Her, her with the aged worn glasses slipping down her nose, she bends achingly over that soft hewn piece of white pine. With her carving knife in hand, time slips away and something simple and beautiful is created from a formless blank slate.
My grandmother, Grandma Buckner as I called her, spent a lot of time carving wood. When you carve, you start with this piece of nothing special, non descript wood, and the end result is something to be admired and treasured.
So how does any of this have to do with the Christmas season? Is what I am about to write going to be worth a Nobel Peace Prize or be words you haven’t heard before?
NO.
But here’s the thing…the question of this and every Christmas season…how do we get to the 25th of December and not feel like we just ran a never ending race? When you wake on the 20th of December {that last Saturday before the big day} how do you not mutter the words “I just want it to be over with”?
This Christmas season, how do you stay focused on what really matters?
By carving time out of every single day.
Carving time that is filled solely with Him.
By creating space, moments, in your day where you commune with Him.
Time lapses where your sole focus is to re-nourish yourself.
For how can we have joy, hope, peace, and love if we aren’t filling ourselves up with
His Joy, His Peace, His Hope, His Love?
I know, I know…not rocket science. Nothing you haven’t heard before.
But what if this December, this Christmas season, you simply said STOP?
What if instead of running to the mall in those 25 unexpected free minutes, you ran to His word instead? Which leaves you sustained for when the kids come home and you’re suppose to be offering grace but it’s more often like a mutiny of words rushing unfettered out of your mouth?
When the gray skies dawn early and the warm sheets beckon you to snuggle in, what if instead you woke 32 minutes before your kids footsteps slumbered down the hall? Would you perhaps have a smile on your face when they rounded the corner because you had filled your heart with words of truth?
I know, I know…it’s hard in this world of ours to not feel the tug of “but this present has to be just right, so I need to spend more time, more money, more sanity…”
I personally get how hard it is to wake before the kids bound awake each. and. every. single. morning at 6:02am. I struggle with these same things and each December I get to the 23rd and wonder how I’m gonna make it the last 2 days. I put way too many demands on my time when instead I need to simply curl up with the Bible and read scripture.
For how can any time together {with family or with friends} be uplifting if I am worn out & spent?
So…what if I spent 30 minutes every day alone with Christ?
Reading scripture, pouring out the aches of this heart in my prayer journal, or delving into an advent devotional?
Would my December be a little less harried?
Would I get to Christmas day and have peace despite the chaos of family dynamics, be hopeful despite the circumstances I find myself in, be joyful that God wants to have a relationship with me and He is the one that did all the hard work that I could never accomplish myself?
And filled with His Joy, Peace, & Hope, would my heart, then, overflow with His love?
If I carve time out of my day for my Savior, would I not leave better than I came? Doesn’t he start with all of us as non descript pieces of wood and out of them sculpts us into these treasured images of Himself?
And if that doesn’t make you want to spend time with God, every single day, then what about this…
“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed”. Mark 1:35
If Christ, who was all things Holy, needed one on one time with God the Father, then how much more do I myself need time with the Lord before I start my day?
So this December, join me?
Carve time, out of those precious 24 hours He gives every day, to find your sustainment in Him?
