This Christmas...

This Christmas might be like every other Christmas you have ever celebrated.
It might be the traditions that you love.
The family members that you try to love.
The food you know you don’t need or
shopping for someone who's hard to buy for.
Or maybe it's the gifts that you complained about shopping for,
But loved watching the receiver open.

This Christmas might be like no Christmas you’ve ever had before.
It might have you taking part in something like you’ve never done before.
Or giving a gift to someone you’ve never shopped for before.
Maybe it has you embracing the concept of a “blue Christmas” in a way you hadn’t needed to do in years previous.
Maybe it’s different because it seems hopeless.
Or different because the snow and the decorating didn’t get you into the Christmas spirit.

Maybe you could recite Luke 2
And you know the magi didn’t really come to the stable.
Maybe you feel like the shepherds out in the fields are just part of a story.
A story that you know so well.

May you find the wonder –
Through the eyes of an innkeeper exhausted from a long day of preparing for and then serving enough guests to fill his sleeping quarters, only to find an expectant couple looking earnestly for a room.
Through the eyes of a man scorned by his people, but willing to stand to save the face of the woman he loved.
Through the eyes of a young girl so unprepared for what lay ahead, so unsure of all that God was asking her to do, yet so completely devoted to obediently following His call.
Through the eyes of a shepherd, cast into the hills by the townspeople for a low-end night shift, being greeted by a sight that no one would believe – that you aren’t sure that you even believe yourself.
Through the eyes of a Son, who humbled Himself to be a son of man.
Through the eyes of a Father, who entrusted His son to a daughter of man.

May you wonder at the wonder that is Christ.