Twenty five days of Advent. The season of waiting, the season of wondering. And inevitably, the season of expectations. My best attempts at creating a Jesus-focused Christmas season this year led to a significant scale back of activities along with a firm resolution to refrain from manufacturing high hopes of any holiday splendor. For the first 23 days, things went pretty well and by "well" I mean, low key. And then Christmas Eve hit the Honeycutt's. I had three teeny-weeny plans for us:
1) Decorate sugar cookies with friends
2) Attend Christmas Eve service as a family
and,
3) Brunch with the Bobbits on Christmas morn.
None of that happened. Hayden and Hudson contracted some sort of eye infection. The doctor said it looked bacterial in nature and prescribed antibiotics. Both my boys had swelled up faces, puffy red eyes with oozing gunk and minimal energy. (Let's just say it is a blessing that my plans did not include # 4) a gorgeous "catch us in our Christmas wonder" family photo!)
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| The sickies cookies for Santa of Christmas Eve (obviously NOT at church). |
Fa-la-la-la LAME-O!
I took it hard. Three goals?! Three goals on paper ALL Christmas season.... and NONE of it could come to fruition? Can't this mom plan anything? My goals were not grand AND they didn't come from Pintrest!
But... (prepare yourself for my massive kick in the face Christmas reminder):
Jesus came and turned all rational, reasonable and well meaning expectations on their head.
I have been doing my own Advent devotions (The Greatest Gift) this season on just this very thing. So why was I surprised? Had I really missed the practical application of all I had been reading?
A King... in a manger?
A Savior... with shepherds as His welcoming committee?
A Lord... born to a virgin?
None of that makes sense. Expecting any of that would have been realistically foolish. And yet, that is what God gave. His Son, to conquer the world, sin, evil, hate, hurt... ALL of the ugly... He was on a mission to win with love. Not with glamour, armies, power, money, good looks... not with all of the stuff we attribute to winners in this world.
LOVE.
That is the word the Holy Spirit gave me earlier this Advent.
Jesus came with a plan.
Jesus had an agenda.
It was love.
Huh... what is MY agenda?
My agenda this Advent was to keep things minimal and emphasize a couple new traditions. Could it be possible that in my quest for simplicity I kept LOVE off my little list? If love was a given for me, I would have seen the minor disappointments of a failed to-do list as opportunities to love more, love deeper, love more creatively.
I didn't.
I saw them as injustices. And when I look for injustices in my life, it inevitably leads to score keeping. And score keeping does not come from love.
In fact, it is the opposite of love.
Lists are good. Jesus gave us a list. He listed the top two commandments:
1) "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength...
2)Love your neighbor as yourself." Mark 12:30-31
LOVE came down.
LOVE COMES DOWN.
It came down and asks, nay BEGS to be at the top of my list. Any list. No matter how minimal or extensive.
A list without love is going to disappoint, regardless of how low, reasonable or well planned my expectations may be.
Even if love would have topped my list, I realistically would have still felt sad that my kids were sick and plans were altered this Christmas. This world holds disappointment. But I also believe that when LOVE is the focus possibility abounds and I am more available to see setbacks as opportunity and failures as doorways for grace. My focus is different when love is at the top. Postponed cookie decorating could be a way to extend Christmas. Missed church service would be a great chance to cuddle up by our own twinkling tree while caroling and reading the Gospel. A failed Christmas brunch? Maybe that would be seen as a gift of a funny memory of catering food back and forth between friends doorways as we shared food from separate kitchens... with a resolution to try again... on another holiday in another year.
Without love Jesus would have just been another baby, born into less than ideal circumstances on a really bad night for having babies in Bethlehem. Instead, that baby was love come down. Love to save, Love to redeem, Love to give possibility when my lists are not enough, Love to give new perspective when failures abound, Love to change my eyes, Love to give life to death.
Love, it seems so obvious I don't add it to my list.
Until now.
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| O Christmas tree! |
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