Prepare Him Room
I’m sitting in a coffee shop. It’s the same spot I return to weekly for some quiet writing sessions. Wreaths with crimson ribbons adorn the windows and garland festoons the walls. Everywhere I look, I’m reminded that the Christmas season is here. And yet, I find myself not awash in the wonder of the season but overwhelmed by the expectations and the to-dos. Our house isn’t completely decorated yet. I’ve only purchased a few presents. We haven’t made Christmas cookies, and I haven’t even ordered our Christmas pajamas. The busyness and the chaos of December this year has nearly consumed me. We’re in the midst of the basketball season for our three oldest, which means every single night there are multiple practices or games. School projects and Christmas parties and art shows and music concerts are all vying for our time and attention. My husband is traveling for work, and my dad has been battling a health criss. I’m also in the midst of writing a manuscript that is due in a few months for my first book.
It’s a lot …
Perhaps you’re a well-prepared enigma of Christmas preparations and this stress doesn’t resonate with you. I know some of you are out there … I see your posts with your perfectly wrapped gifts all piled high beneath the tree. But something tells me the majority of you can empathize with me. Maybe you can’t relate to my exact circumstances, but I have a feeling many of you understand the stress, the busyness, the disappointing reality that some holiday expectations may go unmet this year. We long for the magic and the wonder of Christmas, for the nostalgia and the emotion that it evokes, but creating that kind of enchantment takes a lot of work. And sometimes we simply don’t have the time or the energy.
If I’m honest, all I really want this season is a fresh encounter with Jesus. I want to feel the mystery of God with us. I want to sit at the feet of the manger. I want to drink in the unfathomable, inconceivable truth that God wrapped his son in human flesh and sent him to be born among us to walk and talk and feast and laugh, to feel the heights of our joy and the depths of our sorrow, and then to take that long walk towards Golgotha as the splinters of a crude cross pierce his skin. I want to marvel at the gift of a baby born to save the world.
Maybe you do too. Maybe those words caused something in your heart to alight with hope and longing. Even if you can’t articulate it, you sense it in the deepest, truest part of your soul. The manger is true. The cross is real. The grave is empty. And the Kingdom of God is among us. Emmanuel has come.
That’s all I want this year … I want a fresh awareness of God with us. And as I write those words and ponder that truth I sense the Spirit gently urge, “Be still”. Be still in the chaos of this season. Be still in the murmur and the noise of the hustle and bustle. Be still in the temptation to do and entertain and decorate and wrap.
Just be still.
And as that stillness settles, something else takes root. Something transcendent, something miraculous, something beyond the here and now. As I quiet my heart and my mind, I sense Jesus. He comes near when we prepare him room.
This season, as your calendar fills and the demands of the season press upon you, I pray you’ll make time and space to prepare Him room, too. Settle the voice that lists off every must-do task. Still the tendencies to create a perfect holiday. Quiet the noise that swirls on your social media feeds, and simply take some time to prepare Him room. And when you do, when you make space for the miracle of the manger, you’ll find that Christ has come to you.
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