The houses are lit up, trees stand tall in windows with glittering ornaments dangling from evergreen branches, and carols have been piped in through store speakers for months.
And still, I did not have an ounce of Christmas spirit. That is, not until this week...
You know how some years, you catch it early and makes lists upon lists of gifts to purchase, cookies to bake, and events to attend? Then there are the other years that feel flat the entire season, when you hope that maybe on Christmas Eve you will be fortunate enough to find yourself lit up inside and know you have caught that spirit at the last minute.
I can recall Christmas' past, painful ones and joyful ones...the year my Dad died in early December when I was 25, and the lump in my throat made it hard to speak as I returned his gifts to the Customer Service Clerk hoping not to be asked for an explanation. There was the year we were knee deep in adoption paperwork as we laboriously made our way through the complicated maze of documents needed to bring home our first child, Matthew. There were, sadly, too many years spent worrying about the safety of my only sibling, whose serious drug addiction meant we never knew if we would hear from him, or be getting a call that he was in jail, or worse. There was the sacredness of the entire Advent season spent almost 8 years ago as we traveled to northern Kazakhstan to adopt our precious Angela and Olesya, thinking we would be gone 2 weeks only to find ourselves there for two and a half months and moving through the single most emotional period of my entire life.
There were other years that were less dramatic, of course, years of friends filling our home, of holidays meals spent at the table of others, and many years when we all spent Christmas day working at our restaurant at the airport.
Each year holds its own special memories. The story revealed in the uniqueness of so many personalized ornaments on our tree is one that is exclusive to our family alone.
So I've waited this year, knowing that the real spirit is The Spirit, and it will make itself known in the most unexpected and striking ways.
How was I to know that it would come in the form of five "unseen" ones? I surely didn't understand the sort of transformation my heart would make when Kenny and I left our house Tuesday morning. We drove an hour to our church in Grand Junction, where we were going to help with the first worship service for "Rejoicing Spirits", which is an adapted worship service for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities The program our church supports is Mosaic, a Lutheran ministry program in ten different states. Kenny was going to explore the possibility of being involved on a regular basis in this ministry, and then to be interviewed at the Mosaic office. I went with no expectation for myself, solely as "support staff" for Kenny.
And isn't that when God is most likely to sneak up on you? When you least expect it?
Our new friends arrived, one gentlemen and four women, along with their "coach". How could I help but grin as their childlike delight shined at the simplest things, like getting a name tag, or using a noise maker? Without a moment's discomfort, Kenny and I both fell naturally into our roles, visiting and guiding and singing alongside the innocence before us.
As our pastor led us through an active and engaging walk-through of the Christmas story, where we cheered for our "actors" as they held up signs and walked to Bethlehem. Loud "boos" were offered for King Herod, our pastor's husband. A wooden baby Jesus was held up along with a paper star, as he was declared the Savior and his birth was announced.
The singing was barely comprehensible and off key. The participants often needed help finding where we were in the bulletin. The cheers were sometimes ill timed. This was not a service for someone who prefers structure and ritual.
But the joy, oh the joy! Smiles and laughter and loud declarations of "Yea, Jesus!!" melted my heart and reminded me of what real faith truly looks like...innocent, all consuming, simple. It was a "minimalist" Christmas of a different kind, and it was as lovely as the hearts who were making loud proclamations there in that Sanctuary.
As prayer requests were shared, and the last hymn sung, I realized this might be the single best worship service I had ever attended. I needed this, my heart needed to be softened for the season to be allowed entry. I needed a visual representation of the child King who came to us so that we might know peace, that we might be able to recognize goodness before us when it came blanketed in what the world would call "brokenness" of an irreparable kind. What I saw though, in the faces of the ones that came to us that day, was anything but brokenness. What smiled back at me was an openness to others, an acceptance and joy of the present moment, and a guilelessness that was enviable.
Christmas entered my soul, finally, at least a glimmer of it. All of us were blessed that afternoon, and it is another memory that will be stored alongside my 50 years of other Christmas memories. This one won't have an ornament as a reminder, but it will surely be treasured.
