That Guy

Well, the presents are under the tree. Evidently Santa has arrived. Many of our family members and church family members have helped to make this another wonderful christmas. There are, thankfully, presents under the tree. Can't wait to see the kids faces.

That said, there's a new sense of hope in the air. This was the first christmas in many many years where we didn't add to the red side of the balance sheet. More notably, I've been blessed to see several mini-miracles; like the one at church tonight.

During the Children and Family Christmas Eve service, a collection of coats was taken up to benefit the people served by the Salvation Army. Most of the children had been invited last week to bring a new or gently used coat to donate for a child in need. This little girl's family didn't know about the collection, though. Probably their first time attending anything at our church. The little girl had a coat, though: the one she wore to the service. She looked at her mom, and in a whisper asked if it was OK. Her mom nodded that it was. Indeed it was. She left her own coat for another child to benefit from.

It was a chilly night tonight. Not freezing, but not warm either. The little girl probably had goose bumps on her way to her car. But she warmed the hearts of a blessed few who had the eyes to watch a Christmas miracle unfold, and her gift will warm the body of a blessed girl somewhere. That little girl won't know the story, but it will warm her just the same.

Then there's the call from an old friend - haven't spoken with him in more than a year; there's the offer from someone at church to help us do some last minute preparing; there's the divinely-infused conversation earlier this evening; there's the gift card that I re-gifted that bought a badly needed pair of shoes; the 'here's a little something' presents from Benson memorial folks;

I know in the last post, I said I was 'that guy'. I think I still am. We are still that family. Nothing much has changed. Even when I was seeing the role with tears in my eyes, God invited our family to be faithful. All we decided to do, together, was to wait and see what happened. It was worth the wait.

Merry Christmas

Just which Christmas is it beginning to look like?

We live in a world of contrasts. Just this past Sunday, within the span of a few brief moments, one of those contrasts drove me to tears.

Our senior pastor, Skip Williams, was delivering a fine example of an Advent sermon. During the sermon, he told the obligatory story of Christmas morning - children, gathered around the tree, looking at the piles of presents, drooling and squealing with the anticipation of tearing through them. His encouragement was to pause, and to read the Christmas story in Luke's gospel, and to pray. Wise advice, indeed.

A few minutes later in the service, as is the custom at our church, some of our members performed a "modern nativity", replacing the angel in the Christmas story with a Wake Med Life-flight nurse, shepherds with a wounded vet and a fireman, wise men with a business man and a doctor. And Mary and Joseph were recently homeless from the foreclosure crisis, living out of a suitcase with their very much alive (and very cute) baby "Jesus".

This year, Christmas won't be easy for my family. We really haven't been able to put away much for presents or Christmas travel, and in all seriousness, for the first time in my life, I'm not sure where the money for Christmas presents is going to come from.

That meant that I was a blubbering mess in church last Sunday; I was moved to tears. I'm a paycheck away from being 'that family'. I stand at a distance, almost from outside the windows, gazing at families with mountains of perfect gifts piled under the tree. I tremble at the thought that somehow I won't be able to provide the best Christmas ever. When the overwhelming voice of our culture screams "Make your kids happy by having lots of gifts under the tree", while the overwhelming Christian culture overwhelmingly screams, "In your perfectly decorated house, make sure you have a beautiful austere manger scene displayed", in the midst of the din the silent night, the lonely cold cave, the unwed mother, the uncomfortable newborn, the temporarily homeless parents, the poor shepherds, are so easily drowned out. It becomes, for those who find themselves outside the reach of the cozy hearths, a question of faith: just who is God with, anyway? With the 'us' that devours it's presents, or with the 'us' that stares longlingly from the outside in, taking only warm comfort in the assurance that God might have come to be even with us? A study in contrasts, indeed.