Christmas Essential Oil Blend

Simply thinking of the nativity scene puts me in a Christmas mood.

I love the story of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem for the census and the arrival of baby Jesus, born in a stable.

As I think about Christmases past and present, my mind wanders to the people, music, baking, lights, and aromas that I have come to associate with Christmas. We all have our own bank of memories that we draw upon, and I especially love the wonderful smells that mean Christmas to me. Smells like pine trees, and cinnamon sticks. Sweet oranges covered in spicy cloves and gingerbread molasses cookies baking in the oven.

The real thing is always the best, but holiday essential oil blends can make our homes smell good any time we want—we don’t have to be baking or have a Christmas tree in the family room to enjoy our favorite aromas.

DIY Aromatherapy Recipe

So when you’d like a little help in making your home ready for the holidays, here’s a Christmas essential oil DIY recipe I developed that captures the scent of the holidays.

Scent of Christmas

5 drops Sweet Orange
3 drops Laurel, Bay
2 drops Cinnamon
2 drops Cloves

Mix all the essential oils together in a small glass bottle and adjust it to your preference. I like to use this synergy in my aromatherapy diffuser. Since it’s only 12 drops, I add it all to my diffuser and turn it on. Run it for about 20 minutes and then turn it off for about 90 minutes. You can cycle it on and off like this.

If you’d like to make more of the recipe for future use, just triple it or quadruple it until you have the amount you’d like, store it in a glass vial, and then add about 10 to 12 drops to your diffuser.

Health Information and a Caution

Not only does this smell good, but laurel is an essential oil that is historically known to be (broad spectrum) antibacterial, antiviral, and an expectorant. So diffusing it is an excellent way to use it, especially during the winter cold and flu season. NOTE: Pregnant women should not use this recipe. Use with caution on children under age 5. Laurel is strong, so refer to an aromatherapy dilution chart for the correct rate for your child’s age. (Follow the link and scroll down until you see the chart under the tab that says Children). Babies under 4 months of age should generally not use aromatherapy unless under the care of a doctor or clinical aromatherapist.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. Let me know if you have a favorite Christmas recipe.

Merry Christmas!

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Follow Along Advent Readings, Day 6

Today we are considering Day 6 of a Painted Advent devotional. Thank you for joining us for the past several days. Let’s jump in!

Jesus coming to earth made a personal relationship with God possible.

No longer do we need an intermediary priest to act as a go-between for us. It’s now possible for us to have a one-to-one relationship with God. When we confess our sins and accept Jesus’ sacrifice of His life to cover the penalty of our sins, we can stand righteous before God. He even calls us his sons and daughters.

The era of the keeping the law handed down to Moses is gone, swept out the back door for the front-door welcome to the era of grace.

Good News To Be Shared

Verse 16 tells us that up to this point no man has seen God at any time, but now Jesus tells us that if we have seen Him, we’ve seen God. Being part of the grace-era means we should be living out this amazing relationship in a way that draws others to it. It’s not a secret to be hoarded but good news to be shared.

Just like the shepherds, we have the joy of spreading God’s grace to those around us. And we certainly live in a culture today that could use a bit of grace to smooth frayed emotions and ragged relationships.

Where has God placed you in this season of life? How can you be a speaker of grace to those around you? Share your thoughts below.

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Follow Along Advent Readings, Day 5

Welcome back to Day 5 of Only ByPrayer’s thoughts on the Painted Advent devotional. Thanks for joining us.

Sometimes I am tempted to gloss over Joseph’s part in the Christmas story and focus on others. But that means I’m missing such an important part of Jesus’ earthly life: His father.

Joseph was a man of amazing integrity. If you go back and read Matthew 1, we see that Joseph had been planning to quietly divorce Mary upon receiving the devastating news that she was pregnant. That all changes when an angel visits him in a dream and validates Mary’s story.

Joseph Is the Man

Joseph never looks back. God knew that Mary would need a husband of strong character to stand by her. Joseph is the man. He marries Mary and raises Jesus as His own. Surely they were the subject of gossip. But Joseph stands as an immoveable barrier of protection between his family and society.

Three more times in this chapter we read (who knows how many times in their lives?) God uses Joseph as the protector of his family by warning him in dreams of danger to Jesus’ life on the part of Herod or his son Archelaus. Each time Joseph heeds the warning and whisks his family away to safety.

Joseph’s sense of alertness is so heightened that in verse 22 it seems he senses danger before he was even warned.

He is the epitome of what a man, husband, and father should be. Men need to be protectors of their wives and children. We live in a society where a man’s role is often belittled or worse yet deemed unnecessary. That is a lie that is doing unchecked damage to our families. Women need to let men be men and fulfill the role GOD gave them to fulfill without trying to manage them and make them more “like us.”

