Can We Open our Presents Yet?

THIS is the time of the Christmas season that as a young girl I begin to moan..."Can we open our presents?  Please, just one?"  My parents denied this request over and over again until Christmas Eve. Their rule was that we could open only one gift on Christmas Eve; and unfortunately Mama got to decide which gift!!  As I child I hated this rule as I wanted to decide which gift I would open!  I think my children felt the same way as we continued the same tradition...and still do!

Over 35 years ago, on Christmas Eve I was cooking special bread for friends.  I had been cooking all day long.  I was making cream cheese braids and it was a process of mixing, rising, filling, baking, waiting and then drizzling icing.  I was bone tired as we had prepared over 30 loaves of bread that day.   I had on my soiled apron, my face was flour-tinged, my hair was falling out of my pony tail, I had no makeup on and was ready to collapse.  It was around 6 p.m. when my boyfriend, who had helped me all day, told me that I could open one present on Christmas Eve.  Suddenly, I wasn't so tired any longer.

We entered his little den where a small Christmas tree waited with a few gifts underneath.  There was this very small ring-shaped box that I wanted to open!  As I looked at Ray with hopeful eyes, he simply shook his head and handed me another thin, shirt-sized box to open.  Again, I was denied what I wanted.  I took the gift Ray handed me and with hidden disappointment I began to unwrap the gift.  My mind was filled with thoughts of the years I had longed for a ring from this man; the one I loved and hoped to marry.  But, it was not to be on this night.  Chin up, I thought!  You must act pleased.  I unwrapped the box to find long white gloves...the type my mother wore in church in the 1950's.  I was stunned and really had no great exclamations of excitement.  "Oh, how nice I stumbled."  Ray, not to be deterred, hardly noticed.  He encouraged me to try them on so I slipped the right glove on..."it's pretty," I stammered.  Upon Ray's urging I continued to the other glove.  As I slipped it on my hand I felt something in the finger of the left hand.  What??? As I hurriedly removed the glove, there lay a perfect diamond ring.  As I looked at Ray, he simply said, "Will you?"

My heart hammered in my chest and burned with love for him, our future, the love he offered me.  The gift I wanted to open was not the one that was best for me that night.

This Christmas, we will be receiving many gifts from those we love but there is ONE gift that is the very best for you and me.  It's the One we must open to receive all the love offered.  His gift for us awaits us.  Let's not let the ONE gift lie unopened on Christmas morning.  For that's the nature of gifts, we must open them up and receive them.  Surely our hearts will hammer and burn like never before.  This gift of love is like no other.

Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.  They asked each other, "Were not our hears burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"  Luke 24:31

'Twas the Night Before

Mary and Joseph entered a tiny village with no where to bed;

She was very pregnant and perhaps he was filled with dread.

For where would they stay?

This blessed couple on whom the Christ child lay.

They were rejected by hotel and inn; 
but had knowledge that new life was about to begin.

Surrounded by the cold, the hay, the animals, the smell; 

But grateful the day had ended; e're not so well.

The stirrings began and soon came the One;

Who knew what had truly now begun?

Miles away the rough shepherds, like me and you; 

Looked to the sky and were startled anew.

But once they saw, once they heard;

There was no question that life would forever be altered.

They followed the love, they followed the call, they followed what their hearts could see.

He had come.  Finally, finally He had come.  No more hollow hearts, no more tears, no more striving to be more, finally freedom to be, to be who He created me to be.

Where do I find myself this week, this week before the birth?  Am I struggling to find rest?  Am I harried with the cold, dread of what lies ahead...the errands, the cooking, the company, the craziness we call Christmas.  Can I pull away and find the stillness that Mary and Joseph found in the birth place of Jesus?  Can I pull away and find myself as a shepherd in the quietness of a hillside?  For that is where the Glory will appear in this week before.  Choose for yourself today and break away to the quietness of the Christ.  He is coming.

The Fore Telling

We are a people who like to know what's coming next!  As a young girl, I loved going to the State Fair in Jackson, Mississippi.  Foolishly, my girlfriends and I always wanted to visit the palm reader.  We were in middle school wanting to know what was coming next.  Will I find a boyfriend who will like an overweight girl with freckles?  Will I go to college? Will I marry?  Will I have kids?  The palm reader would read our palms and all the answers seemed amazingly similar for each of us but we somehow didn't notice.  For she was telling us what we wanted to hear.  So, we happily paid our few coins and anticipated our futures!

