In my mind, as a child, Christmas meant perfection. It meant that the world stopped, Mom cooked, I spent days smelling fresh pine and watching lights twinkle in the tree and anticipating the gifts to be unwrapped on Christmas morning. It meant that all was well and no one was hurting.
When I was first married, Christmas meant a lot of nesting, decorating, cooking and exhaustion. I wanted the house to look like something out of Pottery Barn or Martha Stewart Living, neither of which is bad, but we didn't have the budget to make that happen.
Now, Christmas still means a lot of hard work, but it means so much more. Pain and suffering continue at Christmas for many. While we focus on being jolly and eating great food tomorrow, two women in my church are suffering from cancer -- one is recurring breast cancer and one is colon cancer that has spread rapidly. My own heart continues to break from depression that does not seem to want to lift. People around the world are still oppressed, children still hungry, babies still aborted.
So, if the world goes on at Christmas, are we pretending by making all this merry? I don't think so, unless we are only in it for the gifts. As I scrubbed the blinds on the window over my kitchen sink last week, I pondered deeply why I only do things like scrubbing blinds at Christmas. There are certain types of deep cleaning that I reserve for the holidays. Why not other times of the year? I watched the dingy gray collection of dust from the year come away as I used Clorox Clean-Up and hot water with vinegar. I watched the patches of white appear in contrast to the dirty slats that I had not yet attacked, and I knew I would be scrubbing the same filth off again in a year. And yet I feel the need to prepare my home for the celebration of the Christ child. I thought about my heart.
My heart is so like those blinds. I know it is a dark and sinful place. I work very hard to clean it up but no matter how hard I work, the same dingy filth comes back. I can't keep it off, no matter how hard my best efforts are. I need someone else to clean it for me. Let every heart prepare Him room. I want to prepare Him room, but I need His help to even begin. Tomorrow, as my children rip into their presents, I will remember why the church took this pagan time and claimed it as it's own. This celebration that has been so convoluted, not by the fairy tale of Santa, but by the desire for the world in my own doubting heart, is about my need for a Savior.
Here is a poem that my mentor shared with me. It sums up, I think, the point of joy on Christmas:
God Sent us a Savior!
(author unknown)
If our greatest need had been information
God would have sent us an educator.
If our greatest need had been technology
God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been money
God would have sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been pleasure
God would have sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need was forgiveness
So God sent us a Savior.
Thomas recognizes Jesus after seeing His scars.
Merry Christmas!
2 comments:
This is one of those posts that I have read several times and am still not sure exactly how to comment. This entire Christmas season has been about whether or not my heart has been right and your description of cleaning the blinds fits that perfectly.
Christmas, for me, has always been about tradition, but somehow every "traditional" thing I tried to do rang hollow for me this year. It wasn't until I realized that the problem was in my heart that I was able to enjoy the things that have always been special to me.
p.s. ~ I am so glad you are blogging again!
Jennifer, it sounds like you and I shared some common struggles this Christmas season. Gifts and food and tradition are really empty things, just as life is empty without Christ and His redeeming love. It's good to be blogging again and I hope we can catch up soon!
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