Trying to change my Christmas perspective...

Last year, it didn't snow...I mean, really snow...until January-ish. Not this year. We got our first snow, if you will, this week. After snowing all day yesterday and all night, we've got about two and a half inches sitting pretty around us. Tomorrow, we're suppose to get more. Yeah!

Snow always makes me think of Christmas. Even when it snows in March I feel like I should have a lights lining my windows and a decorated tree happily filling the entry way. When I lived in Texas, we didn't get snow, so the holiday season had to be redefined so I wasn't completely depressed when there was not snow on Christmas morning.

I'm so sad that my perspective of Christmas has become so worldly that I think of trees and lights and carols when I think of December. At church on Sunday, our pastor started an Advent series. I know the stories he talked about, but something was different. I was caught off guard by stray tears at the mention of Mary's faith, John the Baptist and scripture referencing Jesus coming back. Surely the Lord is doing quite a work in my heart.

Christmas isn't about presents or decorating or singing loud for all to hear (Elf, anyone?). None of these things are bad, they've just become, well, more important the Jesus Himself. That's what Christmas is really about. Jesus. That's it. That simple.

I read a portion of Luke 1 today. My heart was so moved by the words written in this beautiful account of Jesus' life. I want more of that. I want tears when I am in awe of God's word, His grace, His love. I want to be speechless when I'm blessed by a sunrise or a thunderstorm. I want to praise when I've got nothing left inside of me or when I've see God, once again, answer my prayers.

My heart has been so hard toward the Lord recently. I feel like so much has happened and I've dealt with so much. Every hard thing that happened brought up fifty other things that I forgot to deal with at some point. Every good thing that has happened has brought up one hundred things I forgot to remember. But today...today was so different, so sweet. I wanted to sit with the Lord. I wanted to soak all of Him in. I wanted, Him. That's it.

After months of praying for a heart that desires more of the Lord, for a soft heart and a gentle spirit, for more faith, for more of Him, for less of me, for patience to wait, for eyes to see and ears to hear, for my sin to make me sick, for a hunger and thirst only satisfied in Him...finally, I see a flicker of hope, of light perched inside of me just waiting, desperately, to turn into a flame of faith.

"Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune--without the words, And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me." -Emily Dickinson