A Room

 The countdown is happening.  Whether we're counting down to Christmas or the Covid vaccine, I'm not too sure.  The news cycle is filled with covid updates and political updates.  Yet my mind and house are filled with Christmas packages and the UPS man!  These two worlds collide as we wonder who actually will be in our homes on Christmas morning.  I confess that I'm wondering why I'm going to all this Christmas trouble when the only celebrants at my house will be me and the hubs. I have rooms to fill but no one coming to fill them!  Are my rooms to remain empty?

There is an old story about a couple of travelers who were told, 'there is NO ROOM for you'.  Mary and Joseph instead turned to a cow stall and made room.  This couple who had gone through their own nine months of shock, of an unexpected life event.  How did they make room?  How did they prepare a place?

The countdown to Christmas is about a room in a cow stall that was suddenly prepared and filled with Glory.  A Glory that was born to die for us.  A prepared room full of hope and renewed life.

How does one prepare a place, prepare a room?  Many of the rooms in my physical house are filled with trinkets, books, memories and dust!  Under the beds are high school pictures, awards, and art projects.  In the closets, I find my mother's hand-me-down trinkets, camping gear, old brass, baby clothes and on and on.  In other words, I find a lot of unneeded and forgotten objects.  My rooms need a cleaning.  Maybe this is the year that I finally understand that no matter how many rooms in my physical house are filled with people, Christmas trees, gifts, and food galore, there is truly only one room that needs to be filled.  And that's the small secret room inside of me.

I've come to understand that this private room needs my utmost attention.  It has a lot of stored hurt and pain, a lot of disappointment and failure and a lot of dust that needs a good sweeping out.  But a miracle is also buried deep inside the secret room and it is a fragment of Glory.  This is the room we each are to celebrate this Christmas Day.  

And, yes we may be alone in our multi-room houses but the only important fact is that the Baby King will join us in our private room.  He came to prepare a place for us.  He came, has come and will continue to enter this secret place in each of us.  Our celebration inside our own hearts and totally alone in His presence, is that He came to earth get us, to show us a way, and He has prepared for us a home filled with many rooms and filled with His Glory.

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many rooms; if that were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be. John 14:1-3

kathyhayes