Every year, right about this time, in exasperation and exhaustion, I ask myself, ‘why do we do all of this anyway?’
Do you know what I mean? The shopping and the wrapping and the decorating and the baking, and that big stack of cards that I have yet to fill out…why? What does it all have to do with the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ?
Yesterday I took time to pray. A full half hour – time I don’t have this time of year! I found an Advent prayer – a lovely one, so rich in hope – in an old Lutheran Book of Prayer (from 1941) that used to belong to my mother-in-law. Then I sat in the house here and prayed it over and over. After that, I prayed for the many broken and hurting and ailing people in the world.
And now, somehow, everything has changed.
I’m back to shopping and wrapping and decorating, and will soon be baking (sugar cookies) – and I am rejoicing in it all! I’m looking forward to sending out Christmas cards, with that message so rich in hope, to the many broken and hurting and ailing people in my part of the world.
Oh, and this morning when my daughter gave a gift to one of her crossing guards on the way to school and wished him a “Merry Christmas!”, well, that look in his eyes made it all worthwhile.