This Christmas season has been a mixed bag for me. I've been excited to spend Christmas with my better half (it will be the first we've celebrated together in three years); I've been very sad that the Christmas traditions I grew up knowing and loving no longer wrap me in the securities of time and care; I've felt out of place because I normally feel very intensely the depths of anticipation for what--and Who--is to come, but this year the unknowns of a different family celebration have depleted my hopeful expectations. I've also been increasingly disgusted with the consumerism of Christmas this year; the other day while exercising, Oprah's "Favorite Things" show came on and all of the women went into orgasmic ecstasy over...stuff. Disgusting.
Sometimes, I wish I didn't feel things so deeply and thus experience the pull of a thousand different directions.
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Sunday past, the kids were up front singing songs they've been preparing for months. Some of them knew all the words completely by heart and were singing at the top of their lungs. Some of them knew absolutely zero words and spent time making faces at the audience. Some knew the words, but got stage fright and stood there alternately mouthing the words and staring blankly.
One kid, well...he had Down's Syndrome. He didn't really sing, but it didn't matter. He just stood in the middle of the stage and worshiped God with the simplicity of a pure heart and mind. He raised his hands in simple adoration because that is what you do when you know Him as He is. He danced around in circles because His Savior dances over him. And He clapped his hands because the King of the Universes became a Babe born into poverty to make him new.
That is it. That is all of Christmas. Worship, stripped of complexity and sin.
Jesus, help us to adore You, open our eyes to know You, lead us in the dance and give us the humility of unbroken praise.
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