An Unexpected Gift this Christmas

It's Christmas day. I currently sit in a tank top and shorts by a Christmas tree and two giant boxes which are full of presents which will be opened by my roommate upon her return in a week and a half. The only thing that's been white about this Christmas is my skin. This year is my first Christmas on the field, my first Christmas "alone". And amidst a holiday season full of striving, of discontentment, tonight I find my first night of that "silent night"-y kind of peace.

An old roommate Christmas pic <3

Flashback to the last few weeks. Thanksgiving hits. Ugh, it's the holiday season. Can't go home. This will be the worst. My roommate gets to go home. In fact, all of my friends here are leaving me. Why can't Christmas just not happen? And why do we need a break? This sounds like a terrible idea. *Insert more Grinch-like, emo-esque comments* The fact is this holiday season, I didn't feel like I has a whole lot to look forward to. Instead the holidays have felt more like a taunt reminding me of the life I once knew, the people I once would have spent this season with who I miss way too much. My family who I would watch Rudolph with every Christmas eve as we devoured massive amounts of cookies and hot chocolate as we lounged in hoodies and sweatpants after church. My old roommates who I would gather with for a "family" Christmas party every year between Christmas and New Year's. The friends I would always catch up with since the holidays was one of the only times I was home. All things I have been missing terribly as this holiday season hits me here away in the mission field.

The holidays aren't an awesome time for everyone. And sometimes every "What are you doing for Christmas?" becomes this terrible taunt reminding people of what they no longer have. And I think there is an okay-ness with grieving that. But never let us stay in that grief and self-pity. If we dwell there, if we set up our tents and live there, we live in denial of the hope and joy that is in the very message of Christmas. 

See let's go back to what Christmas is about.

Genesis 1 and 2: Perfect world. Man and God walk together and chill. All is well.

Genesis 3: BOOM! CRASH! You had only one rule Eve! Really????
Later in Genesis 3: God "Curse....blah, blah, blah. Eve, you and this serpent will be enemies now. He's going to be on the prowl looking to attack you. BUT WAIT, you will have a descendant who CRUSHES HIS HEAD!" *Hope shimmers as Adam and Eve wait for a son to break that curse*

Genesis 4-5: People kicked out of garden, and world keeps taking turns for the worst. With every new child, the whisper of hope kicks in. Maybe this son will be the one that will crush the serpent's head. Take for example Genesis 5:29 "He named him Noah and said, 'He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.'" Sounds like someone who will reverse the curse, no?

But every son comes up short. Even the comparatively righteous, like Noah, seems to fall short of the promised destroyer of the curse. The world falls more and more apart. So God renews his promise. God continually gives throughout the Old Testament these details, most hidden among descriptions of terrible things that are going on, of what this Messiah will be like. He's going to restore us to God. He will be a king with all authority and rule. He's going to bring justice. He will be our Emmanuel, God with us. He's everything that these inhabitants of earth, these people who fall further and further from God because of that silly curse, need and could not be themselves. And after waiting and waiting, after wondering time after time "Is this the one?", I'm sure they got tired of waiting. Where are you God and where is this promise? It really is too good to be true isn't it? I'm sure many gave up hope after waiting so long.

But behold, then Jesus does come born in the lowliest of stables, declared to the men of little importance in society, shepherds. And this little baby really is too good to be true. He's the Promised One. He's our Emmanuel, God with us. He lives the life we could never live and then crushes the serpent once and for all on the cross. He counteracts the curse, allowing us to have a relationship with God that is tighter than the garden. He brings in not just the era of God with us, but his death brings the era of God in us. Never again are we alone. Never again do we have to live dreadfully separated from God and all hope. And no longer do we wait, because we already have.

That's the message of Christmas. The Long Awaited One has come. He is the present that humanity needed. The only present that I need. See, the other things that I miss this Christmas are awesome, above and beyond things that the Lord has really blessed me with. But what God has challenged me with this Christmas is the question, "Am I enough? Am I truly the thing your contentment and joy are built on or is it built on my gifts?" See my Lord gives good gifts; you might even say He's the best at it. But when we need those gifts, not realizing we already have everything we need in Jesus, not realizing how much we have already been given in Jesus, we live taking for granted the very thing mankind has been waiting for since the curse. With this realization in hand, I spent most of my afternoon posted up in a hammock with my Bible chilling with Jesus. I had my own candlelight service under my Christmas tree. I spent my day with my Savior, because He is enough. And upon realizing that, Christmas went from dreaded to a blessed day indeed.

And with that I just want to leave you with Joy to the World (because it speaks of that joy we can have now that the curse has been undone):

Joy to the world! The Lord has comeLet earth receive her King!Let every heart prepare Him room
And heaven and nature singAnd heaven and nature singAnd heaven, and heaven and nature sing

Joy to the world! the Savior reignsLet men their songs employWhile fields and floodsRocks, hills and plainsRepeat the sounding joyRepeat the sounding joyRepeat, repeat the sounding joy

No more let sins and sorrows growNor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make His blessings flowFar as the curse is found.As the curse is found.

*Also for those back home who are wondering, or are like "Man I feel terrible that Kacie was so alone over Christmas", people did take me in. The last few days I've been running around like crazy doing Christmas-y things with different families and friends I've met here. Even today on Christmas, I went to a family's house for an awesome breakfast and Christmas celebration. Don't worry, I am being taken care of ;)