Christmas........I have always said that for me Christmas comes in moments throughout the Advent or Christmas season if you just keep your heart open to hear, to see, to listen. Such a moment took hold of me, if you will, in exquisite awareness just last evening.
Jon, Joshua, and I were invited to a movie and to dinner with dear friends and fellow sojourners for Christ. After the movie we took the snowy wintery drive up to their house with lighted trees along the way flocked by God's own doing. We were greeted in their beautiful home with decorations, music, the smell of food and the sounds of friends gathered.
Then we came together at the table to share the evening meal. Jon was asked to lead the blessing and we all held hands around the table. But there was a wonderful miracle among us already! Our host was and is by the hand of God a survivor of leukemia and the accompaning stem cell transplant received from a 20 some year old who cared enough to be a donor. He has celebrated his one year survivor and keeper of his new stem cells. As Jon prayed about welcoming the Christ Child and about continued well being as well as blessing the food and those less fortunate, I was filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit speaking "Christmas" into my soul. In that moment it was Christmas. We stood before our Lord around a table ever mindful that life is a gift; life in Him is the greatest of all gifts.
It was a quiet moment. It was a full moment. It was a moment of Emanuel, God with us! Such moments once a part of us is always a part of us enriching our hearts and turning us toward Him. So as the old hymn prays forth, "O come, O come Emanuel," I pray let it be so in my life! And may all of us have many "Christmas" moments during this holy season.