Much more significantly, God also fore told some great news about our lives.  The Christmas season offers us a joyful type of fore telling....Christmas is coming!  Get ready!  Only 17 shopping days left!  Children are anticipating, excited for Christmas morning.  We know what's coming and we anticipate!  But isn't the fore telling pointing to more than gifts, food, lights and ribbon?

Recently, a Chinese friend experiencing Christmas for the first time asked me, "Ms. Kathy, if Jesus was born so many years ago, why do you still anticipate his birth?  I mean wasn't he already born?  Shouldn't people just have a birthday party for him?  It seems like such a big celebration for a simple birth."

What am I anticipating this Christmas, I pondered?  Yes, it was a simple birth but the birth of a complex Baby.  Let's remember that for generations and generations people had been anticipating a Savior King, waiting and watching for His arrival. For a Savior would save them from their difficult lives, they're persecution, the hard times of life.  Two thousand years later, it seems we too anticipate such a savior.  Our worlds sound similar, don't you think?  People are looking for someone to remedy their pain, someone to fill the void.  And this simple baby, complex King came then, comes today, will come this Christmas.

But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.  For no word from God will ever fail.”  Luke 1:30-32, 34-36, 37

Mary received news that she could have never expected.  How could such a fore telling have been expected?  The news was too unreal to comprehend or understand.  And even today, when we hear that Christmas is coming perhaps we too hesitate to truly comprehend the news.  Perhaps we get stuck in the to do list of the season.  Maybe the news of Jesus' birth is taken-for-granted so that it's not even Good News to us but just OK news (Mike Yaconelli).  

What is the big deal, she asked?  He was already born, right?  My answer to the student was, "Yes, He has come, He is coming and He will come again.  The greatest gift of life is coming to find me and you.  He didn't wait for us to find Him; He comes today, tomorrow and yesterday to meet us".  That's the big deal.  That is the fore telling of the Savior.  Anticipate this wonderful, incredible miraculous fore telling of the Savior.  He wrote your story on His hands.  He wrote His story on our hands.

Get Ready!

Some dear friends of ours are expecting.  They're expecting their first puppy!  This pup will be the first "baby" for these friends.  One of these friends has been hoping and praying for this gift, while the other was initially more hesitant but has now come to fully embrace the idea.  Their joy is palpable.  We've seen pictures of the family, heard stories about the naming, learned about house preparation.  And what we see in their faces is pure, delightful JOY.

A new world is about to open to them.  And for those of us who have walked this road ahead of them we know puppy-life is so very sweet...and so very, well..."puppilicious".  It's a world filled with exuberance, excitement, confusion, difficulties, crying (only from the pup) but forever love.  The shoes you love...gone.  Grandmother's hand-made quilt...in tatters.  Newly planted flowers...goodbye.
And yes, we'd all have a puppy again and again.  For there is nothing quite like that new, precious pup.  He forever changes your life.  Our friends are preparing to receive this new love.

It's time for us to prepare too.  For we are approaching a new love ourselves.  A birth that often gets lost in the preparation.  In these next few weeks, we will be preparing many things for many people in our lives.  My question is, are we preparing ourselves? Will we give ourselves this gift of preparation?  Just like my puppy-minded friends, we too, can excitedly be mindful of the gift that lies ahead.

Our Gift will be a gift of great value.  It will be a gift that we hardly understand or fully comprehend.  It will be a gift for this December and a gift of forever.  It will be a life-changing gift.
The worries in my life...He will resolve.
The pain of my past...He will heal.
The questions of tomorrow...He will lead.
The joys in my life...He will expand and renew.
The people I grieve over...He comes as a gift for them too.

How is it that our God is here today, yet coming tomorrow, and furthermore, coming in the future?  These are traits to be celebrated and anticipated and prepared to receive.  Mary prepared for His birth. John the Baptist, cried out, 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord'.  Luke 3:4 encourages us,

"As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

    make straight paths for him.. "

How do we prepare the way for the Lord?  How do we make the paths of our heart straight for him?
Let's be aware.
Let's be thoughtful in anticipation.
Let's be exuberant about the gift.
Let's rejoice in the change He brings, the wildly exciting experience and the joy of a Savior.
Let's look forward to our lives forever changing.