I sit here on Christmas Eve eve.  I’m tired.  We’ve done a lot of good things this week, but I’m tired of doing and ready to rest.  I could have done less, yes.  But then I would probably be sitting here today wishing I had done more to share with others this Christmas.  And isn’t that the strange way our minds work…no matter what we do, what we do is wrong.

As I look at the calendar pages, past Christmas into next week which runs quickly into January I am amazed that in just a little over a month I will (Lord willing) be able to see, meet, and hold my sweet girl in Haiti.  And I think of the pictures brought to us by sweet friends who were visiting their daughter also waiting in Haiti and of the expression on her face as she looked at a picture of us.

And I am floored.

First of all, the hope and love I saw in her eyes.  Perhaps not a full experience of love, but more than I ever expected to see this soon.  I feel entirely unworthy of any such affections and I am humbled.

Second, though, I think of the hope she has for a future.  The way she longs for her future home.  For a family.  For security.  For love.  And I think of our own longings and hope for our future.  That this world is not our home anymore than Haiti is her permanent home and how Haiti is to America as America is to Heaven, yet the dichotomy is even greater.  And I think of how my Jesus, He left that heavenly home to come rescue me, you, her.  All of us.  He came to our dingy, dirty, sin-soaked world and lived like us and ate like us and walked like us and did everything like us except sin.  And as I sit here trying to bite my tired, hormone-infused tongue as I answer the same question for the I-don’t-know-how-manyth-time, I marvel at how He did this life sinlessly since I can’t even do an hour that way.  And as I marvel at the how, I can’t help but contemplate the why.  Why would He do that?  Why would He love a broken humanity that much?  Why would He give up everything to come to this dirty, broken world to save a dirty, broken people?

Because He loves us.  Because His very nature is love.  He is also goodness and holiness and righteousness and justice and glory.  But He is love and it is that love the compelled Him to come, to live, to die, to save.  And that is the most incredible gift and that is what Christmas is about and that is why Christmas is not the beginnning any more than Good Friday is the end because He has always been and always will be and He has known us since before time and because of His death and resurrection we can know Him for all eternity to come.

He is glorious and He is worthy and He is love.  And He is our hope, our true hope.

This Christmas, as I finally finish up all of this baking and cleaning and stuff that in a lot of ways matters only to me, I feel my heart settling, slowing, and focusing.  Focusing on a little girl in Haiti who waits expectantly and with hope for an earthly family to love her and take her home.  And focusing on a Savior who loved humanity so much He chose to be born in a stable, live life as a man, and die on a tree.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara