Christmas in the Real World

I know. It's been a month. I just haven't been able to bring myself to post. I can't even sort my own thoughts these days.

The week before Thanksgiving some things changed in our home, and our fight for joy began.

Fight. for. Joy.

It's interesting. I can remember being younger, crying to my mom that I just wanted to be happy. It was as if this imaginary happy cloud would come over my head, and ...

POOF, bless me with happiness for eternity.

One of my favorite new quotes is from Ann Voskamp, "I hadn't known that joy meant dying."

Not happiness, but joy.

Every year around Thanksgiving my expectation of a Norman Rockwell holiday season creeps into my head. I whisper to James that I just want wonderful holidays for our family and the kids. When he asks what that looks like, it typically means Mommy is in control, order, the gifts are wrapped and done by the 20th, and we all have time to settle in for a long winter's nap.

But I'm in the real world. We all are, whether we want to admit it or not. Some of us are still striving for perfection that is unattainable. We think there will suddenly be this moment where it is all together. Secretly, I long for that.

Christmas decorations are still piled in my closet, because I just became so dang tired of looking at them undone. If you open any cabinet in my house, your head is in danger from things falling out. The laundry literally is touching our ceiling. Christmas cards may just not happen. And who knows what the kids want, or are even getting for Christmas. To the world, I'm so far from having Christmas done. There's a sneaky part of me that wants to panic, tell myself I'm doing it the wrong way, and scream at everyone that it's their fault.

But the truth of Christmas in the real world...

My Savior entered the world. Many were too busy to stop. As we all know, there was no room. The world kept spinning.

The truth...

"If you do it to the least of these, you've done it unto me."

The truth, and I don't mean this pridefully...

I may be doing Christmas for the first time in my life.

It's not me. There are a lot of moments these last few weeks - things have been kind of hard - that I've said some no way's and no more's.

But it is God. He's made my home a revolving door. The percentage of children who enter our home that are "fatherless" far outweighs the friends who come over from "normal" families. He's forcing me to surrender my to do's, that I really don't want to let go of.

He's making my life beautiful.

It's not me. It's my Savior.

We are so broken, so disappointing. But, we simply said yes to the One who never disappoints.

I think for the first time I may be experiencing Christmas as it was meant to be.