This post began several weeks ago as our Christmas letter
and after about 7 drafts, I gave up. This year was just too full, too hard, too
good, too raw…too much to capture and
make palatable for a Christmas letter. So, after a few drafts I was out of
words and, thankfully, Andy said, “This isn’t a Christmas letter, this is a
blog post.” YES.
Merry Christmas – here’s what began as your Christmas letter
and ended as a blog post that might make you think we’re crazy! I’m pretty sure
Christmas letters are supposed to recap the year and share reflections…which we
sort of do all the time now with facebook and instagram and blogs and all the
other social media venues that I haven’t ventured into. I don’t tweet. We tried
to think of how we would sum up this year in a glossy, meaningful way and – to
be honest – we came up short. Honestly, my first draft of the aforementioned
Christmas letter was full of clichés. I was the queen of clichés. We were like
a Norman Rockwell painting incarnate in the first draft.
Generally, we feel like we have no idea what’s going on and
we are hanging on for dear life to get through the week in one piece. In a good way, of course. The fullness
of life can sometimes feel like more that we can handle. Our house is a mess,
the sink is full of dishes, there’s three weeks of laundry folded on top of the
dryer, and sometimes our kids eat cheese and apples and olives for dinner.
That’s just the outward reflection of the inner chaos,
though, isn’t it? It is for us. We often, even though we love God, feel like we
are wandering. Not wandering without Christ, but wandering…more like faithful
plodding. We go. We move forward {at least we think it’s forward}. We walk
where the Lord leads us.
Visual aid:
Imagine a team building activity where you’re blindfolded and told to complete
an obstacle course with a partner who is also blindfolded. There you go. That’s
our life. Maybe it’s yours, too…
There is a strange comfort in knowing that we serve a God
who can take our jumbled up, messy lives and make beauty. We aren’t going into
missions because we have it all together. We are going because we are called
and somehow God makes sense of our chaos
because it glorifies Him. We are far from perfect. We hide, we are dirty,
we fall. Yet our God comes to rescue us. We
have focus in our journey to missions because God gives it to us. We make
amazing progress in our support raising because God leads and guides our steps.
We are busier than ever sharing and moving towards serving with MMS…but we are
still, every day, in desperate need of Christ our Savior. Christ came as a
baby, helpless and needy, and ultimately righted all our wrongs. And he comes
day after day after day to show us that we need him. To love us in our mess. I
guess the recap or reflection for this year is that we are clueless. But we are
led. Led by our Savior.
During Christmas our kids are fascinated with the baby Jesus.
They love pretending to hold the baby and they want to talk about what it was
like for Mary to take care of her baby. The nativity is, by far, their favorite
decoration. We sing about the baby Jesus in many Christmas hymns. In many of
those hymns, however, the words about baby Jesus are not about his baby-ness.
The familiar words of Hark the Herald
Angels Sing, O Holy Night, and Come Thou Long Expected Jesus recount
the position of sinners and power of our reconciling Savior.
Come Thou Long
Expected Jesus…
Born to set thy people free;
Born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us…
Born a child and yet a King…
Born a child and yet a King…
Hark the herald angels
sing…
God and sinners reconciled…
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die…
God and sinners reconciled…
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die…
O holy night! The
stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth
Long lay the world in sin and e’er pining
Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth
Long lay the world in sin and e’er pining
Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth
The words are about how this baby, born meek and mild, will
reconcile sinners with God. Unable to reconnect with God on their own and after
hundreds of years of silence from God and the prophets, the Israelites – and
sinners all around – will have a Savior. As this thought settles on my heart, I am
reminded that God will stop at nothing to pursue us…including entering our messy,
chaotic world as a baby. A baby is virtually irresistible to everyone.
Who doesn’t love a baby? Other than King
Herod. Many times babies have the power to bring families together, pulling
the wandering lost sheep back into the fold as everyone marvels at this new
miracle, this new chance at life. And didn’t baby Jesus do just that? He
began the long process of drawing the family of God back together.
I felt slightly less insane when our pastor preached on
Sunday along a similar theme…it’s not about the fragility of the Christ child.
It is about what the baby Christ reveals to humanity. Christ came not to
overwhelm us with his cuteness, but to overwhelm us with his power and glory. Sometimes
I feel like I have the ability to take something simple/clear/concise and make
it complicated. That’s how I felt about the non-baby-ness of Christ topic.
Geez, why do I have to take the cheerful cuteness right out of Christmas?!?!?
But Christmas was never meant to be cheerful or cute. So, I won’t apologize.
But I will invite you to live in the mess. Sometimes I let
the piles of laundry make me grumpy. Like yesterday. Always be seeking to see Christ more clearly
but don’t let the mess of your life block your vision of Christ. Like I did
yesterday.
Well, the house isn’t any cleaner. All the wrong things are still in all the wrong places. But we are
rescued. We are covered. We might feel lost and messy but we aren’t. Well, we are but our Savior has already made it
right. He puts all the right things in all the right places. Rest easy, dear
ones. Your house, your life, your piles, your clutter…you will never get it
right. But that’s ok. Our life is a stinking mess, kinda like the manger, but
God is still using us and glorifying himself along the way.
Merry Christmas!
p.s. Please visit us on facebook at En Route – People, Planes & Prayer to see all the photos,
updates, and ongoing recaps of our life and missionary journey! There’s
pictures of the kids, pictures of us in turkey hats, and a plethora of great
kids quotes! You can also follow Trisha on instagram for similar types of
things, plus foodie posts :)