With Us

With Christmas coming up, at church we have been talking about the reason we celebrate (imagine that, a church talking about the birth of Jesus around Christmas lol). In my ABF, Kathy had a really great message yesterday that sort of sunk in a little deeper than what I had heard or thought about before.
We've all heard the story of the star, the three wise men, and the baby born in the manger. Every year we celebrate His birth on Christmas, but why? It's not that I haven't thought about it before, but I always thought about it in the sense that I love Jesus, and He is my Savior, so I'm going to celebrate the day He was born. Nothing wrong with that, it's all true, it's just there's more.
What really sunk in to me this weekend was the reason I am celebrating Jesus' birth is that this is the day He came to be with me. God, who placed every star in the sky and knows them each by name (Psalm 147:4), left Heaven (would you ever want to leave there, I sure wouldn't!), and came to this world to physically be with us. He left his perfect home to come to an imperfect world, be mocked, tormented, laughed at, hurt, and abused ... all to be with us. Let that sink in. He knows what the world is like, He lived it! He understands what we are going through, because He lived it. The God of the world walked here on this earth because He loved us so much He wanted to physically be with us. And when it was time for Him to leave, He didn't leave us alone. He left us with a piece of him. He left us with the Holy Spirit, who is still, to this day, physically with us. God is with us. Got that?
So on Christmas we celebrate the day our Savior was born. We celebrate the day he came to be with us. We celebrate, for because of Him, we are NEVER alone. NEVER!
Kathy made a really good point I want to share here: We are celebrating a day that our Savior came into this world to be with us so we are never alone, so feeling lonely around the holiday sort of defeats the whole purpose of the celebration.
This year I am spending Christmas with two people in my life who I love dearly. But, there are others who I am so used to spending the holiday with that won't be able to be here this year. For one reason or another they can't make it and aren't coming. I've spent a good deal of time moping around about this. I told my mom it seems depressing, it seems lonely. Feeling lonely defeats the purpose, so I'm done with that. I am celebrating that I am NEVER alone by choosing not to feel lonely. And, I know am blessed to have my mom and brother to spend the holiday with, even if it is just the three of us.
We listened to this song in my ABF. It is mesmerizingly beautiful... if you have a few minutes to sit still and let it sink in, please do. It really is beautiful, and is exactly the message we need to remember at Christmas.