Ninja Mom

In all the hustle and bustle of December, I am surprised to find that I have a few minutes of peace and absolute quiet in the house.  Vicente took the girls to the park and I finished some errands and have the grand luxury to sit and do something that I’ve been wanting to do for a number of weeks.

I really enjoy reading about personality types, particularly those of my family.  I recently saw a little graphic that said that the comfort zone of my personality was “order, stability, a completed to-do list, knowing your life is under control, and peace and quiet.”

Well, you can’t always have everything, but I’ll take the peace and quiet for now.

It’s a busy season for everyone, and one of my favorites.  I love decorating, baking goods, scarves, warm cups of coffee, Christmas music and parties.  It’s just such a unique, festive and hopeful time of year.

This year, this season has meant taking a new look at faith for me.  I got started a couple years ago doing the Bible in a year, but didn’t begin in January.  So I finished one “lap” through the Bible a couple months ago or so, and finished the Christmas accounts in Luke not too long ago.

Having gone through all the Old Testament and the prophecies especially, I am really reminded of the incredible maneuvering it took to make everything happen.  That sounds like a man-made word- maneuvering– but really it was a supernatural word. Abraham and Sarah having a baby, Rahab becoming part of the lineage of Jesus, Ruth coming from Moab to meet Boaz and become part of the lineage… Mary’s trip to Bethlehem to deliver to fulfill the prophecy… and hundreds more!

There is just so much to marvel at.  As a person who loves details and is interested in how things come together to work, I see such a capable, sovereign hand making this “come to pass”.

God surely has all the events and times of man in His hand.

But I’m also reminded that the players in these prophecies didn’t necessarily see all the necessities of these things.  They didn’t see the end picture.  We see it from a hindsight perspective, with the glib attitudes of “I knew it all along” from a comfortable distance of 2000 years.

But had we been the actual players…?

Almost to my 3rd trimester myself, I would have seen the census as a huge inconvenience and annoyance.  A manger would not have been my ideal “birth plan.” The social shame at being pregnant with the Savior of the world, embarking on a new journey with sneers from neighbors along the way, her prospective match for the future in danger… That’s quite a roller coaster for a pregnant lady.

This verse about Mary just jumped right off the page at me:

“and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 2:45)

Christmas is about the incredible sovereignty and majesty and goodness of our Faithful God. It’s about trusting God to fulfill His Word.

Do I believe that God will fulfill the things He’s spoken to me? 

He didn’t and doesn’t promise that it would be easy.  So, when life is tough and I don’t understand why things are going the way that they are and don’t know how things can work out, I can trust that God has a grand scheme going.  I must be willing to say to the Lord, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

As Mary carried Jesus in her womb, “God with us”, so Jesus has given us His Spirit and has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us.

And as I go along, I see a little snippet into Mary’s tactics: she pondered these things in her heart.  She treasured them up.

We don’t always comprehend what’s going on.  We don’t see how things are going to work.  But we don’t have to.  We can focus on the inconveniences and pain and complain about it all.

Or we can take the trinkets and treasures God gives us in the moment and store it up in our hearts as we have to move forward.

So.  That’s my Christmas reflection this year.  God did amazing things to bring about this Christmas night… hundred of years worth of prophecies fulfilled in a more-than-Disney magical night. But He wasn’t done by any means.

And He’s still not done.  His birth is the reminder of His power. His entrance into our lives is literally “God with us”, our source as the Prince of Peace, confidence of the everlasting Father.

He has a mighty work still to accomplish in and through us.  It’s not going to be easy.  I’m not going to understand.  But I can be confident of a future glory by His grace, as I put my faith in Him and treasure up His goodness in my heart.