Our Presents; His Presence!

Christmas is awesome! The traditions, celebrations, family gatherings, smells, sights and tastes. I just love all the carols, pageants, lights, nativities and candlelights. I simply didn't think Christmas could exist without them. Then came Christmas '07.
Christmas '07 was found "lacking" in my estimation. You see, our family has been experiencing various struggles and hardships in relationships as well as health. Many of our cherished traditions were broken. Much of the joyous spirit in decorating our house was declared MIA. The normal cheer and anticipation seemed to wain. Most was being done out of duty, responsibility and the feeling of "supposed to."
To top it all off, on Christmas Eve, I found myself miserably sick with a head & chest cold. As a result, I missed the Christmas Eve service and ended up spending the night on the couch trying to insure that Jan would not catch it.
As I lay there drugged up, on a couch that was 6 inches too short to hinder me from stretching out and about 2 feet too narrow to keep me from turning over, I focused on our Christmas tree now standing in the dark. My head was exploding, I couldn't breath, I was aching and chilled and really feeling a bit sorry for myself.
As I lay there thinking, "What a wonderful Christmas this has turned out to be," the Lord said something I truly needed to hear. He reminded me that the first Christmas was not a very pleasant experience for Joseph and Mary either. There they were, miles from home, Mary VERY pregnant, having either walked or riden a donkey for hours, hungry, dirty and unable to find a single room in the village. They ended up having to stay in a barn of all places, with nothing around them but smelly animals, dirt and straw. There were no cheery decorations, no brightly colored lights, no thermostats to adjust the heating/AC, no ZICAM, no ibuprophin, no kleenex, no soft pillow with a bear on the case to snuggle up with, NOTHING! Not my idea of a wonderful Christmas!
Then I thought of how blessed I was. Safe, warm, somewhat comfortable, with my wife and son all under the same roof. I had nothing to complain about and everything to be thankful for. See, a miracle happened in that stinky, dirty, smelly barn, and that exhausted and rejected young couple got to see it first hand and have a part in it. They didn't sit there thinking of how bad things were when their focus turned to the little baby Mary had just delivered lying there in the manger. Instead, they recalled, "You shall call His name Jesus, Immanuel, God with us."
I looked in the dark at the silhouette of our beautifully decorated tree with all the presents surrounding it and saw our manger filled with straw holding the baby. When I began to focus on the baby, I wasn't so concerned about my sad situation. Instead I thought how in the midst of misery, the Messiah was born. In dirty surroundings, the divine Savior appeared. In that pitiful place, the Prince of Peace entered our world. That's the miracle and that's what makes Christmas, Christmas!! Our present is His presence! He is, "God with us." My Christmas became very merry.
God bless us, every one!