Christmas: What I Didn't Get and What I Want

I didn't get it then. Why we would light those candles every week leading up to Christmas. Why, when gifts were waiting to be opened, some even conspicuously peeking out from stockings, we had to listen to my dad read Luke Chapter two. We had woken up, lined ourselves in the hallway youngest to oldest, not allowed to simply tear into our gifts as we imagined other children did. No, we must wait for that infamous Christmas morning picture of the five of us standing there in the hallway in our pajamas, puffy-eyed and messy-haired, feeling as though every delay of our delight was a cruel torture. Why did our family have to be so weird?

And then, to finally be allowed into the living room, sit down in front of the hearth next to our stockings and “hearth gifts” (in addition to our stockings, we each received one gift from our parents which we called a “hearth gift” because of where it was placed. Creative, I know), only to wait more. This was the part of the morning where my dad would read the Christmas story and pray a prayer that seemed like it would never end. I remember even as a child feeling vaguely guilty that I really didn't care about listening to the story at all. I knew that it had some importance, but it could wait, couldn't it?

I didn't get it then.

And I don't know if I get it fully now. But I'm learning, I think. I definitely have learned that the euphoria of new gifts wears off quite quickly. I know that usually when I'm expecting Christmas (or anything else, for that matter) to satisfy some deep longing in my heart, I am usually disappointed. I felt things deeply as a child and I remember the feeling of hollowness that would sometimes engulf me as I cleaned up all the wrapping paper in the living room and took my little pile of gifts to my room. Even then I felt the ache for something more.

The words of a Jon Foreman song keep coming to mind:

My mind is dull and shattered
From these years of buy and sell
My mind has seen the glory
Of this hollow, modern shell
Sex is a grand production
But I'm bored with that as well
Ahh-ahh-ahh
Lord save me from myself.

Now I get what my parents were trying to do, in their small but intentional way. They were pointing us to something more. And maybe those traditions and all the waiting weren't just for the child-versions of ourselves. Maybe they were planting seeds in our little hearts so that one day, when we were older, we would remember. One day the story that often bored us as children would come back to us and stop us in our tracks and it would hit us. Wait, God came to us? To earth? God. Came. To. Earth. And maybe we would look at the child-versions of ourselves and see that in many ways, we haven't changed all that much. That we still grasp for things and for the ever elusive ideal circumstances or accomplishments that will make our life just right. That we still struggle to wait and to quiet our hearts before a holy God. That we still struggle to be satisfied with the gift of Jesus right before us, often coveting gifts that are not ours or wanting to tear into others before the proper time.

And I find myself saying, “Lord, save me from myself.”

And He does. And He did. Because He came and is Immanuel, God with us. Because He died for us and rose again and said that His kingdom, a new way of life with Him as King, is here, And He is still with us. And He said that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. And when we do the things He said to do, like love our enemies, feed the hungry, visit the sick and lonely, move towards the people who irritate us, and choose forgiveness over bitterness, we find abundance breaking into our hollowness. We find life. And we don't have to dread December 26^th because we know that He'll be with us then too, and we don't have to live at the mercy of the highs and lows of our calendar or our emotions because we are secure as His children, living in His kingdom, and finding the rest that He offers as we learn from Him.

Jesus, You were the real gift all along. Thank you for being patient with me all these years when I've wanted things more than you. Thank you that life in your kingdom is the life that truly satisfies. Save me from myself, and teach me how to truly live.

Today's List

To Do: Give Thanks

For...
hot soup on cold days
hands to work
the warmth of a mug in my hands
disappointments that turn eyes to the One who is faithful
being asked out on a date by my best friend
friends to journey through life with
talking to strangers in stores
the anticipation of Advent...
and the living, straining, learning and loving until that final Advent
when all that's wrong will be made right

Thoughts on Thankfulness

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who
orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God.
Psalm 50:23

I know I said in my last blog post that next time I would write more on living reflectively, and I do want to get back to that, but the topic of thankfulness has been impressed upon me so much lately that I wanted to share a few thoughts with you.

This thought came to me this morning as I was getting ready for the day: Don't wait to feel thankful to say thank you. I suppose we can (and we do) wait if we choose to, but for many of us, that would mean waiting a very long time. And I don't mean saying a half-hearted thank you merely out of habit because we were taught that it's proper manners to do so. I mean, deep, heartfelt gratitude offered ultimately to God, but also spilling over into the lives of all we encounter.

Thankfulness is cultivated in the every day, mundane details of our lives. Though there are reasons to give thanks all around us, sometimes certain seasons may require a little extra mining of our circumstances to trace the hand of God and see his goodness abounding. We must train our eyes and hearts to see. There are myriads of distractions to keep us from learning to do this, and by distractions I don't simply mean things that make us look another direction, but detrimental things that keep us from being thankful--things like envy and comparison. Always, always there will be someone who has more or better things than us. And alway, always there will be people who appear to be happier, smarter, prettier/ handsomer and who seem to have better relationships with their spouses, more well behaved children, and the list goes on. If we make whatever other people have or appear to have, the standard for thankfulness in our lives, we will forever be drowning in a sea of discontentment. Our hearts are so prone to envy in others what we do not have, so prone to complaining, negativity, and discontentment, that these other weeds will quickly choke out any seeds of thankfulness and joy in our hearts. There's a reason the hymn writer wrote, "Tune my heart to sing Thy praise." Our hearts all too easily get out of tune. Again, if we wait for them to magically tune themselves, we will be waiting a very long time. Meanwhile, our hearts will become so overgrown by envy and negativity that despair will easily overtake us, and like the writer of Ecclesiastes, we will have difficulty seeing meaning in anything. "All is vanity!" we will cry.

So, like the hymn writer, we must pray, "Tune my heart, Lord! I know I have reason to praise you, but all I feel is the heavy weight of life bearing down upon me. All I see is the evil and injustice of this world, and it seems like everything I desire, you give to others and not to me. Help me, Lord! My heart is out of tune; tune it once again to give you praise." And then we wait. But we don't wait passively. We begin to give thanks--for anything and everything that comes to mind. We do our part to tune our hearts, even as it may feel forced, and we wait for him to transform us from grumblers into the most thankful people we know. And it is in thankfulness that we will meet him, for how can we truly walk in fellowship with our Father when we are blinded to his goodness and love because of our ungrateful spirits? How can we follow a Savior who became a servant and emptied himself for our sakes if we constantly feel entitled to life on our terms? Oh, friends, I want to know him and follow him and I know I can't do it with the baggage of ungratefulness, envy, and discontentment. He is worthy of my worship, awe, and deepest, most profound thanks. Would you join me in this fierce fight to be a thankful people?

Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

Hosea 6:3