The Point

I have been thinking a lot (well, a little-lot) about the Christmas season. How my life is not where I thought it would be a year ago. How the last thing I thought I'd be dealing with was a divorce and pre-mid-life crisis. Just to be fair, I have been having practice mid-life crisis-es (haha REBECCA B. leave me a comment with the correct word please!) since college...but anyway--Christmas. This year...etc...things have changed. Major things. I have all kinds of excuses to not be in "the holiday spirit." I have no home of my own to decorate. My decorations are in storage. I'm sad. I'm lonely. I'm not hosting any Christmas activities.
Are you starting to notice a trend? Me. I. My. ME I MY. How very un-Christ like. Not where I want to be. Not how I want to celebrate the birth of my Savior. How about if I showed up at your birthday party and played the role of Eeyore the whole time? Not a me that I want to see or to share. I'm not saying that I want to be fake or false or misrepresent what is going on with me. I am saying that even in the middle of all of this, I fully acknowledge that I/Me/My am not the main character of this season. Or even this life. It is not about my sadness, but about the power of God revealed when I allow him to work in me. It is not about my broken self, but about the strength I have in being rebuilt by him.
It was not about the manger, or the long donkey ride. Or the shepherds. Or how many months later the wise men showed up. It was about a woman and her husband being obedient to God, and struggling through his plan for their lives, so that HE might be glorified and HIS plan might be fulfilled.
It's not about the shopping. It's about the sharing. It's not about the dinners and parties and White Elephant gifts. It's about spending time worshipping him. It's not about the perfect idea or memory we want to create. It's about remembering who created us. It's not about posing for the perfect Christmas card, it's about revealing your real, flawed, broken and needy selves to the one who can "fix" it all (and to others who think THEY are the only ones not experiencing the perfect Christmas).
Please don't get me wrong. I am NOT comparing myself to Mary or Joseph. Or Jesus. Not at all. I'm not even saying we shouldn't celebrate, decorate, gift and enjoy our traditions and memories. I am simply saying that I am honored to call on the same God they did. To follow and put my trust in the same God who asked a man to still take a woman as his wife, though she was pregnant with a child not his own. Christmas will end. New Year's will roll around....and winter will be long (like it always is). But if I don't get this very big point, if I miss the lesson, then it might as well have been about the Me/I/My and gifts and lights and parties, and what a waste that would be.