Oh, the Holidays
This holiday season has felt like a home made green bean casserole…a little bit of everything thrown in, some healthy things (the green beans) and some heaping handfuls of disfunction, drama, and bits of confusion (butter, cream of whatever soup, crunchy onions).
A week or so before Thanksgiving I went through some irritation that this whole Christmas thing has to be so much about Jesus. It felt weird to feel this way considering the whole point of celebrating is that He came for us, but I couldn't shake the religion of it all. I wanted to be able to have fun, buy gifts, talk about Santa with my kids, etc. without feeling like I was shallowing out the holiday.
I didn't grow up with Santa and as my family grew in number, one baby and then another, Christmas magic was lost somewhere. We moved every year until I was 12, so I'm sure the moves took a toll on Christmas Sprit too. We had fun decorating our fake tree and we had special mugs with toy soldiers on them that we'd drink hot chocolate out of, but most of all Christmas was about baby Jesus. When all is said and done it's some of the best news in the entire universe, but through out my childhood it always felt so serious.
As I've been my typical introspective self, picking through the oddness of my feelings, I've been struck with intense emotion that Jesus came in pure love. Love that has fun and celebrates fully. Love that believes in magic (even Santa). Love that serves and saves and dances with us.
Knowing the beauty and awkwardness in the birth of a brand new baby, I can't imagine why Jesus would come to earth that way. But He came as we all come and He knows us. I'm thankful for the deep wanderings that have led me to give and receive differently this year. Finding relief from the religion I've fought with in my adult life and in turn knowing a depth of relationship with Jesus that is just for me. His relationship with each of us holding a canyon of worth. There's a beat, a pulse of love that just doesn't stop and we are a part of the symphony. This baby Jesus story is our story too. We are being brought back to wholeness, we can now be alive.
The green bean casserole has been tossed out the window :)
A week or so before Thanksgiving I went through some irritation that this whole Christmas thing has to be so much about Jesus. It felt weird to feel this way considering the whole point of celebrating is that He came for us, but I couldn't shake the religion of it all. I wanted to be able to have fun, buy gifts, talk about Santa with my kids, etc. without feeling like I was shallowing out the holiday.
I didn't grow up with Santa and as my family grew in number, one baby and then another, Christmas magic was lost somewhere. We moved every year until I was 12, so I'm sure the moves took a toll on Christmas Sprit too. We had fun decorating our fake tree and we had special mugs with toy soldiers on them that we'd drink hot chocolate out of, but most of all Christmas was about baby Jesus. When all is said and done it's some of the best news in the entire universe, but through out my childhood it always felt so serious.
As I've been my typical introspective self, picking through the oddness of my feelings, I've been struck with intense emotion that Jesus came in pure love. Love that has fun and celebrates fully. Love that believes in magic (even Santa). Love that serves and saves and dances with us.
Knowing the beauty and awkwardness in the birth of a brand new baby, I can't imagine why Jesus would come to earth that way. But He came as we all come and He knows us. I'm thankful for the deep wanderings that have led me to give and receive differently this year. Finding relief from the religion I've fought with in my adult life and in turn knowing a depth of relationship with Jesus that is just for me. His relationship with each of us holding a canyon of worth. There's a beat, a pulse of love that just doesn't stop and we are a part of the symphony. This baby Jesus story is our story too. We are being brought back to wholeness, we can now be alive.
The green bean casserole has been tossed out the window :)
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