We’re at that point of the year where Christmas has passed, but some still have yet to take down their tree. There are those who pull the box out before the new year, and those who let the remnant of the season linger just a little bit longer.
Regardless of when the tree comes down, the feeling of vacancy it leaves behind in its place seems bigger than its actual size. Whether it feels like a fresh start with a clean slate or a gaping hole, the space is there.
One night this Christmas season, as I softly sang Christmas carols and rocked my little one off into sleep, I felt my little girl move around inside of me.
This moment is everything. The place I want to be forever.
Holding my babies as close as I possibly can….one snuggled in my lap, one still growing inside.
I wonder if that is how Mary felt as she was pondering everything that was happening the night her baby was born – absorbing it with her heart. (Luke 2:19)
I wonder if she was intentionally holding on to those moments because she just wanted to sit there in that manger scene forever, rocking the Son of God. The Son of God, yet still her baby boy.
I wonder if she was treasuring those moments, because like every good mom – she knew they were fleeting.
Especially for Him, the One with such a heavy purpose. To serve to the point of death.
And yet, even though He was assumedly born among animals and placed in the container they ate from, never for a moment was He not God.
The fact that He was lying in a manger did not take away His power. It did not change His purpose. It did not alter His value.
You see, our circumstances don’t determine our purpose or our value.
Where we are going does not have to be projected by where we find ourselves now.
God meets us where we are in the humblest of places and shows us that Himself.
If Jesus’ purpose was to serve to the point of death, and we are to follow Him as believers, should our lives look any different?
As we enter into a new year, wherever you find yourself…with a clean slate and fresh start or a gaping hole…whatever the circumstances, I hope you know that they do not determine the call God has placed on your life. They do not alter your purpose, they do not diminish your value. You are loved, and He desires to use you.
16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God. John 3:16-21 CSB