It’s your 3rd Christmas in heaven. And as Mark Schultz sings, “It’s a different kind of Christmas this year.” I think every Christmas will be different from now on. There will always be the questions, the wanderings, in our hearts even if we don’t say them. I struggle to put words to all that’s swirling in my heart. But I want to do as Toby Mac sings, “Let’s open up our hearts to embrace this moment, for Christmas this year.” An open heart will allow me to experience, not only the joy, peace and excitement of the season, but also the pain and sadness of missing your smiling face and life as it used to be.

We’ve done most of our normal Christmas traditions. True some were seriously modified, like we only baked two kinds of cookies instead of the usual eight to ten we used to do. And one of our new traditions the past three years was to wrap 24 Christmas story books and starting December 1 we unwrap one book each day and read the story. The story the other day really touched my heart and I cried as I read the story. It was titled Josie’s Gift by Kathleen Long Bostrom. It was the story of a young girl’s first Christmas after the death of her father. She was remembering the different things her father said and did. One of his saying over Christmas was, “Christmas is not about what we want; it’s about what we have.” But she was wanting more than she had; she wanted her father to be back, for life to be like it used to be. Christmas wasn’t about what she had; it was all about what was missing this year. And I can so well identify with her feelings.

 But I’ve been really pondering her dad’s saying: Christmas is not about what we want but about what we have. What do I have this Christmas?

~ Pain and tiredness true but then we enjoyed baking those cookies together;

We stayed home and painted pictures,

Made a gingerbread nativity.

~ We miss Jennie but we talked about her and Christmas in heaven and “Does it snow in heaven?” and many other questions about heaven. There was laughter and tears.

~ Peace – a deep down in my heart peace that I will be okay in this storm because my Father loves me passionately and is for me not against me and I can trust Him.

~ Hope – My Father has promised me heaven and I think since there’s a piece of me in heaven that’s what makes me long for heaven so badly some days. I never realized you could miss something you never had but I do.

And yet the more I ponder that saying; I think it’s actually wrong. Christmas is all about what we want, although not in the childish way her dad was thinking. But most of us are still very child-like in thinking if only I can get what I want: that money raise, that new car, a bigger house or well you fill in the blank, and then I can make life work, then life will be better. Most of don’t want to open our hearts and look deeply enough into them to really understand what it is we really want. The truth is I do want more than I have this Christmas. I want heaven. We all do. And what we all want is only possible because of Christmas. Because that is when God became one of us to make it possible for us to live with Him in a perfect world, forever. The following song is one of my favorites this Christmas season sung by Stars Go Dim. The phrase “Our God knows our deepest need, And comes to bring us back to him” speaks to me of how deeply and passionately God loves me and Christmas shows far He was willing to go to bring me back to Him.