Holiday Blessings

It is January already and not just January but almost February.  I know, I know, it has been so long since I've posted.  I must say that November and December kept me quite busy and although I don't find that to be much of an excuse at all it is the reality.  I often wanted to sit down and post and found that without the stillness of my home during naptime I couldn't concentrate enough to pour my heart out to God.  What a fallen woman I am that I feel like I need quiet time in order to successfully write to my Lord.  After all that is what this blog is all about, lifting up praise to my Father in Heaven for all His blessings in my life.  Forgive me father for staying away for so long.

Well with distance and absence I've also acquired a large amount of things to talk about here.  With the holiday season there were so many blessings, gifts, favorites and little snippets of life to explore.  The more time went by the harder it began to consider reflecting on them all!  It is a terrible cycle of falling behind and then letting that keep me from catching up!

Christmas this year was wonderful.  Justin and I thoroughly enjoyed the children and the process of teaching them about the meaning of Christmas.  We desire to put Christ at the center of our holiday traditions instead of an afterthought.

We put a few more age appropriate traditions into our Christmas readiness making sure to always turn their hearts back to Jesus.

Children can't help but get excited about the presents of Christmas morning and truly, I think Justin and I are always more excited than they are to give them something we know they will love.  We chose gifts carefully, with much research and we are very specific about giving them things we think they will love, not just giving them thing for the sake of having things!  When possible we made sure to remind them that we get presents b/c it is Jesus birthday and we get 3 presents each because the wise men gave Jesus 3 gifts for his birthday.  To their ability I am assured they understand.

For holiday traditions this year we did the following:

1. Read, "Room for a Little One" nightly leading up to Christmas
2. Read, "A Christmas Nativity"
3. Built a Jesse Tree with Ornaments and coloring pages to support the images
4. Angel Tree Giving
5. Small Christmas Crafts to encourage excitement about the holiday ($5 crafts from Michaels)
6. Opened Christmas PJ's on Christmas Eve
7. Watched a NEW Christmas Movie (Chipmunks Christmas)
8. Cole gave each of his siblings a gift to encourage giving
9. Sploozebells with our Cousins
10. A Movie with Dad at the Movie Theatre the week after Christmas (Chipmunks Squeakual)
11. Making a Birthday Cake for Jesus

It was a wonderful holiday and on Christmas each of the kids knew we were celebrating Jesus' birthday.  We put out a baby doll (that we originally intended to place in a manger in the morning but unfortunately never got around to making the manger. Dad gave it an attempt with our friend Zach Shepherd and it didn't quite turn out.) Next year we will be sure to place baby Jesus in a manger in the morning for the kids to see.

As I get older and I take more seriously, through my maturity, that my children have been placed into my care by God, to raise up in Him and given to Him to live lives devoted to Him I see how each holiday or event is an opportunity to guide them further towards the truth.  My duty is to build this truth up in their hearts so that when they are older they will have unshakeable faith in Christ.  Christmas has become one of the most wonderful opportunities to show my children Jesus.  I found this statement at Biblestudents.com concerning Christ's birth.

Salvation Foretold
The faithful of Israel and surrounding lands seemed to be aware of this promise of the Messiah, the perfect child from the lineage of Abraham, that would bring them all salvation. This promise contained the thought that a holy child would be born, and that in some way, not explained in the promise, this child would bring the blessing the world needed. The expectation was based upon the promise God made to Abraham, saying, "In thee and in thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Gen. 28:14 From that time forward Abraham began to look for the promised child. He looked first of all to his own children, and was finally informed that it would not be one of his children directly, but that through their children, at some remote date, this child should be born. From that time onward, all the Israelites were waiting for the birth of the child that should bring the blessing. Every mother amongst the Israelites was very solicitous that she might be the mother of a son rather than a daughter, that perchance she might be the mother of this promised child.
But why was Messiah necessary? Why wait at all for the birth of the child? In no other way could mankind be blessed. It would be impossible to bless mankind except by releasing them from sin and death. Hence, the Scriptures tell us of God’s sympathy; that God looked down from His holy habitation, and beheld our sorrow, and heard, figuratively, "the groaning of the prisoner" —humanity— all groaning and travailing under this penalty of death. Psa 102:20 But God’s sympathy was manifested; and we read that, "He looked down and beheld that there was no eye to pity and no arm to save" and with "His own arm He brought salvation." Isa. 59:16 This is what was promised to Abraham — that one should come from his posterity who would be the Savior of the world....it was necessary that Jesus should become the "man Christ Jesus," in order "that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man." Heb. 2:9 

This reminds us all that the truly greatest Gift of the holiday season was the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We pray that our holiday traditions would provide a path towards forming memories with our children but not that those traditions would take priority over the true reason we celebrate Christmas.  We would never want to fall victim to allowing traditions to cause us to lose sight of our Lord.   Only that our traditions and family events during the holiday would draw us nearer to Christ and reveal more of Him to us.

I like it put this way, "Let us resolve then, that this season, we will not allow the frenzy of the world and the traditions of men to darken the great light that our God has graciously given. "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light..." Isa. 9:2"

I pray Jesus that you would draw us nearer to your heart, quench the thirst only satisfied by you, call my children by name to serve you Father and in this short time that I might reflect your light into their lives that they may seek you, find you and become a Child of God. Amen--