Christmas 2012

Christmas is a little different around here this year.  Ok, a LOT different.  Just look back at my blogs from years past, and you will see how we normally do Christmas.  This year, we have A tree.  That's it.  In fact, we are going to have to get in the attic and dig out the stockings before Monday.  They never came down.

There are a lot of reasons for the lack of ordinary festive decor this year.  The home remodel is one.  We still have the finishing touches on the kitchen remodel and time is precious to get these things done right now.  The thought of using that precious time to put up all the usual decor for Christmas was a bit...ok A LOT overwhelming for both John and me.

That's the easy answer.  Just didn't have time.  But the truth is, there are some deeper reasons why only A tree graces our home this year.  I. Am. Tired.


The past two years, especially 2012 has taken more out of me than I thought I had left in me to take.  Don't stop reading for fear this is another downer post about Christmas.  Nothing could be further from the truth! Second Corinthians 12:9-10 pretty well sums up my year:  But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me! So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak [in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength).


This Christmas has meaning like no Christmas before.  Christmas celebrates the birth of my King.  My Savior.  My Lord.  My Best Friend. My Rock. My Fortress. My Redeemer. My Defender.  Never before have I understood those names like I came to know them this year! 

My Best Friend, My Redeemer, My Defender, My Savior
Not long ago, I was crying out to God.  I was begging Him to help!  I was at my end.  I was literally crying out with my audible voice in desperation to God over a situation where I had been falsely accused of some actions that had the potential for devastation.  It seemed as if the accusers were winning, that the accusations would stand without my defense being heard or acknowledged.  "How could God do this to me?", I thought. "How could that God who I was just beginning to trust let this happen to me?"  And immediately the cross came to my mind.  God in His loving and compassionate way reminded me that He more than anyone knew exactly what I was facing.  Jesus, His son, My Savior, left the comfort, the safety of heaven to come to this earth as a human baby.  God knew when He sent Him, and Jesus knew when He came exactly how it would end.  How could He ask me to walk the path I have walked this year when He knew exactly how it would end? Because He had already walked it!  

He, the One who had NO. Sin. None. Was accused of many sins.  Then he was spat on, beat and mocked, falsely accused.
For.
Me.

How could He ask me to endure the trials I was facing? Because He had already faced them for me.  Every time I look at a manger scene this season, I think of the choice Jesus made. For. Me. and YOU! He chose what I was begging to be released from.  He didn't have to endure it, He chose to endure it because He knew in the end it would bring my freedom from sin and allow me to spend eternity with Him! How could he ask me to walk this path I am on?   ^"For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin." Hebrews 12.  He could ask me because I had not come close to the sacrifice yet that He made for me. 


My Lord
I have always admired Mary.  She has been one of my favorite characters in the Bible.  Not because she carried Baby Jesus in her womb, but because in the face of all it meant, her only response to a request made of her by God was, "I am your bond servant. May it be done to me according to your word." Luke 1. I want to be like Mary when I grow up.  I don't want to belly ache when God asks me to do the hard stuff.  Mary risked it all!  Her family, her church, her fiance, her future.  She placed all of it on the words of a messenger from God! No why's, no excuses, no "I'll do that laters". Just  humble, respectful, faith-filled obedience. If I truly desire God to be Lord, then NOTHING is off limits! Not my children, not my family, not my finances, not my friends, not my ministry. NOTHING! I must say, may it be done to me according to your word...then trust Him to fulfill that Word.

Abba, Father
Never before have I understood my Abba, Father's heart as I do this Christmas.  I know this comparison breaks down on many levels, but because of the past year, I have a new understanding, awareness, revelation of what my Abba, Father must have felt that day when He heard His Son cry for the first time.  The vulnerability that cry engulfed.  The pain that must have coursed through my Abba, Father's heart as He knew the dangers of this world His son would have to face.  I can't even begin to wrap my human mind around what God was thinking in that moment.  Watching a child walk away from our family to a life that holds so many dangers gave me a revelation about all God did for me by allowing His son to enter this world as a baby in a manger that we celebrate each year.  I love my friends dearly, but there is not a one of you that I would have let my daughter go for in order to save you.  She is too precious to me. No matter how much I love each of you, I love my daughter more. But not my Abba, Father! He loves me...and you...enough to send His Son into this earth with the sole purpose of suffering for our freedom. Oh how I have taken that sacrifice for granted.  No words.  There are no words to describe the feelings, the gratitude, the humility that rises up in me when I think of how my Abba, Father was willing to sacrifice His own son in order that I...and you...might live! Thank you, God!  How can I respond with anything less than my life?!

A Gift
It was a gift.  A free gift.  We celebrate Christmas because Jesus was born.  But without the cross and the Resurrection, that baby born in the manager would just be a sad story about a broke young couple with nowhere for their baby to be born, right? But that's not it! That baby would grow up, work miracles, then die on a cross to be raised three days later.  All of that to offer you and me a gift of eternal life. A gift of abundant life here on earth and an eternity worshiping Him in His presence! I just have to receive it.  I can never earn it. But no matter how amazing it is. No matter how beautifully it's wrapped or how bright the gift makes your future, you have to accept it for it to matter.  And even after the gift of salvation, there are gifts every day that God offers us.  Every time we choose to walk in obedience and not rebellion, there is a free gift, a blessing.  Don't confuse the two: salvation cannot be earned! Most blessings on the other hand are tied to obedience and walking with God.  After walking the path I've walked the past two years, I have a clearer understanding of what it does to God when we reject any of His gifts. Watching my children reject the gifts I have to give them or the instruction I have given that will protect them from harm reminds me that my Abba, Father feels the same when I disobey or walk outside His protection.  I don't set rules and give instruction because I want to make my children miserable.  I set rules and give instruction because they are safe for my children.  I want to protect them from the outcomes that are harmful to them.  Oh how our Abba, Father feels the same!  This Christmas, I am keenly aware of the pain I cause my Savior and my Heavenly Father when I choose a path outside their will.


After the past two years, and 2012 specifically, I know that baby in the manger like I have never known Him before! As I celebrate this year, it is with a depth I've not known before. Through all the trials, I have come to understand like never before that the trials I face (and I am not saying to wish for trials or to think the trials even come "from" God! - that is a theological discussion for another time...or not)  if I allow them to, will throw me directly and intimately into the arms of my Savior! And this Christmas, that is what I celebrate the most!



Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the [very] sentence of death, but that was to keep us from trusting in and depending on ourselves instead of on God Who raises the dead.[For it is He] Who rescued and saved us from such a perilous death, and He will still rescue and save us; in and on Him we have set our hope (our joyful and confident expectation) that He will again deliver us [from danger and destruction and ^[c]draw us to Himself], 2 Corinthians 1:9-10

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