So normally, the very first time I hear that song during the start of the holiday season, I roll my eyes and say...uh huh! I'm usually in the throws of cleaning up from Thanksgiving and trying to figure out when I'm going to find time to put up the tree. (YES, I'm a purest..one holiday at a time for me.)
Since becoming a "grownup" I often dread the Christmas season and all the "trappings" it can and does bring. The house has to be festive, the tree has to be spectacular, every party has to be attended, I must bake a butt load of sugar filled treats and I must one-up myself on the gifts I bought last year. It's enough to make a "Martha" scream"!
BUT...every single year at just about the same time something or someone gets placed right in the middle of "my" Christmas chaos that slaps me right in the face. I can look back over the years and track the timelines to almost the exact week...two weeks before Christmas. Now, if this were a Hallmark movie the story would have a jolly white haired man with an uncanny ability to show up at a moments notice and make it all better. But... this is real life! This is not a made for TV movie and this is not fiction. THIS IS JESUS!
Christmas after Christmas my world has been rocked by the goodness and love of Jesus Christ. One year it was a woman I met who only wanted her electric bill paid so she and her family would have heat on Christmas day. Another year it was getting a precious family into their "new to them" home just in time for Christmas. Still another year it was a very sick little girl who needed a Christmas miracle. I could go on and on and on. This year, at just the perfect time, it was an amazing single mom with three adorable young boys who gives of her own time to help others as she struggles everyday to provide for her family.
In every situation God allowed me to meet these people and partner with others to show them love, caring and what Christmas really means. And...also in every situation God allowed me to see glimpses of His love, His heart and His plan. The over-whelming gratitude and joy of those in need humbles me to my core. It reminds me of the greatest Christmas gift ever given...For unto us is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord!
So, like many many years before, two weeks before Christmas day God took my focus off of me and placed it right back to the manger. I am in awe of what God did in the city of Bethlehem and what He does every day in my life. I feel like a giddy and anxious shepherd preparing to follow that star to the birthplace of a King! I catch myself singing my favorite line of "The Hallelujah Chorus" ... And He shall reign forever and ever!
I would like to think that maybe December 1, 2015 will be different. That maybe I'll be stress-free and not consumed with the "world's Xmas". (HAHAHA... sorry I really just laughed out loud as I typed that) Knowing my "Type A" personality it's a VERY slim chance... but "I am convinced that neither death, nor life, neither angels or demons, neither schedules or nasty shoppers, -not even the powers of THE MALL can separate us (me) from the Love of God that is revealed to us in Christ Jesus.(my loosely paraphrased Romans 8:38 & 39)
I pray for each of you to have that moment when God, in the form of a baby, takes you away from the chaos and gently and lovingly brings you back to the holy night when the Savior of the world was born.
It IS the most wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time if the year!
Just sayin'
KJ
