Yesterday my husband gave an unexpected gift – a quiet afternoon at home. Seeing ice and snow predicted for the following days, he decided to take the kids out to complete the last of the Christmas errands.
I drank deep of the quiet, packaged up gifts for the neighbors, and baked the special breakfast treat that we will eat on Christmas morning.
I dream of spending all of December that way – restful and yet productive afternoons at home, carols quietly playing in the background, children happily busying themselves with Christmas crafts, and ending each day with thoughtful advent devotions.
But December doesn’t go this way – at least not most days. And the more it doesn’t, the more frustrated I become.
There are some here who like to “go” so I have to give a little to the going and the gathering and the bustling that drains me but rejuvenates them. My picture of a perfect Christmas season doesn’t always match theirs. Where did that picture come from anyway? The disappointment and the failure I feel this time of year is so often connected to self-imposed larger than life expectations of what Christmas should be.
Mary must have had her own struggles with expectations. Before the angel visited, before everything changed, there must of been dreams – dreams of being a bride, of one day sharing the joy with her husband that a life was growing within, of family gathered and rejoicing over the birth of a first child.
But her dreams were not His plans. She wasn’t the bride she had pictured, news of a child growing within wasn’t exactly celebrated, and the birth – I doubt she ever dreamed of a barn miles away from home.
Yet all this was His dream, His perfect plan, the Divine Expectation that He had been longing to fulfill.
I marvel at His ways. I think of her and I remember to let go, to let these days come as He has ordained, to receive what He gives instead of pushing for what He hasn’t promised, to say with her,
“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”
I trust that He will fulfill all His dreams for you and yours this Christmas. I pray joy and peace and courage for you. May you marvel in the precious secret – Christ with us, Christ in you, the hope of glory!
with love in Him,
Jennie
