Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, the young woman who is unmarried and a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God with us].
Isaiah 7:14 (Amplified Bible)
Isaiah 7:14 (Amplified Bible)
Gift: something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned.
My favorite part of the Christmas season is hunting for the perfect gifts for family and friends, wrapping them brightly, and then watching each person unwrap the surprise inside. I enjoy the hunt to find just the thing to tell each person how much they mean to me. I don't always hit the mark, but that goal is always the same. The thing about special gifts, the ones that you remember, is that often they aren't the most expensive or the largest. They may not even attract a lot of attention at first, but the thought behind the gift will be remembered.
When I was a kid, my family would assemble on Christmas morning before I woke up so that they could see my reaction to the gifts that had mysteriously appeared overnight. I only remember most of these mornings thanks to fading photos, but I do remember waking during the Great Cabbage Patch Pandemonium of '83 to find not one but two kids under the tree, ready for adoption. My mother saved them for me and now I wonder at my practical parents accomplishing the impossible. I also have a very pretty jewelry box that my father picked out for me at Service Merchandise. I wish he were still around so that I could tell him how much the idea that he chose it for me means to me now. And I've stuck in one of the doors a bookmark, signed by my Me-ma, that says "Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love." It's a paper bookmark, but it says so much about a grandmother who changed the life of a young girl by being faithful to God. All three of these people are gone now, but when I see these gifts, I remember how they loved me.
God With Us...what an amazing gift! In this one event, we have living and daily proof of a great love. Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birth, the gift of hope to this world, but it isn't without its worries: gift lists, grocery lists, scheduled appearances, last minute details, and the list of things you forgot. Some are struggling to find the money for basics like food and many of us will celebrate with a tinge of sadness. All those challenges make the promise of perfect joy made real with Jesus' birth that much more important.
Thanks to God With Us, there can be so very much more. There can be hope. While I will never execute the perfect Christmas feast, I know that someday, because of Immanuel, I will know the perfect love behind the most amazing gift the world's ever seen. I'm going to get to see the faces I miss every day again and we are going to celebrate. And that celebration will be perfect and last a lot longer than Christmas morning ever did when I was growing up. When I think about Jesus' birth, I think about how much love is behind the perfect gift, a gift that contains sacrifice, salvation, eternal life, peace, joy, love, and hope. And for a moment, even now in the busiest time of the year, I can pause and wonder in awe and humility over the perfection of that gift.
Take another minute out of the rush of the season to share this gift of God With Us and the love behind it with someone!
Cheryl
