Maybe Christmas

Today their little hands are taking the left-over candy from their Harvest Fest fun and making a calendar. Forty-six candies to represent the forty-six days until Christmas. One sweet piece of candy to eat each day until the best day of the year. But this year, Christmas will be sweeter for other reasons.

This year, we will all learn as a family more about the joy of giving. This year, we will unwrap our presents to find that shiny new things make our hearts smile, but shiny, smiling faces make our hearts thrill. This year we will give more than we receive.

We have looked and found that there is some extra lying around our lives. Extra provision, extra funding, just waiting for a purpose. We have a list of things and projects here in our own home and lives that could use some extra funding. We have a future that is unsure and there may be need of all that extra later, too. Maybe we don’t know what we should do with that money.

But maybe we do know. Maybe we know Who will provide when the need arises. Maybe that same “Who” is asking us to be the answer to someone else’s prayers.

Maybe we spend too much time thinking of reasons not to give. Maybe we spend too much time thinking of reasons our “wants” are really “needs”. Maybe there is more need outside our home than inside our home. Maybe our greatest need is to trust God enough to do something about it.

Maybe we should put a little more Christ in our Christmas this year.

Mind you, the Grinch is not being released in our home. Our children will be blessed with presents this year, just maybe not as many as in years past. They are so excited about changing someone else’s life, they are fine with that. And, honestly, I don’t think they will notice the difference too much. We are being very creative with choosing presents. As a family, we are journeying together to find what we can do to live beyond our first-world nation way of thinking.

So for now, I am telling my wants to stay put. They can wait. There are more pressing needs elsewhere. The greatest one being the obedience and faith of my own heart. You can’t buy that with money, it’s far more expensive than that. It costs a lot of grace from God and trust and faith from me.

Forty-six sweet candy days from now, it’s going to be a very happy Christmas. I can’t wait!
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