Anyone else feeling a little behind on their plans for a perfect Christmas? It starts with the best ideas of joy and family and love. Planning delicious food, amazing gifts, one perfect day. Especially after a year…and another year… of big challenges for our little kids.
If you have watched your child go to school with a mask on everyday, you know. If you have had your baby tested for COVID four times so they can continue going to daycare, you know. If you have sent your firstborn off to college in the middle of a pandemic, you know.
The world is far from perfect. So I want to give my kids one perfect day. A day filled with joy and light and hope. A day filled with family and love. And I want to be present, I want to feel the joy, I want to see the light.
The idea of a perfect Christmas may look different for each one of us. But I can tell you what it doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like giving birth alone outside in a barn. Now my kids love their little nativity set. There are animals and a baby and what is not to love? But I cannot look at the nativity without being struck by the powerhouse strength and love and sacrifice of a young woman who gave birth in a barn, without a mother or an aunt by her side. The highly favored mother of God. The one real, perfect, messy Christmas.
So be gentle with yourself, because this world is messy. But the darkness cannot extinguish the light. Jesus enters into the mess, he doesn’t expect perfection, far from it. He draws near to the brokenness, to the tired and weary. He is here, he sees you, and you are enough.
Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens*, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
*some Bible translations use “labor and heavy laden” which I also love here.
in the image 