Christmas is 10 days away. I love Christmas - love Christmas music, and decorating, making cookies, hiding gifts, going to nursing homes and singing Christmas carols, making home-made gifts, hanging up mistletoe and waiting for my husband to come home and kiss me under it, going shopping with my sweet husband and hiding in the store while we both try and shop for each other ... the list could go on and on. It's one of my most favorite times of the year.
I'm not feeling well this Christmas season and have been struggling with wanting to do all the fun things I love to do like make cookies and look at Christmas lights but not having the health to do them this year.
Last night as I lay in bed I looked out the door and caught a glimpse of our simple nativity set up on the piano with pine boughs and twinkle lights. And peace washed over my soul. Christmas is so much more than the fun things we do to show love to others. Christmas is the simple yet profound coming of God in the form of a helpless baby to save all who believe from the penalty of sin and give us hope and peace and joy in life. Even in the suffering of life. I still desire to make cookies to deliver to the neighbors, send cards to loved ones, make spiced honey for family members ... I still look forward to singing Christmas hymns surrounded by family on Christmas Eve, of watching my neices and nephews playing and filled with excitment on Christmas day .. these things are not bad in themselves. But, if these things are taken away for whatever reason - I will still celebrate with heart full of joy this most precious gift ever given: Jesus Christ as a baby in that manger so many years ago. Maybe Jesus came as a baby to remind all of us that we are helpless without God in our lives, to remind us that even when we feel like everything is out of our control - that He knows what is best and loves us enough to lay down His life for ours.
Christmas is best expressed through worship - and that is something I can do weather I am playing piano next to a beautiful tree or laying in a hospital bed.
And Jesus is worthy to be praised either way.
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