, for He who has been so extraordinarily faithful to us this past year, does not change, so He will be faithful, forgiving, loving, sustaining, gracious, and mighty in the year ahead. His faithful love endures forever and ever. 

May you spend a few minutes pondering how God has carried you through this past year--with all its joys and sorrows, successes and setbacks--and then give Him praise and glory for His extraordinary faithfulness and goodness throughout 2022. Thank Him that "thus far He has helped" you. Then, look ahead to 2023 with hope and joy, knowing that He has so much more for you to see and experience of His faithfulness and goodness in the days ahead. For we know that, no matter what, the Lord will carry us all the way till He delivers us to our perfect, glorious heavenly home. 

To God, the forever faithful One, be all the glory. 

Fountain Christmas Letter 2022

 Merry Christmas from all the Fountains!  

“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”                                                   Charles Dickens,  A Christmas Carol

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:1-4,14) 

In this season, we celebrate the coming of that Word, of the Word, Jesus.  I will never get over the wonder of it all: that Almighty God would determine to redeem this broken planet by choosing to become one of us. That divinity, as Eugene Peterson expressed it in The Message,"became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood."  A tiny, helpless infant who was also the incarnate, infinite God. The long-promised, mighty Messiah who would save His people from their sins, yet born in a humble manger. Who can grasp that? Who can even begin to comprehend the wonder and glory of the incarnation?  Fully God and fully man. 

I did some research on—what else—google. Here are just a couple of facts to consider: 

-The nearest major galaxy is 2.5 million lights years away.

-One light year is equal to 5.88 trillion miles.

-Conservatively, our Milky Way galaxy has about 100 billion stars and could have as many as 400 billion stars. 

-We are only one of at least two trillion galaxies...and we're merely an average-sized galaxy. 

-There are likely ten times more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth (which, by the way, is estimated at 7.5 quintillion--contemplate that the next time you're building a sand castle). We're talking an unimaginable number of stars. 

Now ponder these verses: 

"He determines the number of the stars; He gives to all of them their names." (Ps.147:4) 

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork." (Ps.19:1) 

“And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Col.1:17

Think back to John 1:2—“All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” 

We share all this as a reminder of just who that baby born in the manger truly was and is.  As the apostle John reiterates, Jesus, Emmanuel, is also the omniscient and omnipotent Creator and Sustainer of the universe. There is nothing that He cannot do. Nothing that He does not know. Nothing that can thwart His plans or His hand. If He can fashion such awesome enormity as we glimpse in the heavens, what are our problems to Him?  Sure, our difficulties and challenges can feel overwhelming and huge to us...but not to Him. Look at who He is and what He has done. He spoke the vast universe into being. He created every individual on the face of the earth. He knows and loves each of us, not merely collectively, but individually and intimately. And He chose to enter His own creation in order to redeem and save those He created and loved. He lived the perfect life none of us could live, died the death we each deserved for our sins, and rose again to new life so that we, too, might enjoy eternal, resurrection life.  

Be encouraged that whatever sorrows or setbacks you might be enduring right now, whatever difficulties or disappointments you might be facing, Jesus can handle it. All of it. Nothing is too big or too challenging for Him, the Word, through whom all things were made. And never forget, no darkness has, or will ever, overcome Him. He is the Light of the world. 

May your Christmas this year be filled with His unstoppable light and His unconquerable love.  Joy to the world, the Lord is come! 

Merry Christmas and much love,  All the Fountains

(p.s. In case you are interested in a brief update on our crew, here it is below:                   Mary Norris and Matt Tilmes live in Charlotte and welcomed Eleanor Jane (Ella) on November 23, 2021. She joins big sister, Emily, who is now three years old. Needless to say, they are our joy and delight, and grand-parenting truly cannot be oversold. It is the best!  Casey and Richard, who also live in Charlotte, are expecting their first baby in March, and we're all mighty excited!  Janie really enjoys working and living in, where else, Charlotte!  What can I say? I can't get anyone to move to Raleigh despite my relentless Chamber of Commerce-worthy plugs for our city. But it's always pure joy to go to Charlotte and get to see grand-babies and three of our five children. So for the record, the "Queen City" is growing on us! Preyer lives in Washington, D.C. and will be marrying Maddie Grace Hough in March.  We are all thrilled!  Finally, Peter, a junior at UNC-CH, continues to love being at Carolina and playing golf for the Tar Heels. Go Heels! We're also incredibly thankful that all my siblings and their spouses, as well as Richard's 94 year old daddy (who is remarkable!), are all doing well. It's always such a gift to be with them! Oh, and we can't forget our beloved lab, Mr. Bingley (who, despite his incredible good looks, inexplicably failed to make the card this year. A major faux pas).  Bingley continues to love hauling huge sticks down the greenway, chasing after deer, and having any of the children come home. Merry Christmas!)

Morning--the gate of the day

 

 "Let me hear in the morning of Your steadfast love, for in You I trust. Make me know the way I should go for to You, I lift up my soul." Ps.143:8

"The morning is the gate of the day, and should be well guarded with prayer. It is one end of the thread on which the day's actions are strung, and should be well knotted with devotion. It we felt more the majesty of life we should be more careful of its mornings. He who rushes from his bed to his business and without worship is as foolish as though he had not put on his clothes, or washed his face, and as unwise as though he had dashed into battle without arms or armor."  Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"We are silent in the early hours of each day, because God is supposed to have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep, because to God also belongs the last word. We are silent solely for the sake of the word, not in order to show dishonor to the word but in order to honor and receive it properly. Silence ultimately means nothing but waiting for God's word and coming away blessed by God's word...Silence before the word, however, will have its effect on the whole day."  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

How I love the early mornings! Now granted, I'm a "morning person," but all of us have the choice what we will do with our mornings upon first awakening. Will we waste those early, quiet minutes with busyness and chores? Will we fritter away those precious moments in mindless scrolling?  Will we fill them up with noise--the noise of TV's or phones or computers? I've always loved (and been convicted by) C.S. Lewis' quote in Screwtape Letters, where the "senior demon" Screwtape advises his mignon, Wormwood, on the great value of nonstop noise to distract and drive humans away from God:

 "Music and silence–how I detest them both!….[Hell] has been occupied by Noise–Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile–Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end….The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end."

During these pre-dawn mornings during Advent, in particular, I've been encouraged afresh of the wonder and beauty of our Savior. Of the life-giving, attitude-altering, wisdom-filling importance of spending time each morning with Him first by reading His Word before any other reading or listening or "doing." Allowing Him to imprint our day with His Spirit and His Word rather than allowing the multitude of other voices overwhelm us. It really is true: what we read or hear first truly can have a profound effect on our whole day. 

On this third Sunday in Advent, might we be determined anew in this coming year to make His voice the first thing we listen to and heed each morning. Let Him and His Word imprint our days with hope, wisdom, and joy.  May we, like the psalmist, wait upon the Lord and put our hope in His Word. (Ps.130:5) 

To God be the glory.