A Refugee Story by Jackie Hooks

Jacqueline Hooks is our guest blogger today. This is what she says about herself and her ministry:  “I am an everyday ordinary gal who started following Jesus less than a decade ago, and has fallen madly in love with the Carpenter King who saved my life and my marriage.  My husband and I are raising “four holy moly messes” (Jake 11, Jude 10, Grace 8 and Joshua 2).  I am technically a stay at home mom, but I rarely find myself at home, and the soap opera and bon bon life hasn’t found its way into my living room just yet.  I do occasionally allow for a small celebration when all the laundry is clean AND folded at the SAME TIME on the SAME  DAY…and that is typically twice a decade.

In 2012, God called me to begin Pruning Hooks Ministry.  Pruning Hooks is a grass roots group of “Everyday ordinary women serving Jesus allowing their everyday ordinary lives to become extraordinary”. It is a ministry founded on the principal that Jesus wants your daily life, and following Him is a lifestyle of loving and serving and walking with Jesus…no event needed…just a Savior and our hands and feet.   Jesus has called us to serve lunch and breakfast five days a week to Generation One Academy, provide monthly meals to residents of medical housing, love on teen moms in our area, help and encourage single moms and meet the needs of anyone God places in our path. Pruning Hooks gathers each month to listen to an ordinary woman share her Jesus Story which always encourages and reminds us how our amazing God works inside the every day. Because He wants our everyday …plain and simple.

And I write.  Writing has been the tool Jesus gave me from the very beginning of my life to navigate every treacherous road I have walked.  There are boxes of poetry notebooks and short stories stashed somewhere in my mom’s attic to prove it.  My hope is that my words inspire and encourage you to see Jesus in your everyday too.  He is right here waiting for each of us, in the daily mess, hoping we see He wants so much more from us and for us than we could ever imagine.  I pray my writing will lead you to Him.”

Visit Jacqueline’s website at: http://www.pruninghooks.com or like her on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pruning-Hooks-Ministries/173578226122133 

 It’s Not Even Thanksgiving…

I am wearing a Christmas shirt.

The Christmas Music is on in My Car.

I LOVE Christmas.

Joshua is 2 ½. He has me excited about Christmas. He is going to love the Christmas tree as he destroys it. He will love all the lights and the singing and the fun and the food and the stuff that comes with Christmas. We have this crazy action figure nativity set where the wise men have abs of steel and everyone has moveable arms and legs…it’s a little odd. But Joshua will hear about the baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph…about a little family who lived a crazy obedient journey…And one night, when no one welcomed them, except for shepherds they had never met, LOVE like no one had ever known came into the world. And Joshua, he’s at that great age where he is cuddly and snuggly and gets way too excited the one day a year you light a fire (we live in Texas). And we know Christmas morning for him will be filled full of all that toddler joy lost on our three older kiddos with bad breath and messy hair and sleeping in who are slightly disappointed each year when they pull socks and underwear out of their stockings. He’s the perfect age. Perfect.

He is the Joy-Filled Boy.

And I am Thinking Big Christmas Thoughts.

A Sign on My Mantel Reads:

They Followed a Star.

So y’all, let me tell you what is killing me. I am reading Matthew 2…It tells the account of the Magi coming to see the boy Jesus…sometime after the awesome night in the manger…the Magi or Wise Men or Three Kings come following a star. And they meet with Herod, the Roman King in Jerusalem, to find out all they can about where this newborn King of the Jews might be found. And Herod consults Jewish leaders and finds out everything he can about the prophecies of the coming Messiah. Herod finds out The Christ was to be born in Bethlehem and sends the Magi on their way with all his “help” so they can find the King and he can kill the king. And those Magi following a star find Jesus. And they worship Him and give Him gifts. And these strangers from strange lands love a poor boy they have never met because they know the purpose He has is bigger than all of the little moments He is living now.

And the Magi leave Bethlehem in secret because they were warned in a dream not to see Herod again. And Herod in all his insanity decides to kill every boy in Bethlehem and the surrounding towns 2 years old and younger. Y’all. This was a nightmare. 

Mamas Begged.

This Was Their Baby.

They Had Done Nothing Wrong.

Screaming. Sobbing. The Sounds of Terror.

 

And Mary and Joseph ran to Egypt with their boy. They packed up and left everything, or took only what was most important and ran to Egypt. They ran to save their son. They ran to leave a nightmare. They went knowing others did not make it. They went because you cannot raise children to live a life worthy of the calling of God Almighty when they cannot live…

You Have to Leave.

You Have to Run.

You Have to Hide.

You Have to Become a Refugee.

And y’all, here’s the deal, some crazy ruler decides tomorrow he is going to kill every 2 year old boy in Katy, TX…Well, The Hooks are gone. We are taking nothing except the clothes on our back and we are gone. We will not wait. We will not hesitate. We will not wonder if we are a burden to the people on the other side of our exodus from Texas…We will run and hide and run some more until we get some place safe. Because of Joshua. Because of my JoyFilled boy. Because of silly songs and counting to 10 and praying for potty training and little boy kisses that are the sweetest kind.

And you would too. You tuck your kiddos in at night, and you know, you would too. You see them in their Christmas programs singing about silent nights that are oh so holy, and you would too. You know what we all know, threaten our children, give us no choice to hug them and kiss them and we are gone. And we look at the photos and we see the faces and there is this place in our heart that rings so true and real. And we know. And then we read this Christmas Story. The account of the first years of our SAVIOR and we realize, in the beginning, this Jesus lived life as a refugee with His parents who ran to a foreign country to save HIM. Y’all. The God of the Universe tells the story of LOVE coming to the world and having to be loved by strangers and becoming an alien in a foreign land…Y’all. Don’t miss this. Just don’t miss this. Do not ask yourself What Would Jesus Do. Ask yourself what had to be done to save Jesus? And ask yourself, when Jesus sits at the right hand of God Almighty in Heaven and thinks on the days when His family ran to Egypt to escape a nightmare costing the lives of innocent children…what does He think about us?

“Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” Matthew 2:13

Jesus is Big Y’all. Always.