Expect Christ

Last year I was nearly nine months pregnant when Christmas came around.  I’m usually one for decorating and all the holiday festivities but last year I was more like the Grinch.  My husband and kids did surprise me with a few decorations but that was the absolute extent of my holiday cheer.  This year I set out to make up for it.  I had grand intentions to go all out - turn our home into a winter wonderland with decorations all through, put to use some of my good Pinterest ideas and hand make our gifts, a real tree with ornaments all around - this was going to be the perfectly celebrated Christmas year!

My friend and I kicked off our holiday plans with ornaments for our kids to make.  We bought the bulbs, every color of glitter and set out to “make a memory.”  Then her son thought it would be a good idea to bounce on a giant exercise ball while holding his fragile, glitter filled ornament as it dried.  A few bounces later he lost his balance, his arms flew up and the ornament shattered.  The kids did manage to make several ornaments and we watched as my 11 month old tried to shake them off the drying rack.  In the middle of added stress this realization literally almost brought tears to my eyes:  My tree will be lucky to survive and even if it does it can only be decorated on the top half.

I thought I finally adjusted to the fact that things might not turn out as great as I anticipated but set out to make the best of it.  I excitedly went to the attic and brought down our holiday bins only to find them mostly emptied.  Then I remembered that during that last month of pregnancy I had got rid of most of our decorations.  I am unable to explain this other than no woman acts rationally during her last trimester.   I must confess that every part of me wanted to throw all three kids in the car, go to town and buy a cart full of decorations but this too would be unrational and pregnancy is no longer an excuse!  So I put up the strange deer, the even stranger dog Santa, the nativity and mistletoe.  I stood back and looked at a completely different picture than the one I had been looking forward to.

Then came time to go get our tree. We drove down the mountain to pick and cut down our tree.  Once again I looked forward to a beautiful Christmas memory.  The kids whined most of the car ride and it was far from the peaceful, caroling families you see on the Hallmark movies.  It was far from the picture perfect families you see on Facebook.  There was our girl in her Halloween shirt (her current favorite), a pink fur coat and her Muck boots.  There was our boy who burst out in tears at every too tall, too round tree that we passed by.  Somehow we did find a great deal of laughter and we decided that hunting for our tree at night was a tradition we should stick to because it always proves to be an adventure.  And yes in a moment of completely embracing the perfectly imperfect holiday this has turned into I wrote “Merry Christmas” on our dusty windshield.

A few days later when it was time to decorate the tree I couldn’t find more than one strand of lights.  We used to have more lights than we ever used and after searching I’m wondering if the pregnancy rid of the Christmas lights also.  So our tree is half lit.  I’m going with the idea that if there are lights on the bottom it will only draw more temptation to curious baby hands - I’m telling myself it’s a completely practical idea to only light half the tree.  And I couldn’t reach the top to put up our angel so I sat her aside until my husband came home.

There I sat on my rocker - my living room strewn with empty boxes, cheerios, and fingerprints - looking at my half lit, half decorated Christmas tree wondering what happened to my vision for this holiday.  And to be honest it hasn’t only been my decorations that are leaving me wondering.  It has also been the vision I had for my heart during this season.  I wasn’t expecting my heart to be totally undone.  I wasn’t expecting my life’s biggest, most treasured blessings to be turned over in total surrender.

Oh but they were and they are still.  And as I sat there rocking, praying, waiting, there He was.  Ever so near, ever so present, a glimpse of his light reminding me of the Capable Hands that hold when I let go.  The hands that can and will do a far better work than I could myself.  A light that gleams hope and faith when every step is not by sight but purely by faith.  Faith in the One who holds my heart.  Hope in the God who is Faithful.  Every time.

Because He chose to send a baby boy.   A boy who would one day turn his hands over to be nailed for the weight of all our imperfections.  And that is Perfect Love, Perfect Sacrifice, the perfect One to celebrate.  And I don’t need a mantle of tinsel or a tree that shimmers.  I don’t need a Hallmark movie or a picture perfect for sharing.  I just need a Savior.  I just need Grace.  And He is enough to cover it all.

“They saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him.  Then opening their treasure bags, they presented to Him gifts.” Matthew 2:11 AMP