Come As You Are

Hello brave and beautiful ones! I have a few quiet minutes before a joyful noise fills the farmhouse {my three toddler nephews are almost here!}. Instead of getting another bed ready, the kitchen cleaned or presents wrapped, I feel God nudging my heart to sit down and spend a little time with Him…right here with you. I don’t know what to write; I just know that when I sit down, my heart opens to God and words begin to flow. So here I am…wanting to do the needful thing instead of all that feels like it needs doing.

PINIT

Here’s the question God is burning in my heart: how do you come to Christmas? 

Are you afraid of imperfection…or are you embracing the mess? Are you aware of the weightiness of the season…or are you trying to avoid all things hard and heavy? Are you performing under pressure…or are you free to let things go? Are you filled with joyful anticipation…or battling an undercurrent of heartache and fear?

PINIT

However you come this Christmas, just come.

I think Jesus would say His birthday is an open to all, “Come As You Are” party. {Rememeber those? Wake your friends up and drag them to your party in their PJs, bedhead and morning breath!} We know the shepherds and their sheep didn’t clean up for Jesus. They ran right out of the fields and into the manger scene with all their dirty, stinking mess. No showers, no change of clothes, no clean sheep. I still can’t get the barn smell out of my nose when I think of the night Jesus was born. I’ve even lingered in the barn a few times this week to ponder his arrival a little more deeply. Oh, the crazy way He came! I still don’t get it. {And that feels okay.}

PINIT

But I’ve also been pondering something else these days: Jesus will come again. 

Did you know that Advent means coming? It doesn’t mean came. It’s something that’s still going to happen. So if you feel like you missed Advent this year…if you feel like you didn’t light enough candles, read enough devotionals, create the right environment for your family to soak in all the meaning of the season, there’s still hope. Because He’s still coming. You haven’t missed Him. There’s still time. Right now…right this very moment.

PINIT

Breathe.

PINIT

Invite Him into your heart right here in this place.

Believing Jesus will come again changes everything this Christmas. It means we don’t have to put pressure on ourselves to have the perfect celebration, the perfect decorations, the perfect gifts or the perfect joy. It means we don’t have to mask our pain or ignore our deepest longings and desires. It means we can live with a deep sense of peace in the midst of our struggle. It means so much more than my mind can grasp or my words can say. Because He’s not finished yet!

PINIT

I think one of the reasons we can burn out on Christmas {and if we’re honest, most of us do after enough years of trying really hard to make it super magical and meaningful} is because we keep trying to repeat the celebration of this thing that already happened: Christ’s birth. Don’t get me wrong, that was a HUGE event…a fulfillment of multiple prophesies and promises. But there’s so much MORE!

PINIT

What if we begin to look forward? What if we begin to anticipate the day He will come again? What if we allow our longings to increase and our celebratory spirit to embrace the future instead of simply replaying the past? What if we get excited about the promise that all things will be made new and all tears turned to joy? That all relationships will be mended and all broken hearts healed? That we will see all of creation in its full, intended glory? That we’ll see each other and ourselves as we truly are? Now, that gets me excited!

PINIT

My daughters love Christmas. They want a perfect one as much as you and I do. But they also know that our replay of the Christmas story never fully satisfies their deepest longings. As my oldest said last night, to repeat the excitement of Christmas again and again is like trying to keep a fire burning when you’ve run out of wood. There has to be more. Amen, daughter. Amen.

PINIT

So let us take the pressure off of ourselves this Christmas and put it squarely on the promise of God: the promise that He will come again…that this Christmas isn’t all there is…that He’s not finished yet.

What do you say, Bravehearted Beauties? Shall we shed the burdens, the shortcomings, the ways we fall short and just come as we are? I say YES! You?

Merry Christmas….with so much love,

 

 

P.S. I hope today’s photos make you smile. We finally removed the pumpkins from the porch, but our attempt to create our own version of a “perfect” Christmas ended in falling trees, a wind-damaged nativity, dead poinsettias {I guess they aren’t porch decor here in Tennessee; we didn’t have to worry about freezing temps in Houston!}, and paper goods at the dining room table {I don’t own china, so it’s not even an option!}. Whatever your story this Christmas, it’s ALL good. Just come as you are.

PINIT