Bring his Light....

So we had about an inch or two of snow fall between Christmas Eve and Christmas.....so officially we had a "white Christmas"....but that wasn't good enough.  The white Winter witch (a la CS Lewis) has sent another storm....a real one this time and we will be snowed in for at least a day or two.  They are saying that there will be power outages.  I'm sincerely sincerely hoping not.  We have electric heat, well, cooking....and with temperatures like these the house will not be inhabitable.  I will go over to my friend's house.  They have a wood stove and a generator.  My joints cannot tolerate cold.  Mostly I'm just hoping and praying that things stay status quo.

I wrote another story.  At Thanksgiving I wrote one and now, at Christmas too.  When the disappointment of my reality sets in I write a fantasy...a story where things are better.....where relationships are loving and where the Holidays have meaning.  Now I know that the holidays have meaning beyond my good "cheer"....I know that Christ's birth is just as important; just as worthy of remembrance whether my family gets along and gets together or not.  In fact, it's in the sadness of our heart; it's in the loneliness of our rooms; in the discord of our home that Christmas rings loudest. It screams out, begging us to hear: it doesn't need to be this way!  God came to correct human selfishness; he came to be a balm to hurting hearts; he came to neutralize the bitterness of spirit that comes when things don't go our way.  Christ comes to our heart's home and finds only an inn with a dirty manger out back.  And it is just by his presence there that all mangers changed forever.  There was never a dirty stall that could be looked at in just the same way forever after.

Christ's presence betters dirty stalls.  He sweetens bitter spirits.  He tempers raging tempers.  He raises us and illuminates every place he finds himself.  It is merely our job to let him in....to offer him that stall, that manger, that heart.  And in places where the hearts of others are hard and closed....then we just tuck him into our own vest and bring him shining and glowing through our own spirit into situations that he would not other wise have access to.

Won't you bring the Christ into the situations you find yourself in for the days to come?  Can you not agree to let his light shine from your eyes, his words of love come from your lips, his forgiveness in the face of wrong be extended from your hand to a hurting and lost world?  There is  a whole world that Jesus needs to come to....and for now he's chosen us as his mangers...we are the shelters for the Christ ...we are the arm which extends to bear the lantern to the dark corners of the globe....dark corners where we walk and live.  Let his light Shine in the cold night.  Peace on earth.  Good will to men.