This Christmas, I’ve asked several good friends to be a guest blogger as they reflect on Christmas.  Tinelle is a crazy woman who speaks her mind and is on fire for Jesus.  She lives life to the fullest and is always seeking to please God in all that she does.  Tinelle’s smile and hilarious sense of humor and her passionate desire to serve God brings joy to everyone she knows.  I hope you enjoy this first installment Christmas Joy!

I’m filled with joy, mixed with a little bit of anxiety…ok, a good deal of anxiety.  It’s “that” time of year, Christmas.  I’m not sure why I always feel like it sneaks up on me, it’s the same time every year.  Time to buy, buy, buy and be broke, broke, broke.  Not to mention busy, busy, busy!  Then it happened, I had a daughter, Trynda Marie, born June 30, 2005.  Christmas took on a whole other meaning.  As she has gotten older (now 5) the more I feel the need to instill in to her the TRUE meaning for this “madness”. Not gifts and food.  OH,  how we’ve made it madness.  I do want her to know the warm cozy feeling of family, cuddled under a fluffy blanket drinking hot cocoa and watching the oldies on television.  I want her to remember the smell of Christmas. I had forgotten it had a smell.  Cedarwood and cinnamon, to me.  I do want her to enjoy a small bit of shopping and the cute stories of Santa; but, most importantly, I want her to know “the reason for the season”.   Jesus, our Heavenly Father in flesh, was born!

I was in my Disciple class and heard of a wonderful idea; three gifts for Christmas.  Jesus received three gifts…so, that is exactly what Trynda will be receiving.  She has embraced this lovely idea with a fight.  In the beginning, she asked that we postpone the discussion, as she did not like what she was hearing.  “3 GIFTS?!?!? WHAT???”  After some deal of talking and reasoning and explaining, she accepted.  After I turned the whole thing around and made it HER idea, of course.  (Momma trick 157 J)  She has made my heart happy so many times this season with just sharing this idea with others.  She is so matter-of-fact.  I love her heart.  It beats in the hands of our Savior!

While going out and buying things for our loved ones is still very much a tradition we take part in…the celebration of Christ’s birth is more than just a tradition, it’s…no, HE is the reason.   Trynda knows that.  She celebrates with me and I pray she invites others to celebrate the meaning of this time of year with her.

It is fun to look around at the stores and watch people get caught up in the fads of today and repeat fads of the past.  It’s fun waking up and seeing the perfectly placed gifts under the twinkling pine, every box beautifully covered in the colors of the holiday.  It’s fun knowing that minutes later we will be sitting in the very same room in an ocean of that very same paper.  All of those things are fun.  My heart smiles seeing the satisfaction on the faces as the gifts are set to the side one after the other while all the attention is moved to the next wrapped package personally labeled “from Santa”.

While those things ARE fun, the truly fun part to me…now, as an adult, raising a child… is knowing that the little baby boy born in a manger so long ago was sent here for my daughter, my husband, my parents, my sisters and brothers, my friends, my family…the stranger walking next to me in the store, the neighbor I’ve never even spoken to, the homeless, the poor, the windowed, the sinful, the WORLD…  He was sent here for you.  It was all part of God’s miraculous plan.  I was.  You were.  We are.  Only because, He was.  He is and always will be.  HE WAS BORN! HE DIED! HE LIVES! Without that first part the last two couldn’t have happened…

 Merry Christmas.

But, more than that…HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS!!!!