"Let It Snow, Baby. Let It Reindeer"

Jenn has been doing most of the blogging lately, but I've got to get this one off my chest.

It's amazing how things hit you sometimes. All Christmas (sorry Holiday) Season, we've been so busy with a hundred different things that it really hasn't felt like Christmas. Sure, we got the tree up and the lights on the house, but that feeling in your gut that accompanies this time of year just wasn't really there.

This morning, I was driving home from running some errands and a song came on the radio by a christian group named "Relient K". Now, when you hear most of their music it wouldn't strike you as something that carries a heavy message, but I've always had a special place in my heart for the lyrics written by Relient K. In their Christmas album, titled "Let It Snow, Baby. Let It Reindeer" they have a song called "I Celebrate The Day". HERE is a link to the song and the lyrics are written below.

And with this Christmas wish is missed

The point I could convey

If only I could find the words to say to let You know how much You've touched my life

Because here is where You're finding me, in the exact same place as New Year's eve

And from a lack of my persistency

We're less than half as close as I want to be

And the first time

That You opened Your eyes did You realize that You would be my Savior

And the first breath that left Your lips

Did You know that it would change this world forever

And so this Christmas I'll compare the things I felt in prior years

To what this midnight made so clear

That You have come to meet me here

To look back and think that

This baby would one day save me

In the hope that what You did

That you were born so I might live

To look back and think that

This baby would one day save me

And I, I celebrate the day

That You were born to die

So I could one day pray for You to save my life

This has been a really hard year for our family. My job has been somewhat unstable, I haven't worked a 40 hour week in months. To say we've been tight financially is a gross understatement. It is so easy to get bogged down and bitter about everything we've been going through. Yet, hearing this song made me remember my little girl. She's a little more than a year old now and I was thinking back to last Christmas when I felt like we were very special, getting to have this little baby around the time that we celebrate Mary giving birth to The Savior of The World, like we were in some special club or something. Even though things have been hard, our health has been fine. We haven't lost anything or anyone, we just have had to get a little tighter.

Madalyn is sick today and we are taking her to the doctor later this afternoon and then will be heading out for our annual Christmas traveling. And I realized, this is really the first time she's ever been really sick. Like fever, can't sleep kind of sick. First time ever. I can't even begin to tell you how fortunate that makes me feel.

I love that little girl more than anything I've ever done or seen or been in my entire life. Which makes me love our God even that much more. I'm very sorry to all of you, but if I had to let my daughter die in your place, you'd all be screwed. Because I don't have that kind of love for you. But God does. He loved you so much that He allowed his ONLY SON to come down and be ridiculed, beaten, abandoned, and killed - all for people who at the very least are indifferent towards Him. Think about your own children - would you give them up to save someone like that?

In this Christmas Season, you've been told it's about Santa, it's about presents, it's about Baby Jesus. But, this year, what if it was about you? What if Christmas wasn't a season to celebrate the Jesus that we only talk to on Sundays and the occasional Wednesday? Like the song says, "From the lack of my persistency, we're less than half as close as I want to be". This Christmas, think of the sacrifice it would take for you to make the same choice that God made and realize the abundance of His love for us.

A God that will protect me at any cost, even the death of His own Son? Now, that's a God I can get behind.

Merry Christmas everyone!