All the presents aren’t wrapped quite yet. I have them all sorted and ready for their final dressing, tagging, and trimming. I know what I’m giving each child, every family member, my in-laws, and even the dogs. I have prepared, counted the cost, overspent myself, sacrificed, and labored over these gifts. 🎁 Most of the gift-giving responsibility is mine, though my husband is a great gift-giver–seriously, so thoughtful. I’ve been intentional and carefully planned, then splurged a bit. I saw ahead to the excitement and joy their gifts would bring to them. I imagined their sweet, wonder-filled faces unwrapping each item. Giving gifts–no matter how extravagant or inexpensive–is fun!
But it’s not here yet. Even though the feel of it lingers in the air. You can hear it, see it, smell it, taste it. Good Lord, help me stop tasting it! 🤤
And though, in this moment, it’s closer than ever–I know this because of the calendar, but also because the kids keep reminding me. These children are groaning for gifts and celebration of the day. It’s both maddening and beautiful. I don’t blame them at all. Don’t we all long for a gift? For something new, for thoughtfulness, for consideration, for heart-felt giving, for joy? So I hear their longing and my own at the same time.
There seems to be a tension that I live in during this season. Do you feel it too? It is an ache and a joy, both the compulsion to hurry and to slow down, to soak it all in, and to let it all go. Perhaps it is best summed up this way: Christmas is both now, and it’s not yet, and I feel both of those sentiments at the same exact time.
Here comes Christmas Day, and yet, it’s not here.
What is the reason for this?
Is it because things aren't quite what we pictured they would be? We aren’t quite where we pictured ourselves being? Is it because someone we love is not with us? Is it because it was a hard year, or years? 🤔
The Christmas season is just a microcosm of the greater Christmas story we live in as believers. And living in that tension of now and not yet creates this groaning in our hearts. Paul talks about this in Romans.
Romans 8:23
And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering…
The coming of Christ is alive in us because of His Spirit, and yet, He lives eternally within these very mortal bodies.
Friend, we feel every bit of that tension. Go easy on yourself. ❤️ The first coming of Christ, echoes the second coming. This is why we feel the tension the most this time of year. Take heart, beloved. You’re not crazy. You’re just groaning, like all of creation. The day is coming soon. In fact, it is sooner than ever.
During these moments, as I Iong for heaven while sitting here on earth, I imagine something greater than Santa’s workshop. I see heaven’s. Can you see it with me?
Picture it: Heaven at this moment, filled with marked packages with your name on it? Stacks and stacks of gifts of love, forgiveness, eternity, joy, peace, safety, honor, reward, victory, freedom, all set aside for you and me, for now, and not yet.
Even as we as parents, friends, siblings, kids, and co-workers sit among the gifts we’ve purchased for people we love, during this season, with all our intention, careful planning, preparing the house for guests, counting the cost, savoring the season, looking ahead to the faces filled with awe and wonder–maybe we look a lot more like Jesus than we realize.
With our gifts all wrapped and stored up for Christmas Day, I wonder if we are mirroring heaven’s storehouses more than we can fathom. Stacks of gifts ready for us to open, the Father eager to see us one day, unwrapping His promises in fullness, in wonder and awe at the extravagance of His love.
I wonder if our children’s groanings for Christmas day to come soon, is simply an echo of our own cries, for Jesus to come again, soon.
As we wait, let’s be reminded to wait patiently and with the confident hope that the King has come and will come again. (Romans 8:23)
A weary world rejoices. O Come, Emmanuel.
~ Erin Arruda, Worthy Content Writer
From our Worthy Team,
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We love you and are praying for the fullness of Christ’s love to be revealed to you!
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