“It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers His name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle – the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture. And this is no ordinary baby. This is the child upon whom everything would depend. This is the child who would one day – but wait. Our story starts where all good stories start. Right at the very beginning…” Jesus Storybook Bible
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder,and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”
Isaiah 9:6-7
Its going to be really sad to not be home on Christmas. I know that when I skype with my family on Christmas day and they are all there together without me, it will be so hard on my heart. I come from a family of great Christmas traditions and a busy Christmas Day. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is that everyone is invited. We have a huge Christmas dinner and anyone who doesn’t have a place to go is invited. I have never had to worry about offending my mom because I invited someone else to eat with us. Christmas is such a special time for us. But its also busy.
This Christmas season is so different. We had a party for kids at our house, but it centered around the reading of the Christmas story. We have prayed together every morning and taken time to do advent every Sunday (a tradition I’m thankful to my parents for starting). There isn’t commercialism every time I look around, instead there is poverty. We don’t ask the kids here what they want for Christmas, because they probably aren’t getting anything. We have had to think of ways to bless them without just giving things away because giving tends to make them greedier. So we have to remember. What is Christmas? What is it really about? What can we give them that is lasting?
This is not to say that we will not give any Christmas gifts this year or not have Christmas movies playing (Kate is obsessed with Elf in Spanish) or not have a pile of Christmas cookies in the kitchen. And when we go to the mall the forth floor of Carrion is a Christmas commercialism explosion. But here, in my house, with these kids, I can remember. Jesus was poor. God sent his Son from His right hand to become poor. This means more to me this year than ever before. And its hard to swallow. He was not what the world expected. But He was the missing piece of the puzzle and God knew He was exactly the type of Savior that we needed.
Such a great post.
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