I Found My Christmas Spirit

I can be a scrooge at Christmas.  Yes, me.  Bubbly, polite, smiley, Jesus-loving Kristy gets annoyed at all the hubbub and commercialism that now surrounds it all. It takes a LOT to get me in the Christmas spirit before Thanksgiving.  Especially after the Christmas season we had last year, but I am already there this year.  Let me tell how God is already working on my heart preparing me for this season:

Thought #1:

Norah, my second grader, and I have been studying Creation/Adam and Eve in her Bible study this week.  Grady, 5, has been hanging around and asked some questions yesterday that were so good and insightful that it makes me wonder if God wasn't whispering to his heart too.

Why did God make Adam in the first place?

Why did God make Adam work?

Why did he make the tree of knowledge of good and evil?  If He just didn't make the tree, then Eve and Adam wouldn't have eaten from it.

This lead to more discussion with Brandon after the kids went to bed.

God knew they would eat from it. He knew they would, and He made it anyway.  He KNEW they would question Him and rebel from Him and let sin enter His perfect creation, and He made it anyway. He knew from before Adam breathed his first breath that He would eventually have to die to save us from it. Wow.

I think about when I was pregnant with Norah.  I would lay in bed each night toward the end of my pregnancy and do my nightly “kick count.”  I had to get 10 kicks in 60 minutes.  She usually gave them to me in less than 5, but that was the longest 5 minutes of my life every. single. night.  I KNEW I would die for that baby, if that’s what it took, before I ever saw her face.

Matthew 7:11If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 

Thought #2

Again, Norah’s school work reminded me of a truth I have long since known to be true.  She is reading (listening to) a book set in the middle ages and focused around a wealthy nobleman’s son that, with great misfortune, is left alone and paralyzed.  A monk comes to care for him and after several weeks takes him to the chapel and instructs him to pray.  He is to “be thankful for all thou hast” and pray for safety of his father at war, his mother in service, and his healing.  The monk turns to go and the boy is left to his thoughts.  He can’t possibly pray like the monk said.  He is too angry and thinks God has surely forgotten him.  What does he have to be thankful for?  He decides to be thankful anyway, and to his surprise, the prayers come afterwards.

My grandmother has said this to me on several occasions and I’m here to testify, it works.  If you have anger or sadness or grief or are just plain ole grumpy, start thanking God for all your blessings and suddenly the other stuff starts to melt away. (I guess I’m in the Thanksgiving Spirit too! Ha!)

Here’s where it all comes together:

I've been humming the chorus to “Jesus Saves” since we sang it this Sunday morning and decided I needed to look up the lyrics so I could sing the whole thing.  Let me tell you (all 6 of you taking the time to get this far. Ha!)  I had a worship service right there in my kitchen cleaning up the breakfast dishes.  No lie.  I know all these facts.  I’m the one teaching them to my kids, but it all came flooding over me with a force that cannot be put into words.  Here’s the song in case you've never heard it:

http://youtu.be/WFgAnhHhesk

NO.  Even if you have heard it, go back and listen again while reading the lyrics. I’m serious.

For those of you that can’t get the link to work, here’s the lyrics.  I tried to post just a few and couldn't pick.

Hear the heart of Heaven beating, Jesus saves Jesus saves
and the hush of mercy breathing Jesus saves Jesus saves
Hear the Host of angels sing glory to the new born King
and the sounding joy repeating, Jesus saves

See the humblest hearts adore him, Jesus saves Jesus saves
and the wisest bow before him, Jesus saves Jesus saves
See the sky alive with praise, melting darkness in its blaze
There is light forevermore in Jesus saves

He will live, our sorrow sharing, Jesus saves Jesus saves
He will die our burdens bearing, Jesus saves Jesus saves
It is done will shout the cross, Christ has paid redemption's cost
While the empty tomb's declaring, Jesus saves

Freedom's calling, chains are falling, hope is dawning bright and true
Day is breaking, night is quaking, God is making all things new 

Jesus saves 

Oh to grace how great a debtor, Jesus saves Jesus saves
Are the saints who shout together, Jesus saves Jesus saves
Rising up so vast and strong, lifting up salvation's song
The redeemed will sing forever, Jesus saves

This may not sound like a Christmas song to you, but it will be blasting at my house all season long and we’ll be singing it around my Christmas tree!

Thank you God for loving us and being willing to die for us before we were ever even created!  Thank you does not seem like enough.  I wish there were stronger words to express what’s on my heart.  Thank you for leaving Heaven to come to earth as a baby.  Thank you for living life as a man and bearing man’s burdens, including all of our sin. Thank you for dying as our sacrifice and conquering death by rising again on the third day! Thank you for knowing that that was the plan all along.

Merry Christmas!