I got home from work to find our neighborhood out of power.
Correction. I found our side of the neighborhood out of power. Let me hear you say "that ain't right." As I am writing on reserve battery and for Evelyn that runs about, um, 3 minutes, I do not know how long we have together on this Christmas Eve.
But this is how I'm going to spend however much time Evelyn has because both parents did not respond positively to my idea to go caroling and they wont let me open any of the gifts under the tree. And the movie theatre shuts down at 7 tonight, ridding us of our usual trusty back up plan for bad weather or really for any time we're looking for something to do.
It's Chrismas Eve!
I already know my favorite gift that I'm giving and the best one I will get, I'm just not at liberty to share yet. But it's very exciting!
Speaking of exciting, tell me this doesn't get you in the Christmas spirit...
It amazes me that Jesus was that at one point, too. A precious baby making somebody's day with a smile. Little did they know. I was listening to Chris Rice's "Welcome to Our World" on the way home from work and these lyrics stuck out to me:
Fragile finger sent to heal us
tender brow prepared for thorn
tiny heart whose blood will save us
unto us is born
So wrap our injured flesh around you
breathe our air and walk our sod
rob our sin and make us holy
perfect son of God
But for that matter, little do I know. The truth is that I can hardly comprehend the big-ness of God, let alone the majesty of his humble birth. Harder still is knowing how to praise God for the simultaneous simplicity and complexity of his love and his grace. Tomorrow marks the day those two things became undeniably real. I want that to make an undeniable change in my life.
Like the difference between a house on this side of the street and a house across the way. Where they can have showers. No, no that's not what I mean. I just want to be lit up. I want to be pumped about God's plan. Because get this:
But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to His mercy
He saved us,
through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
whom He poured out on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior,
that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs
according to the hope of eternal life.
(Titus 3:4-7)
Kindness and love toward man appeared in the body of a baby wrapped in flawed flesh and an ancient version of a snuggie. This is especially exciting to me because I love a baby. But most exciting is that his birth created a way for me to be an heir in all of this. I don't have the right to say who else gets in on it-- in the end I'm not even the one making my own case. Jesus is.
So Merry Christmas to us. And thank you, Jesus.
(for the record, so I can remember this moment, it is cold enough in this house that mom is actually wearing flannel. okay?!)
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