Finding Christmas

I have moved houses and somewhere in the changing and the endings and the beginnings, I seem to have forgotten how to relax.

Resting.

It is a constant struggle for me. My mind likes to go, go, go. My body feels it needs to follow - if I am able.

With as much as I know that this performing doesn't fulfill me, still I try to make something out of everything. I work and work - to make sure the kids know everything I have listed out for them to know, to create revenue for the family, to turn Christmas into a THING, making positive that everyone has enough from myself - who many times thinks she may be able to create more than she is.

I am sitting here on the couch alone, pondering why I do this to myself. And I am meditating on the words in my advent book*:
"Christmas can only be found. Christmas cannot be bought. Christmas cannot be created. Christmas cannot be made by hand, lit up, set out, dreamed up. Christmas can only be found...  

 That is the message of Christmas. The message of Christmas is not that we can make peace. Or that we can make love, make light, make gifts, or make this world save itself. 

The message of Christmas is that this world's a mess and we can never save ourselves from ourselves and we need a Messiah.

For unto us a child is born.

...True, you cannot light Christmas, because it is Christmas that lights you."

As I attempt to rest and reflect today, I am hoping to let the "musts" go, and sit still enough that I might find Christmas. Or better yet, that Christmas will find me.

And I wish the same for you all. May you find rest in the certainty that Jesus Christ has provided everything that you ever have needed and ever will need. Merry Christmas!

On those living in a pitch dark land, a light has dawned.

A child is born to us, a son is given to us,

And authority will be on His shoulders.

He will be named Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God,

Eternal Father,

Prince of Peace.

~Isaiah 9: 2, 6

*book passage from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp