The Christmas season is upon us. All the hustle and bustle, everyone trying to get the right gift for those important people in your lives. Along with that comes the desire to buy something that isn’t in your budget, but sure would make this person or child so happy. Sometimes that means extending our credit cards or pulling out of savings or “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. Been there? I sure have.

When I was a single mother, this time of year I wanted to be able to provide for my children the thing they wanted most! My children were my world. This most wonderful time of celebration was lost in my anxiety to make all the preparations for Christmas Morning: Waking up to my children’s excitement to get under that tree and start ripping off paper and seeing what’s inside.

I was excited for them as well, but also exhausted. I was up almost all night on Christmas Eve wrapping presents to get under that tree. I would finally get to bed and only a few hours later be awoken by very excited children.

Each year when it was all over I felt empty. Once again this season of Love had passed me by. After it was over, that feeling of emptiness laid it’s heavy blanket on me once again.

Yet again I had been so caught up in the preparation of my family and friends’ Christmas that I missed the celebration: the immense gift that was poured out by God. There is no gift that could ever slightly come close to the gift that God gave me, gave mankind, with the birth of His Son Jesus.

With this gift of Jesus come so many more gifts. Love, Salvation, Patience, Joy, Forgiveness, Restoring, Renewing, Reconciliation, and so much more!! God even showed his understanding of the financial strain that falls on most of us. After all, God’s only son was born in an awful stable.

Joseph cleaned out a feeding trough to make a bed for God’s son. Joseph and Mary were simple people with simple means. Yet they were given the immense job of raising God’s only son. Can you begin to fathom that? I can’t.

There is a song by 4-Him that I am posting on facebook. The song is called, “It’s a Strange Way to Save the World”. I love this song for putting into words what it must have been like to be Joseph and Mary.

Luke 2: 7 “And she brought forth her first born Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in the manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Luke 2:13-14 “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men’.”

This is the Celebration in this Season of Love. I pray that none of us miss it again this year

Terrie Olson

Executive Director