All I Want For Christmas

Restful, peaceful, thankful.

This is how I want my Christmas season to feel. Not rushed. Not hurried. Not stressed. Just peaceful. And quiet. And still.

I want to taste the wonder of this season - the absolute thrill of incarnation.

I want to feel the tingle on my skin as I gaze into the manger for the very first time... locking eyes with the vulnerable God.

I want to exhale out all my worries and regrets and inhale all the grace and possibility of each moment.

I want to live through this season inspired by the shepherd-loving, secret-hiding, outrageously surprising God who wrote such an awe inspiring tale as this...

God with us. Here. Now.

Not in some distant future place. Not in the yester years gone by and forgotten. But here, now.

I want to soak it all in like a soft blanket around my skin - feeling all the warmth and joy bringing me quietly back to life again.

I want to lose all my jaded, judgemental hypocrisy in the garbage bin out back and run wild and free into the arms of a Daddy God more joyful, more jolly, and more generous by far than Santa Claus.

I want peace on earth to meet me here. Now. Right in the middle of all my brokenness and chaos.

I want Heaven with skin on to walk into my dirty kitchen and sit down on the floor next to me as I finally let go and let God.

I want to see my son’s eyes. My husband’s smile. My own reflection in the mirror staring wide eyed and beautiful back at me.

I want this and so much more...

And Christmas is the time for more! More joy! More color! More song! More kindness!

The time when Heaven leans in close as we remember the abundant, lavish, insanely reckless love of God - that trusted human hands to raise His only Son...

That slipped down out of glory into dust for us.

That gave until He could give no more... and then gave even more than that!

“Oh the overwhelming, never ending, reckless love of God!!! Oh, it chases me down, fights till I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine. And I couldn’t earn it, and I don’t deserve it. But still You give Yourself away... Oh! The overwhelming, never ending, reckless love of God!!”