This Christmas post from last year rings even truer this year.  As we rest, reflect, and renew our focus on the year ahead, enjoy a quiet read…

“Christmas is over, baby,” I said nonchalantly as I buckled  little Sam into his car seat, his legs dangling long.  “It’s time to go back to school.” 

“Christmas isn’t over in my heart,” he said, boldness rising. “In my heart, Christmas just happened.” 

Isn’t that what we all want? 

Do we just want to go back to the grind, unchanged and unrenewed, only to repeat the same patterns that sunk us into pits too deep to scale?

Or do we want this year to truly be new? 

Sam knows the secret: the baby Jesus born in the messy hay gives us a chance for God to “make all things new” every day.

We had no perfect holiday. Laughter and squeals of delight ricocheted off the walls but so did tears and cries. 

After the hardest heartache, I heard the Holy Spirit clearer than I did through all the wrapping, telling me that at the end of this was a bran new day. At the end of every heart break and heartache is a chance for grace to reign.

All things can be made new — and sometimes that happens only when everything falls apart, when we fall back on our knees and remember the scandalous love that is Christmas.

Thanks to Christmas, our halls became mysterious playgrounds for nerf gun wars, slam-dunk basketball, and light-up makeup mirrors (trust me I don’t get near those things, but our 15-year-old daughter loves hers!). Thanks to Christmas, our counters overflowed with socks and new jammies and bath goodies and the aroma of peppermint and pine.

And thanks to Christmas, the kitchen filled with a whole new set of cooking supplies from Santa. (New recipes coming in the next blog — including the best meatloaf ever!)

I love to cook and absolutely love to feed all the kids that come in and out of our doors, and this year the kitchen has been a constant turnaround of friends and family. We don’t tire of making something new, and neither does God.

I see on Facebook there are friends disappointed with their 2016s; they posted things like “grieved, saddened, worn out, exhausted . . . need a new season.” 

God is for you, friend. He will never leave you or forsake you. He can take a dark and broken road and turn it into a sunlit trail.

After that one-day-gone bad, I asked him to receive me the way He did way back then. And He did. Christmas happened just yesterday in this heart of mine.

As you walk forward into the New Year, may the lights on the nativity still flicker. And may you remember the one born in the barn that day is looking for room in your heart this year.

May you open the gate, let him in, and let him grow within you, making all things new, not just once a year, but every day, all year through.

Love,