ENCOURAGE - EQUIP - EMPOWER
IT STARTS HERE.
When I was a very little girl, I would go to my great aunt and uncle’s house on Christmas Eve. This involved a seven-hour car journey in the days preceding, a special Christmas outfit chosen ahead of time and gifts carefully planned and wrapped. It was almost overwhelming to a small child; the excitement, the food, the impending visit from Santa Claus…and the gifts!
When my children were little, they were in a simple Christmas play at our small Milwaukee church that for some reason I often think about. The children playing Mary and Joseph went from door to door knocking, only to have an innkeeper (who happened to be the same man behind every door), proclaim loudly in a deep baritone the words “No room” as he turned them away again and again.
Those words “No room” seem to often fit into our celebration of Christmas.
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I’m not going to lie, writing the blog for the week before Christmas seems like a lot of pressure. I feel the need to come up with something memorable; something that ignites your holiday spirit and leaves you with warm fuzzies, a renewed sense of peace and goodwill, and a deeper understanding of Jesus’s love for you. Something that makes you laugh out loud and blink back tears at the same time. Something you’ll want to share with all your friends and family members and that stranger at the grocery store who looks like they could use some cheering up.
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Coming home at Christmas is often momentous in our house as for many years it has meant someone returning after being far from home. In 2020, Covid separated us from one of our daughters who was in Canada. Last year when she pulled in after driving cross-country to be home for Christmas, we raced to the door singing, “She’s here, she’s here, she’s here!”
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The other day I had one of those moments where I dwelled a bit on the whole idea of Jesus, Son of God, coming to Earth as a human. I’d been reading about the solar system with my five-year-old, and Christmas season was rapidly approaching. NASA had a rocket launch and a lunar eclipse was happening, so I had set an alarm to make sure I got up in time to see the orange-red moon. All of those things were swirling inside my head – our smallness, the vastness of the universe and what we claim is true about Christmas.
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What’s your favorite Christmas song?
My friends tease me for it, but I will forever stand by “The Little Drummer Boy.” Specifically the 1965 Harry Simeone Chorale version, although I’ll admit the Pentatonix cover gives me chills. (Also, I like to pretend the Justin Bieber version with the rap in the middle doesn’t exist.) Even though it’s been around since long before I was born, there’s just something about Harry Simeone’s version that fills me with a warm sense of nostalgia whenever I listen to it.
But it’s more than that.
She’s the first thing I give my time and attention to in the morning and the last one I see before bed.
She goes everywhere with me; basically, attached to my hip.
She’s my shadow; following me everywhere I go, including the bathroom.
She vies for my attention; interrupting me often.
She cries out and raises her voice again if I don’t respond right away.
I respond to her every request.
She keeps me entertained.
I’ve captured many of my favorite memories with her.
She’s my 4-year-old… phone.
