Finding Christmas

Finding Christmas

Each holy season, I try to focus on baby Jesus and not the commercialism.  Now, in America that is difficult.  As you read in my last blog, I tried to find Christmas at the mall with disastrous results.  So,as I sat early in the morning in my "Jesus and my chair", I began to pray and asked God to teach me. I have learned my faith needs daily bread to survive.  On this day, I was having a hard time staying still in the chair while I learned God’s word.  I asked God, “ How can I have a better holy season?”  Many times, I ask  God a question , then, pop out of the chair to make a cup of coffee.  My ADHD tendencies sometime make it difficult for me to calm down and focus.   Quiet meditation is a challenge for me.  Anyone relate?

As I passed one of my manger scenes, I felt an inward nudge to pick up baby Jesus from the nativity display.  I carried it back to my teaching, praying, learning chair, and held him.  I felt a warmth like a big hug or a soft ,velour blanket might give me.  I sat and looked at the figurine, but it wasn’t an inanimate object anymore.  Instead, I could see in my mind baby Jesus swaddled and resting in a manger.  As a mother and lover of new babies, I would have asked to hold him.  I know I would.  I would have cuddled his small body to me, touched his delicate hands and kissed his newly shaped head.  I would have held him close and secure so not to hurt or drop him and feel his warmth against my body.  This was my commission this holy season.

I am to hold baby Jesus each morning during my devotion time and meditate on all the times He held me in my life. I mean He watched over me through hardships, grieving, emptiness, or deep hurts.  In these quiet times with the Lord , He has revealed to me times when He went ahead of me and created safe paths, or had a certain person be somewhere so I could talk to them. I was unaware. Yet, he was always there. He has shown me how He has used certain babies to teach me love , grief, and compassion.  As I think on baby Jesus throughout my day, I can't forget the morning teaching.  It is a Christmas heart message that embraces me all day.

One of the strongest messages I realized last week was Jesus was born to be crucified.  As I hold new babies, I never think their destiny would be to be crucified.  Yet, God sent Jesus to and knew His mission on earth was to be crucified for our sins. That is pure love in a depth I cannot understand. That deep of love is in a spiritual realm that I am still learning.
            However, I have found Christmas.  Christmas is in the manger of our home.  Christmas is in the name of Jesus to whom every man and creature must bow.  Christmas is in every Silent Night that I hear and remember in my life time.  Jesus was there.  Jesus is here.  And the Christ child will be in every future Christmas if I just take the time to hold Him, to thank Him, and to meditate on how He has held me through my mistakes and my obedience.  Now, I truly have found Christmas.