And still, I did not have an ounce of Christmas spirit. That is, not until this week...
You know how some years, you catch it early and makes lists upon lists of gifts to purchase, cookies to bake, and events to attend? Then there are the other years that feel flat the entire season, when you hope that maybe on Christmas Eve you will be fortunate enough to find yourself lit up inside and know you have caught that spirit at the last minute.
I can recall Christmas' past, painful ones and joyful ones...the year my Dad died in early December when I was 25, and the lump in my throat made it hard to speak as I returned his gifts to the Customer Service Clerk hoping not to be asked for an explanation. There was the year we were knee deep in adoption paperwork as we laboriously made our way through the complicated maze of documents needed to bring home our first child, Matthew. There were, sadly, too many years spent worrying about the safety of my only sibling, whose serious drug addiction meant we never knew if we would hear from him, or be getting a call that he was in jail, or worse. There was the sacredness of the entire Advent season spent almost 8 years ago as we traveled to northern Kazakhstan to adopt our precious Angela and Olesya, thinking we would be gone 2 weeks only to find ourselves there for two and a half months and moving through the single most emotional period of my entire life.
There were other years that were less dramatic, of course, years of friends filling our home, of holidays meals spent at the table of others, and many years when we all spent Christmas day working at our restaurant at the airport.
Each year holds its own special memories. The story revealed in the uniqueness of so many personalized ornaments on our tree is one that is exclusive to our family alone.
So I've waited this year, knowing that the real spirit is The Spirit, and it will make itself known in the most unexpected and striking ways.
How was I to know that it would come in the form of five "unseen" ones? I surely didn't understand the sort of transformation my heart would make when Kenny and I left our house Tuesday morning. We drove an hour to our church in Grand Junction, where we were going to help with the first worship service for "Rejoicing Spirits", which is an adapted worship service for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities The program our church supports is Mosaic, a Lutheran ministry program in ten different states. Kenny was going to explore the possibility of being involved on a regular basis in this ministry, and then to be interviewed at the Mosaic office. I went with no expectation for myself, solely as "support staff" for Kenny.
And isn't that when God is most likely to sneak up on you? When you least expect it?
Our new friends arrived, one gentlemen and four women, along with their "coach". How could I help but grin as their childlike delight shined at the simplest things, like getting a name tag, or using a noise maker? Without a moment's discomfort, Kenny and I both fell naturally into our roles, visiting and guiding and singing alongside the innocence before us.
As our pastor led us through an active and engaging walk-through of the Christmas story, where we cheered for our "actors" as they held up signs and walked to Bethlehem. Loud "boos" were offered for King Herod, our pastor's husband. A wooden baby Jesus was held up along with a paper star, as he was declared the Savior and his birth was announced.
The singing was barely comprehensible and off key. The participants often needed help finding where we were in the bulletin. The cheers were sometimes ill timed. This was not a service for someone who prefers structure and ritual.
But the joy, oh the joy! Smiles and laughter and loud declarations of "Yea, Jesus!!" melted my heart and reminded me of what real faith truly looks like...innocent, all consuming, simple. It was a "minimalist" Christmas of a different kind, and it was as lovely as the hearts who were making loud proclamations there in that Sanctuary.
As prayer requests were shared, and the last hymn sung, I realized this might be the single best worship service I had ever attended. I needed this, my heart needed to be softened for the season to be allowed entry. I needed a visual representation of the child King who came to us so that we might know peace, that we might be able to recognize goodness before us when it came blanketed in what the world would call "brokenness" of an irreparable kind. What I saw though, in the faces of the ones that came to us that day, was anything but brokenness. What smiled back at me was an openness to others, an acceptance and joy of the present moment, and a guilelessness that was enviable.
Christmas entered my soul, finally, at least a glimmer of it. All of us were blessed that afternoon, and it is another memory that will be stored alongside my 50 years of other Christmas memories. This one won't have an ornament as a reminder, but it will surely be treasured.
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