Christmas Preparations

This year preparing for Christmas has been haunting me.  Thanksgiving came quickly this year and although I was thinking of Christmas I wasn't quite ready to begin the Advent celebration.  The burning of our fifth child's birth came quickly also, answering my cries to Christ that he, my boy child, come while our daddy was home rather than away.  


Ann Voskamp put out a great Jesse Tree collection this year that I was ready to print and start and had no paper or toner in either printer.  If you know me you know I don't like to get behind on things and I was irritated that I was unable to start on the Advent weekend.  I can't get behind because I fail to catch up. The days pass quickly with the warming of the sun on the grass then it fading into the West casting shadows on the backyard while their feet leave imprints in the grass, small yet growing prints.


How could I capture the Christmas spirit without all the "tools" in my arsenal to teach my little ones about Jesus and His glorious birth.  They are so small that often I wonder if their hearts even truly receive my spoken words but I know God's word does not return void and their gentle, quiet spirits breath Him in as they were designed to do and they somehow grow to know Him.  


Do I need tools?  Is the Jesse Tree the only way to show them Jesus this Christmas?  Can we discover Christ's love for us without the tree, the lights, the advent calendar, the cold as our weather has been exceptionally warm here?  I heard God faintly whisper, YES, I AM.


Through words; spoken, read, prayed, breathed, repeated, posted, and whispered to each other we can see Jesus amidst the Christmas doing.  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated, “The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation.”

It is in the shadows oft his truth that we find, feel, see, touch, and experience Jesus this Christmas.  We remind each other of what Christmas is all about when we speak of the God child sent by God to be our hope and salvation.  My prayer becomes that my children experience these conversations concerning God's Word with us. That they explore God's unending grace, love, and divine plan through the teaching of words about Him.  

We've since put up the tree, the lights sparkling around our cross outside posted to the front of the house as a beacon of hope, our Christmas cards done and sent expressing God's Love for His people this year.  We've begun reading books about Jesus, talking and praying about Christmas, and seeking to find Him this holiday in places we have not yet searched.