There have been times in my life where my husband took an action to protect our family that I didn’t like because it would “make waves” with others. I was wrong. When a man is being led by God and acts to protect he family, he is doing what God created him to do.

Men of Character Are a Blessing

Despite what society preaches, we need to celebrate the strong men in our lives and support them. Like Joseph, they are a blessing from God.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts below.

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Follow Along Advent Readings, Day 4

Welcome back to Day 4 of our discussion about the Painted Advent devotional from the Bible app. Today’s painting is called Good News.

You never know when it will happen.

You’re going about your daily work all things appearing normal when BAM! A chorus of angels lights up the night sky and scares you to death! At least that’s what happened to the shepherds in the Christmas story. What had been an ordinary day for them turned into an extraordinary one in a moment’s notice.

I wonder if the shepherds noticed anything different that evening.

I imagine all of heaven on the brink of a holy explosion—the angels barely containing their excitement. Was the night sky especially bright? Maybe a shooting star or two streaking across the sky in anticipation of what was about to happen? Or perhaps the air was charged with electricity, the impending fulfillment of ancient prophecy.

All we know is that one minute all was normal and the next it was not—the world forever changed.

The same can be true for us.

Within each day lies the potential for a Richter-scale change, for the glory of God to burst upon our everydayness with a power that takes our breath away.

What will that look like? It could be an angelic visitation (those things still happen today). But it could also be an invisible but just as mighty display of God’s power as evidenced by a changed heart, salvation for a loved one, a healed relationship, a new job, a sick person made well, a prodigal come home.

As Christ-followers, each day we get to live in the hope and shadows of miracles.

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We go about our lives always praying for what God lays on our heart while watching for His displays of power. Today could be the day!

What do you think about living in holy expectancy? Share your thoughts below.

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Follow Along Advent Reading, Day 3

The Painted Advent devotional for today is named Heaven’s Loss.

This title made me consider something I’ve never thought of before—how hard it must have been for the angels to watch Jesus go. Jesus coming into the world is a startling event, a heavenly invasion. We could not come to God, so He sent His Son to us.

A Polarizing Event

His birth was also a polarizing event. The night He was born, the only place Joseph could find for the birth was a stable. While the shepherds, three wise men, and possibly Herod recognized Him for who he was, most did not. By worldly standards, He was born into a dubious situation. The village where Mary and Joseph lived believed Jesus to be born out of wedlock, a calamity for sure.

Yet the Bible is clear about Him. John 1:4 tells us “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” From the very beginning, evil tried to snuff out that life, that light.

New Life

The wonder of it all is that when we invite Jesus into our own lives, He suffuses our very being with new life, His life in the form of the Holy Spirit who leads us and lights our way. When we align our will with His, our life takes on an earthly and heavenly significance and purpose we would never be able to match on our own.

Heaven’s temporary loss was our eternal gain!

How has Jesus been “your gain”?

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Follow Along Advent Reading, Day 2

Welcome back to Day 2 of the Painted Advent devotional reading with the Bible app. Here is Day 1 if you missed it and want to catch up.

On to Day 2!

Day 2 Luke 1:39-80

My thoughts: I love how God brings together Mary and Elizabeth. I can imagine they were both reeling a bit from their secrets. How they would have been a support to each other during this time:

Mary was figuring out how to handle her pregnancy in a time and culture when an unplanned pregnancy meant being ostracized from society. She also knew that there was a very real possibility that her fiancee Joseph would have every right to divorce her.
On the other hand, Elizabeth was probably a bit stunned by her own late-in-life pregnancy, especially since she had been childless for her entire marriage.

I can imagine how these two must have enjoyed their months together, praying and dreaming and planning about their babies.

Waiting on God

The other thing that stands out to me from his passage is that even though God sometimes seems to be silent in our lives, He uses this quiet waiting time to birth His plan.

Four hundred years had passed from the end of the Old Testament to the beginning of the New Testament. During these years, God was completely quiet. No communication between God and the prophets. No messages for Israel.

Meanwhile, the culture had been changing. Greek and Roman influences were foisted upon the Jews. But during this time of God’s silence, He was orchestrating His ultimate plan of the birth of His Son.

Finally, the book of Luke begins with a flurry of holy activity — the visits of angels, the return of prophecy (after that quiet 400 years!), and the births of two long-prophesied babies.

How Does This Apply to Us?

We can use this as encouragement in our own lives. When we have been praying and waiting and God seems silent, we need to remember that plans take time. God’s time. During the waiting we continue to pray, to work, to seek, to watch — for our own flurry of holy activity.

Let me know your thoughts as you walk through this season of Advent.

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