From the pages of my journal on Christmas Day…
Dearest Lord, with your take-on-flesh love for me…
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! For this advent, for this perfect Christmas Day.
Thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, for your coming, for your story, your love story for me since the dawn of time.
Christmas, it comes with such longing, and I do long, I long for Christmas to go on and on.
This Christmas, for me, has been fought for, hoped for, prayed for. I’ve sought you, struggled, despaired, and, in the end, rested, and watched, and opened for you and your coming, defying anything, anyone, to steal my joy, to steal my peace this day.
And now the clock strikes midnight. The lights go out. And it’s over.
And here you go bringing one more gift…the gift…of hope, and truth, and freshest grace.
Because the Christ of Christmas is never over. You are never over. Your coming never stops!
This season of Advent it could carry over. Carry over into all my tomorrows.
This waiting on you…
This waiting for you…
This struggle, this fight, to let go of all that clings, that burdens…
This being done with everything but you…
This defiance against the thief of peace, of joy…
It could spill over. It could go on and on.
Oh, how I want to stay, here, in the bosom, in the splendor, in the wonder of Christmas.
I can’t stay.
But you, the greatest gift, I get to take you with me. And as Ann writes, I get to have as much of you, as much of the greatest gift as I could ever want.
Tomorrow, it can be another celebration.
A celebration of you, of life, of love…
A celebration of God with us. God still with us…
A celebration of advent and a Savior whose love knows no end…
Tomorrow and every day after.
Happily, ever after.
I don’t know about you but I always feel blue in the days that follow Christmas.
Christmas with all its joy and anticipation comes and goes so quickly. For one day, the world stops, holds its ragged breath, and everything is wonder-full.
And then it’s over.
This morning, as I went about my regular routine of getting showered and dressed I picked up my phone, scanned my playlists, and considered the choice before me. I wanted to listen to the music of Christmas. I wanted to savor the strums that make my heart merry, but I didn’t want to feel the longing I knew these songs would bring.
And that’s when I remembered, these pages, these writings from my journal, written just days ago at the midnight turn of Christmas Day.
I tapped “play,” and allowed Michael W. Smith to sing to me, “Christmastime,” once more. And my heart, I let it linger, I let it long for all I’ve really wanted this Christmas season, for all I really want at the start of this New Year…more of him.
Sweet friends, in these days that follow Christmas, these days that begin the New Year, we need not be blue, or down, or depressed. We need only to carry the Christ of Christmas with us. We need only to keep unwrapping, again and again, the gift.
Again and again, the gift of him.