I admit it I am a kid at heart! Growing up in a large family in a small rural Mid-Western town, I have stored some really good memories, and of course they are somewhat romanticized. Magical snow-falls on cold nights, sledding on a hill that at the time seemed a lot longer and steeper than it is today, drinking hot chocolate with large melted marsh-mellows that left a mustache on my upper lip but did warm up my chilled to the bones body! I remember Christmas Eve services at my church where we held candles while singing "Silent Night" at midnight and then heard the church bells ring as the service ended. Now that was pretty cool. I remember all 5 of us kids "sleeping" in the same room on Christmas Eve and waiting the next morning for our parents to drink their coffee before we could come downstairs, open our stockings first and then taking turns (youngest to oldest and one at a time) opening our presents and saying thank you after each one.
Good memories as a kid for sure, and later as a Dad myself I did my best to create memories for my girls. Whether it was decorating the house, letting them pick out the real tree, and decorating it with the sounds of really old Christmas music playing in the background. We would read my collection of Christmas stories while drinking hot chocolate and picking out a local family to share the 12 Days of Christmas with as we anonymously put a package on the front steps, rang the door bell and ran before they could see us and never knew who did it!
But my girls are grown up now, and just a couple weeks ago I helped my oldest and her husband decorate their very first tree and listen to the same corny Christmas music that she has to play! It can be depressing not having little ones around, but I truly want to focus on the gift of God and everything that goes with it. I don't want to get caught up on racking my brain out trying to come up with that just right gift for the special people in my life in hopes that they will really, really love it or hope that those who choose to give me a gift will give me just the right one so that my fragile ego will be stroked just enough to feel good!
No, instead I want to experience the knowledge from head to heart that God truly loved me enough to send His perfect Son to take my place and pay in full the penalty for my waywardness that my efforts and good deeds could never do. I am amazed that God would replace my filthy rags of niceness and good works that will always fall short with a royal robe of His righteousness that Christ Himself will put on me. I can barely take in that He chose to adopt me, give me an inheritance that has a value that cannot be measured and that God would not just choose me but use me, that He would give me a new identity, a new name and allow me to come boldly before Him with confidence all because of what Jesus did by being obedient instead of keeping His rightful, comfortable throne in Heaven and leave it for a humble, smelly stable. That He would choose to be spat on, wrongly accused, mocked, beaten beyond recognition and then endure for awhile the cross and be separated from His Father all so that we could be set free from sin and be forgiven.
He has changed the world, the fact that the world stops and celebrates Him is amazing, but that we worship temporal gifts instead of the true gift and the great gift giver must sadden Him immensely. May Christmas 2010 become the year when we all bend down on our knees and take the time to worship and adore what this season and holiday are all about! Oh Come Let Us Adore Him, Christ the Lord!
