Our guest post today is from my {Jess’s} high school friend, Laura Phelan. Laura is a wife and mother with a tremendous heart for world missions. We are so glad to have her and this sweet story at Grace for Moms today!
As a mother with young children, I’m embarrassed to admit I tend to approach the Christmas season with a certain amount of dread. I start out with a plan to slow down and take it all in. I truly want to enjoy the birth of our Savior. Yet as the days pass, I often fail. I trip over myself to make every moment perfect. There’s the cookie baking, the tree trimming, the trip to see The Nutcracker. Add in school parties, choir concerts, and my older daughter’s birthday the week before the big day and I’m hanging on by a thread. Yet last year, in the midst of my efforts to maintain all of these traditions, my girls inadvertently started one of their own.
They both love “their” Nativity scene. It’s the first thing they ask for when the attic door is opened after Thanksgiving and the decorations emerge. Last year, each time they played with it, I would take a peek at where everyone wound up after the girls were snug in their beds. I began documenting my findings. Some days, the entire group was in a pile in front of the stable. Other days, there was more of a theme.
The first one, below, occurred when my two year old had a scuba diver join the wise men on their visit to Jesus. Each Gospel tells the story a bit differently, right? So there’s always room for interpretation.
Another day I found the conga line. This is a classic. Jesus is right there in the center of the action and it’s a party. And you know what? It was a party. It still is.
Then one day our older daughter had a friend over. She played with the Nativity at length. When she was done, this is what I found.
This is Christmas. While I rushed around, in a few moments a four year old set the scene as it should be. Often in life, we take our eyes off the very One we need to be watching. The One who bathes us in grace every single day. It happens at Christmas, and all year. We begin to rely on the things of this world and in doing so we miss the mark.
At Christmas, we are given a tangible piece of the living God in the form of an infant lying in a manger, asleep in the hay. That alone is reason to rejoice. And that is where our focus should be.
There is a reason Jesus made a point to allow children to remain when he was teaching. They have so much to say, often without a single word.
Little children taught me much last Christmas.
We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
The other day at church, I ran in to a member of a different generation. In passing he announced how much he was looking forward to photos of the Nativity this season. My sweet children created a tradition worth repeating. This year, I’m looking forward to their reminder of what it’s really all about.
In the midst of the Christmas season, how can we keep our eyes on Jesus? How will you keep the hope that Christmas brings going forward?
I am a lifelong writer residing south of the Mason-Dixon. Always planning my next trip, I am a travel junkie with a heart for world missions. I am blessed with a wonderful husband and two beautiful girls. I am thrilled to be charged with guiding my children through the starting gate of life. My hope is that they will lead lives with grateful, global hearts.
Read more from Laura Phelan at littlepilgrimsblog.com
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