I learned something a long time ago. I wish I could say that it’s a nugget of wisdom that I live by every day, but most of the time I don’t.

I’m very forgetful when it comes to grace, especially when it concerns other people. I always want grace for myself but I am not as good at giving it as I am in receiving it.

What I learned is that with every single person you meet, there is one single fact about that person that if you knew, it would completely change how you saw that person. It could be a secret health battle. It could be an addiction. It could be any number of anxieties or insecurities.

I’ve never been a big believer in first impressions. So often, we don’t always put our best foot forward. You may very well catch me on an off day or in an off moment. I might find you out of sorts for reasons that have nothing to do with me and if I were in your shoes, I’d act exactly the same way.

The simple solution is to be kind. Err toward grace instead of criticism or condemnation. Remember that it was God’s kindness that led you to repentance. The one who had the most right to cut you off and write you off instead loved you most and died for you so that you might have true life and peace and joy.

So be kind the way God was kind to you.

Since I got my turntable a couple of years ago, one of my new favorite Christmas traditions is playing Christmas vinyl. It’s one of the few things that can immediately connect me back to those childhood days on Fox Meadows Road in Memphis where Christmas music came to life by laying the needle down on the record groove.

My collection is a mix of old and new. I mean that I have the new remastered records that come in a variety of colors and patterns and the old records with the dusty jackets that basically only come in black, like the original Ford Model T cars.

I do think that music is one of the most powerful memory triggers there is. I can hear a random song at any point in my day and immediately remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard it. When I put on an old Christmas record, I can just about see the old den in my mind with the record player in the corner behind one of the La-z-boys we had back then.

I still have my immense collection of Christmas CDs and I will occasionally play a Classic Christmas station on Pandora, but best way to tangibly relive old memories is through vinyl, especially when it’s the old standards like Nat King Cole or Bing Crosby or Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra.

I hope you have traditions that will both reach out to the next generations and tie you back to your history all while reminding you of how blessed you are.

I believe that qualifies as a first world problem, but the struggle is real. When you get all comfy and get your blankets arranged just right, then you have to get up to search for the remote that you could have sworn was right next to you? That’s the worst.

Or maybe when you’re snuggled in bed and have finally found that perfect sleeping position with the covers and blankets perfectly situated, then you realize that you have to pee. Unfortunately, your bladder couldn’t have told you that bit of information five minutes earlier.

I’m beginning to understand that the older you get the more you will fall asleep when you don’t want to and then at night when you actually want to, you can’t. And not being able to sleep when you’re tired is annoying as anything.

Probably on everyone’s list is biting into a chocolate chip cookie only to find that it’s oatmeal raisin. I do like oatmeal raisin cookies, especially when they’re fresh from the oven, but not when my taste buds are expecting chocolate.

If you can think of more of these first world problems, feel free to share. Maybe one day I’ll revisit this topic and do a sequel.

I heard once that the best way to get rich quick is to count your blessings because that’s where your true wealth lies. I will say that if someone wants to test me by giving me a million dollars to see if I will still remain the same humble person, I am up for the challenge.

With that in mind, I do have some blessings that I’m grateful for:

1. For the family sitting around the dining room table and sharing a Thanksgiving meal.
2. For my church that isn’t made of brick and mortar but of people who are invested in each other and the gospel (and who are getting closer to moving into our first permanent location).
3. For the upcoming Advent and Christmas season that reminds me why I have hope.
4. For tacos.
5. For being able to serve at Room in the Inn for going on 13 years and seeing how we’re able to bless so many homeless men and be blessed in the process.
6. For my almost 9 year old Mac laptop that still works.
7. For my tortie feline who is always a comforting presence and still loves her belly rubs.
8. For my old Jeep that still gets me where I need to go.
9. For Audible that helps me bear the joys of a daily commute in Nashville traffic.
10. For the faithfulness of God in every season.
11. For the ministry formerly known as Kairos as it begins a new season and a new chapter.
12. For whoever thought to put chocolate and peanut butter together.
13. For every morning that I get to wake up and experience God’s fresh new mercies.

The list really could go on much longer, but I do have my 5 am wake-up call and my fun early morning commute. I do believe that if I count my blessings, I can say truthfully that I am very rich.

If you haven’t already read this amazing book by C. S. Lewis (which you should), there are possible spoilers ahead. You have been warned:

“‘But how could it be true, sir?’ said Peter.

‘Why do you say that?’ asked the Professor.

‘Well, for one thing,’ said Peter, ‘if it was real why doesn’t everyone find this country every time they go to the wardrobe? I mean, there was nothing there when we looked; even Lucy didn’t pretend there was.’

“What has that to do with it?” said the Professor.

‘Well, sir, if things are real, they’re there all the time.’

‘Are they?’ said the Professor; and Peter did not know quite what to say.

‘But there was no time,’ said Susan. ‘Lucy had had no time to have gone anywhere, even if there was such a place. She came running after us the very moment we were out of the room. It was less than a minute, and she pretended to have been away for hours.’

‘That is the very thing that makes her story so likely to be true,’ said the Professor. ‘If there really is a door in this house that leads to some other world (and I should warn you that this is a very strange house, and even I know very little about it)—if, I say, she had got into another world, I should not be at all surprised to find that the other world had a separate time of its own; so that however long you stayed there it would never take up any of our time. On the other hand, I don’t think many girls of her age would invent that idea for themselves. If she had been pretending, she would have hidden for a reasonable time before coming out and telling her story.’

‘But do you really mean, sir,’ said Peter, ‘that there could be other worlds—all over the place, just round the corner—like that?’

‘Nothing is more probable,’ said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, ‘I wonder what they do teach them at these schools.’

‘But what are we to do?’ said Susan. She felt that the conversation was beginning to get off the point.

‘My dear young lady,’ said the Professor, suddenly looking up with a very sharp expression at both of them, ‘there is one plan which no one has yet suggested and which is well worth trying.’

‘What’s that?’ said Susan.

‘We might all try minding our own business,’ said he. And that was the end of that conversation.”

One day I will find a way into Narnia. I just know it.

“What is coming upon the world is the Light of the World. It is Christ. That is the comfort of it. The challenge of it is that it has not come yet. Only the hope for it has come, only the longing for it. In the meantime we are in the dark, and the dark, God knows, is also in us. We watch and wait for a holiness to heal us and hallow us, to liberate us from the dark. Advent is like the hush in a theater just before the curtain rises. It is like the hazy ring around the winter moon that means the coming of snow which will turn the night to silver. Soon. But for the time being, our time, darkness is where we are” (Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark).

Apparently, we’re having a shorter than usual Advent season. It starts next Sunday and lasts only 22 days this year. But for a lot of us, we’ve been waiting a lot longer than 22 days for God to show up strong in the world and make everything right. Some days, it feels like 2,000 years plus 22 days.

But just as the hush in the theater means the curtain is about to rise and just as the hazy ring around the moon means snow will soon be falling, so we know that Advent will come and God will keep His promises and be as faithful as ever.