First let me say thank you for joining me on this journey. Writing these daily posts has been more difficult than I ever imagined. God has been faithful every step of the way providing the scripture, ideas and questions. After some prayer, I feel God leading me to end this Advent journey a few days early. My family is volunteering at our church’s Christmas Eve services and we have extended family coming in town and I want to have the freedom to fully engage in those events. However, I do want to leave you with a final Christmas thought about families. This is something I wrote for my preschool teachers this past week and feel like it has relevance for everyone. Merry Christmas!

Christmas time makes me think a lot about families. For most of us we are all part of more than one family. I mean think about it, we have immediate families, extended families, friend families, work families and hopefully you are also part of God’s family. Families, we can’t really escape them, and the thing is not a single one of them is perfect. Every single one of them is messed up and broken in some way. 

In our families we all have unique roles we play in each setting. Some of us are the crazy aunt, that is a bit eccentric but always has a smile on her face and can’t wait to hand out hugs. Others are the weird uncle who only shows at holidays, makes a mess, gets the kids all riled up and then leaves. Then you have moms and dads. Moms are fixers at heart. We want the best for our kids and hate it when we don’t have all the answers. We tend to get a bad rap at times because we wear our emotions on our sleeve and allow the stress of juggling a home, marriage, family and a job get to us. I’m convinced that all most moms really want is a hour or two alone and a nap! Dads on the other hand carry a different type of stress. They too are fixers – but their fixing comes in the form of car repairs and household maintenance. They too carry stress as they are normally the family’s primary provider. Dads tend to stuff their emotions versus putting them on display for all to see, but nonetheless, they carry all kinds of feelings and emotions hiding beneath the surface. Then you’ve got the grandmas, who do their best to make sure everyone has whatever they need, regardless of the inconvenience, while doing their best to keep everyone happy at the same time. The thing with grandmas is that they can also be a bit naive and tend to believe the best about everyone and truly believe their family can somehow pull it together and have the perfect family gathering. 

At Christmas time we are reminded that God sent Jesus to restore and repair his family. Lately I have been convicted and reminded that each of us can also choose to be a tool of restoration. By choosing to be a restorer we are choosing to live like Jesus, putting others first, and loving all of our family members all the time. We all have a choice and make that choice in some way,  every single day. 

The other thing about families is that they are full of children. Every single one of us is a child. We are children of God. We all have a mom and dad, even though for some of us those earthly relationships have come to an end, we are still children. And there are days, even as adults when we just really want our mom. As adult children however, we tend to forget to have fun. We tend to overlook the awe and wonder that is around us every single day. We tend to rush past the excitement and joy and instead struggle to fully engage in the here and now.  

But what if for the next two weeks, we allowed our inner child to come out and we allowed ourselves to enjoy Christmas and time away from the normal routines of work and school?  What if we didn’t worry about what to teach until January? What if we played in the snow with our kids/grandkids, drank hot cocoa and watched movies while wearing our pj’s all day? What if we woke up on Christmas day with just as much anticipation and joy as our kids because we remember what it was like to be a kid, while at the same time we are old enough to realize that life is short and none of us is promised another Christmas. 

What if instead of complaining, we went met that crazy aunt or sister in law with a hug and let her tell us all about her 25 cats? What if we embraced that crazy uncle or brother in law and welcomed them to our homes and hearts, realizing that perhaps this is the day they look forward to all year long? What if we loved those hard to love family members, understanding that maybe all they need is our unconditional love? 

What if we let our spouses, brothers and sisters and even ourselves off the hook? Knowing that not a single one of them or us can ever be perfect No one but Jesus can provide the perfect Christmas – and He has already done that. Our job is simply to remember.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to read, like and comment on my ramblings. I am truly grateful for each and everyone of you! I’m praying that you and yours have a very merry Christmas!