Christmas leaves me so quickly. In fact, I swear on Christmas day, thoughts of the holiday being done, over, finito, creep in. And the morning of the 26th—that’s it. No more. I can’t do Christmas music, and it almost pains me to look at my tree or hear Christmas commercials on TV. Everything has lost its luster. And I must tell you, this isn’t how I want it to be. It’s not that I’ve been waiting for the holiday to be done. It’s quite the opposite. I absolutely love the season and do not want it to end. I become super dramatic thinking, it’s all over for another year…no Christmas spirit for another year. And don’t you hate how the place in your living room that your Christmas tree has adorned for the past month is now just this huge gaping hole? And then I get more dramatic…well, now it’s back to work with no long holidays in the near future. And the next three months—January, February, March—are the longest, coldest, grayest of the year, at least in Minnesota. How will I ever make it I wonder? And why did I leave California again, someone please remind me?!
As a Christian, I’m not sure that this melancholy I seem to fall into every year after Christmas is quite what Christmas is supposed to do. Jesus came...so we can be sad?
My refrigerator is covered in Christmas photos/cards from friends and family across the miles. Many of my friends have brand new babies or are pregnant. Some of my dearest friends had a baby girl last January 17. She is going to be one in a matter of weeks, and she has brought them so much joy. I can vouch for this. They may as well be singing and dancing as they talk about her, their words sparkling with love. Their lives have changed and they will never be the same.
Other friends of mine will be having a baby in a few months. This pregnancy follows unimaginable heartbreak. This baby's sweetness so strong and miraculous that its creation could only have been drawn and then shaded by God. Their new joy is just beginning.
Another family welcomes a baby girl as it says goodbye to a baby boy. This world did not deserve this baby boy whose name was Emanuel—“God with us.” In a twist we would not have chosen, God took Emanuel, and in his place, left Himself. In the pain and tears and the family bonding inevitable in tragedy, God is there…and amazingly so is a baby girl, Emanuel’s cousin. She should be born today? Tomorrow? Any time.
The list of babies bringing joy continues…
Blaine, Augustella, Aryana, Ezra, Preston, and so many more to come in 2009.
The thing I was thinking about is that all these babies bring a joy and a smile that last so much longer than the time period between Thanksgiving and Christmas…so much longer than the 12 days of Christmas. The transformation within the parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends of these babies lasts. And the joy that babies bring is brand new; it’s just beginning.
I do believe Jesus came to us as a baby so many years ago. And I am humbly reminded that really Christmas is just the beginning.
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with the justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.” Isaiah 8:20
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