To be Mary....

I wasn't feeling so in the ho ho holly jolly spirit the last couple of days. The stresses of decorating the house... shopping for gifts... the ones I found a month or so ago are now out of stock (grrrr...) and the days have literally just left me breathless.

So, today I threw on my favorite Christmas CD. It's Elvis, just in case you were wondering and you know.... that did the trick. I'm relaxed, dancing around the house making goo-gie noises at Ben and taking it in.

..and then it happened.

The CD changed to one that I also love equally well... with lots of stars singing christmas carols. The song that came on in particular was Amy Grant singing "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" and it got me thinking...

...to be Mary.

Can you imagine being pregnant.... back then... being visited by an angel... being in your ninth month... riding on a donkey for hours only to find out there is no room for you. You are about to birth the King of kings and Lord of lords and they have no room for you. The ACLU isn't there to wage your battle for you... Jessie Jackson isn't there to cry discrimination and wage a march... they don't have the 5 o'clock news to make it a featured story for you to garner public support. It's just you, your man and the donkey. And then you labor... not in a safe hospital room with doctors, nurses and drugs at your disposal but in a stable among the animals... and filth. How humble of a birth had He.

And when Mary looked at Him for the first time... do you think she realized just how huge of an impact He would truly have on mankind? And then to be a KING. A KING?... and travel to pay homage to a baby... just a little infant... can you imagine? Can you even imagine... to be the mother of the Lord and Savior of humankind?

How amazing.

And then I think about how commercial this entire season is. Don't get me wrong, I love decorating the house up for Christmas but a lot of time I do that .... for ME... because I just love it... rather than do it because of what it represents... the celebration of the season. To combat that this year I did our advent. What an amazing ADVENTure I'm having with my boys as they open their advent calendar each day. It's helping us all stay focused on the reason for the season.

This morning I went to hear my middle child perform a small Christmas program with bells... and there is NOTHING more wonderful than hearing sweet angelic voices lifted in praise of the Savior's birth. Hearing sweet children.... ones that YOU, yourself, have birthed singing Away in a Manger. As a mother, you can't help but to get tears in your eyes hearing something so sweet and innocent and pure.

Ok, so Elvis may be my favorite "get up and boogie" Christmas CD but... now I'm thinking, those Christmas carols that celebrate our glorious Savior... those are my favorite. Those make me think. O Holy Night is on now... I need a tissue.

Jesus. What an awesome story of overcoming hardship... pressing forward... blaming nothing on the past but just looking at what a difference you can make in the future.