This Christmas season has me thinking a little more than others have in the past couple years, about all kinds of things. Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but I keep thinking about how maybe I'm not so sad if we stop using the word "Christmas" too much. Like, if we call our office Christmas party a "Holiday Party," maybe that's good. Because it isn't really celebrating the true Christmas. Christmas is so much more than some sweet stories about a star and a baby, shepherd costumes, and family time and gifts. Christmas is the most important event in all of humanity, with the exception of Easter. So maybe if we are not actually talking about Jesus, it's okay to use these other terms. Because the reason we celebrate is because God has come to us. Not because we have a great family, or because we have some fun experiences and feel warm and cozy around the holidays. A God that loves us proved that he was in control of the world and made a promise that He was going to right all wrongs, at Christmas. And that is what we're celebrating. The fact that love broke through.
The one thing I have learned so far in my 14 weeks of "parenthood" is how good of an illusion of control I had in my life before this. The reality is that I am 100% dependent upon God to keep this little one healthy and developing, and there is really nothing I can do to control it. This has always been true for everything in my life, but this baby has put that into focus. Friends, God is in control. Of my child's development, of your career, of your family members' health, of your broken relationships, of your loneliness, of your life. And that is terrifying. Until we realize the personality of the one in control.
Someone is in control that loves you so much that He came here, for you. The God of the universe, the one that created you, that created the Grand Canyon, that created the stars, set aside heaven, with all its relational perfection, with all its peace and joy, with all its wholeness and beauty, and came here, to earth. To be born under scandalous circumstances to a poor young family. To grow up and learn to be obedient, even to broken parents. To be homeless and penniless, without a single asset to his name. To be single and never make it to the age of 40. To be betrayed by his best friends. To be discriminated against by the criminal justice system. To be executed, painfully, as a criminal, while his executioners bartered for his clothes. And he did all that. For you. To live the life you should have lived, but didn't. To die the death you deserved to die. And He did this, not only for you, but so that he could begin the process of weaving the world back together again. So that he could start the long and sometimes painful process of turning our hearts back to the shape and size they were meant to be. So that he can rid our hearts of the icky things inside of them and replace them with beautiful things like patience, humility, joy, hope, and love.
And one day he will bring you Home. To the real home that you have been longing for. One where you don't have to watch your family members get put into the ground. One where love doesn't ultimately break your heart but rather dismisses your fears. And It's almost too hard to believe that there will one day be a time when all that is lost will ever be found. There's too much roughness and pain in the world to think that it could ever be righted. But that's what we're promised. And that's what I believe. That one day, every tear will be wiped away from our faces, and that there will be no more pain or tears or loneliness or sinfulness.
And that's what Christmas is all about. That God has come. That he saved us from ourselves. And that the little baby born in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago was the first flicker of a new world that is still yet to come.
Beautiful, Kat! Oh, I am so thankful you wrote this and shared it.
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