Join us on Facebook: Connect PCA Women's Ministry
enCourage - Gospel-Centered Hope for Fulfilling your God-Given Purpose
SUBSCRIBE

Menu
Skip to content
  • Posts
  • Podcast
  • Remember Resources
  • Authors
  • About
  • CDM Home

Tag Archives: Luke 2:19

Dec72020Nov 20 2020

When You Feel Like Pitching Christmas

by Christina Fox, in category Christmas

When I was a little girl, my mother told me the story of a long ago relative, Amelia Ruth.  As a child, she was a notorious spoiled brat.  Her parents warned her that Santa rewarded bad behavior with “ashes and switches.”

Amelia Ruth didn’t listen.

On Christmas morning she ran to her Christmas stocking only to find it full of soot.  In predictable behavior she took that stocking, (my mom may have embellished this part) swung it round above her head, and pitched it across the room.  A CRACK interrupted her tantrum, for buried in the toe of this stocking was the hand painted china doll she’d asked for, broken.

I feel like throwing a tantrum myself.

As COVID fatigue sets in and my usual holiday plans could be turning to ashes and soot, am I acting like Amelia Ruth this Christmas? Sure, we experience spilt milk moments, and we try not to cry or pitch a fit.  As frustrating as piles of laundry or work deadlines can be, we are used to pushing through.  But now that Bing Crosby is on the radio and the familiar smells of the season take us back to Christmas last year, we may feel a panic.  What if I spend Christmas alone?  What if I can’t take the children to their grandparents’ house?  What if I can’t afford to celebrate in the usual ways?

So much has been lost in this time of COVID, and I don’t want to lose my usual Christmas, too.  This is not the December I want, and I feel like swinging this holiday season along with the rest of 2020 over my head and pitching it across the room.

Mary and Joseph would understand how you and I feel.

After all, their simple, obedient Jewish lives were hijacked when the angel delivered to them his unexpected birth announcements.  When this teenage mom and her new husband stepped into parenting the Promised One, I doubt they imagined what would follow.  As we see in the events of Matthew and Luke, the first Christmas could be summed up in the word, unusual.

First of all, a barn?  Really?  If I had been Mary, I would have stomped my foot in Amelia Ruth style and said, I knew I was giving birth to the Messiah, but it didn’t occur to me I’d have to do it in a barn! I doubt any of us would have expected to have donkeys and cows munching on hay and looking on while we panted and pushed, birthing the special baby. Far from the comfort of home and family, was Mary undone as she felt the contractions come?

And, what about Joseph? Did he break out into a sweat as he struck out door to door, trying to find shelter for them in Bethlehem?  How was he supposed to take care of the Messiah if he couldn’t even secure a hotel room?  Life was outside his control, even while obeying God.  And after Jesus was finally born, when Joseph gazed at the Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, were his own dreams of being a dad for the first time subjugated to the reality in front of him, being an earthly father to the Son of God?

But the surprises did not stop there. This unusual barnyard scene was interrupted by an unexpected group of visitors, a scruffy band of excited shepherds barging in with tales of singing angels, shining light, and tidings of comfort and joy.  In the middle of this first (and very unusual) Christmas day, what did Mary do? In the midst of what seemed to be ashes and switches, did she complain, pitch a fit, get mad at God or the circumstances He put them in?  Did she ever stomp her foot and say, I don’t like this! Luke tells us what Mary did in Luke 2:19.

But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Our traditional holiday celebrations are mere shadows of what Mary saw in these unusual days of the first Christmas – things she pondered.  Every year I’ve untangled yards of Christmas lights, yet God decked the first Christmas sky with “the glory of the Lord” shining on the shepherds (Luke 2:9).  I remember my daddy stretching off the top of a ladder to stick the star on our gigantic Christmas tree.  But, during Mary’s Christmas, God Himself hung a star over His Baby’s house to guide the Magi (Matthew 2:9).  I’ve worked hard on buying just-right gifts for all on my list, yet God used the Wise Men (not our mere Amazon delivery) to hand deliver treasures of gold, frankincense, and myrrh—perfectly-timed provisions for Mary’s needy family of three (Matthew 2:11). She saw the unusual and pondered what God was doing.

Maybe I should take my Christmas cues from Mary, not Amelia Ruth.  Instead of pitching Christmas 2020 with all its disappointments and unusual situations, could I ponder it instead?  As I am tempted to wind up my frustration and toss it across the room, could I pause and unwrap what God is giving me to hold this Christmas? If I don’t, could I miss the china doll He’s hidden in the ashes and switches of a pandemic (Isaiah 30:15)?

What is God giving me to ponder?…

CONNECT:

FB-1

TW-1

EM-1

cdmtile3

Recent Posts

  • Remember to Pray
  • How to Navigate Church Conflicts
  • E-133 Remember Why You Do What You Do with Carrie Mills
  • Jesus Mercifully Listens to Us
  • The Joy of Not Being Needed
  • E-132 Remember to be a Word-based Woman with Pam Benton

Archives

  • April 2021 (8)
  • March 2021 (14)
  • February 2021 (12)
  • January 2021 (11)
  • December 2020 (12)
  • November 2020 (13)
  • October 2020 (13)
  • September 2020 (13)
  • August 2020 (9)
  • July 2020 (9)
  • June 2020 (9)
  • May 2020 (11)
  • April 2020 (13)
  • March 2020 (14)
  • February 2020 (12)
  • January 2020 (12)
  • December 2019 (12)
  • November 2019 (12)
  • October 2019 (14)
  • September 2019 (13)
  • August 2019 (11)
  • July 2019 (9)
  • June 2019 (8)
  • May 2019 (13)
  • April 2019 (14)
  • March 2019 (12)
  • February 2019 (12)
  • January 2019 (12)
  • December 2018 (12)
  • November 2018 (13)
  • October 2018 (16)
  • September 2018 (16)
  • August 2018 (15)
  • July 2018 (17)
  • June 2018 (14)
  • May 2018 (19)
  • April 2018 (17)
  • March 2018 (16)
  • February 2018 (16)
  • January 2018 (14)
  • December 2017 (8)
  • November 2017 (9)
  • October 2017 (9)
  • September 2017 (6)
  • August 2017 (8)
  • July 2017 (9)
  • June 2017 (8)
  • May 2017 (9)
  • April 2017 (8)
  • March 2017 (9)
  • February 2017 (8)
  • January 2017 (8)
  • December 2016 (8)
  • November 2016 (7)
  • October 2016 (9)
  • September 2016 (8)
  • August 2016 (8)
  • July 2016 (7)
  • June 2016 (8)
  • May 2016 (9)
  • April 2016 (6)
  • March 2016 (4)
  • February 2016 (2)
flower tile
flowertile3

Recent Posts

  • Remember to Pray
  • How to Navigate Church Conflicts
  • E-133 Remember Why You Do What You Do with Carrie Mills
  • Jesus Mercifully Listens to Us
  • The Joy of Not Being Needed
  • E-132 Remember to be a Word-based Woman with Pam Benton

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Site made with ♥ by Angie Makes
Angie Makes Feminine WordPress Themes