Oh My Word

My sweet boy turns three this week.  On Saturday night he was celebrated with friends and family, a smallish gathering of our favourites.  He opened three really great gifts.  One of them was for me.

Technically, I think it was for him. But I can tell you that all the goodness of it was for me.

A small bench, painted red and blue and a nice vanilla colour. Legs, bracing and top, all attached with screws. Four knobs attached with wing nuts. And a small basket of extra bits and two Allen keys.  Boy bliss.  Nate grabbed a "screwdriver" and started taking that thing apart. And I had a little cry.

A few weeks earlier I had posted on facebook that my boy had taken some unsupervised playtime and used it to take out any and all screws he could find in his bedroom, including those holding together his bookshelf and bunkbed ladder.

Over those same few weeks, I have been blogging out my wrestle to be Occupied and transformed in the hopes of being part of a transformation somehow. I have written about giving what we have to give to those who need what we have. I have written about receiving what is given.  I have written about needing less and giving to people, not causes and paying cash and being producers instead of consumers.  I have ached to be changed in the hopes of somehow, at the same time, seeing hope for Real Change.

Right there, wrapped in purple and white tissue paper, was my heart's hope.  I didn't know that's what I needed, but it was given by the one who had it to give and who knew to give it.  I felt loved. And Loved.

The perfect gift.

It got me thinking about gifts over the subsequent days that have passed.  And how I can't figure out how the gifts fit into Christmas and how irksome it is that presents just have to wreck Christmas every year.

And then today in the kitchen, I was innocently making coffee and finding myself getting kind of excited about Christmas.  Kind of feeling a hint of Christmas Spirit and that nauseous-making anticipation that always lingers at the edges of December for me. Kind of looking forward to Christmas morning and wondering if there would be another Perfect Gift.

And then it hit me, in that "I can't believe I'm being this trite and embarrassingly sappy, but holy shit, this is true!" kind of way: Jesus is the Perfect Gift and he's coming! Again! This year, this miracle happens again! We get Jesus! And it makes me so... happy!  Oh my word. I'm actually kind of embarrassed and typing fast to make this end quickly, but there it is: I'm finally getting the part where the excitement I've been feeling all these years, the hope that this will be the year, the anticipation that the Perfect Gift is coming.... all of that is about WAITING FOR JESUS!!!! I can't even tell you how good news this is to me! Jesus came! Jesus is coming! Hope is here! The Good News shows up! I got Jesus!  We all did, do, will!! Oh my.

It made me giggle a bit because I don't really think of myself as a particularly I-Love-Jesus-So-Much kind of person. I actually probably wouldn't have put Jesus on any kind of list of gifts I'd like to receive.  Or maybe I just put Jesus in the socks and underwear category: sure, throw 'em in the stocking and call 'em a gift, but we all know they're just filler. And yet here I am, for the first time (can this be?!) realizing that Jesus is in fact the huge, Oh-No-They-Didn't-Yes-They-Did gift that you kind of keep your eyes on all morning, hoping that it is, but fearing that it isn't and that finding out that Yes! it is!

Jesus is that gift for me this year!!

I am floored.

And then came this: I don't need to feel badly about the presents things anymore, about my kids getting excited about Christmas because they're going to get so many presents, some wanted, some not-so-much. Because that hopefulness, that belly full of hope - all of that points to Great News that we have already received the Perfect Gift and the receiving of it is so, so good. Maybe one day they'll have this moment too, when they look at God with slightly different eyes, full of wonder that God knew this! this! this was what I've been needing all along.

Receiving the perfect gift is unusually wonderful.  I'm thankful for the bench that was so perfectly given, and that pointed the way to this Knowing that indeed, I Am Known.

May you know that too. Whoever you are.

When Love Shows Up

When a person is trudging through mud, day after day, a person gets tired.  When a person is trudging through mud, and falls into the deep part and gets mud up their nose, it's so awful that when they are finally back up and trudging through mud again, they forget that trudging through mud is tiring, so thankful are they to have finally blown all the mud out of their nose. But a few miles later, they're exhausted, and faltering and it dawns on them, This Is Mud. And I'm Still Trudging.

And then they cry. A lot.

And then they get a note from a friend that says "You're doing great in that mud. Keep going."  And another friend says, "That mud is worthwhile mud. Keep going."  And another friend sends stickers and says, "Sticker charts aren't dumb at all. Keep going.*" 

And in one day, a person trudging through mud remembers that the journey is not unseen, is not for naught, is not without its rewards and that maybe even Jesus is watching.  And that person trudges on, deeply grateful to be so well-loved.

*A person trudging through mud might decide that a sticker chart is the only motivation they need to stop throwing mud at the people trudging through mud beside them, an action that probably makes falling into the deep part and getting mud up the nose a lot more likely.