Thanksgiving week is here! To all of you who are hosting, I'm sure your homes are getting a big mad. Guest room doors are flying open. Elaborate cooking schedules are being tweaked. Groceries are coming out of your ears. All as you try to move two tons of wet leaves to the curb...
In the midst of preparations for Thanksgiving, do you start to get Christmas butterflies? I sure do. There's no way around it - it just happens. Christmas is right there, on Thanksgiving's doorstep - jingling its mesmerizing bells, twinkling its brilliant lights, beckoning with its warm, familiar refrain.
When beautiful memories of Christmases past come colliding with expectations of Christmas present, my heart goes out in a million directions to create magic and be a part of it... to make moments happen for my family and bring that Christmas feeling home again.
As this excitement and anticipation swell, I can feel that my center is off kilter. I often jump right into the thick of the shopping and decorating, and hot cocoa and holiday lattes, without first grounding my advent season in prayer.
So this Christmas, I'm going to do my very best to make prayer my top priority, so that I can be fully present and open to receiving the gifts of the season, as they happen on their own - without lamentation or coordination.
The true beauty of the holidays is so very different from the splendid chaos that's front and center in our culture. It is quiet and powerful. It is the gift of GOD. If I'm spinning, it will still be there, but I'll miss it. This verse helps me to remember that Jesus is God's gift to us, and that God's love is something that I could never orchestrate or earn. But with prayer and reflection, I will understand and be changed.
1 John 5:20 - And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true.