Help me lay aside all my baggage
and enter through your open doors.
Let me rest in your love and grace.
Amen."
--Beth A. Richardson
I so need to come "home" this Christmas. Come Home to Jesus.
The past few weeks have not unfolded as I had wanted them to. I had started Christmas preparation late, but I felt that I had planned for this in simplifying specific areas.
But somehow I got lost.
I had already felt that pull of the needs of so many hurting people. And I knew that I couldn't care for them all tangibly. I knew that Emmanuel...God-with-us was the only One able to be with them in their pain. But still I placed their burdens on my shoulders and either sought for ways to express care, or lamented my inability.
Then there are all the little extras the I so enjoy adding to the wrapping of gifts or the "one more touch" that will complete my home or the menu or the gift itself. Too often I pushed myself beyond what was healthy for me.
And who can forget the added stress that comes with wondering, hoping, yes, worrying that the receiver actually appreciates the gift. Maybe someone won't understand why I bought gift cards this year and be put out. What if what I labored through the malls for, ends up being too much or too little or just plain wrong? What if some of the shopping I did online comes across as impersonal? Why do I have to tell them anyway? And on and on my mind raced.
Yesterday morning when I read the above prose, I felt the tears welling and my body physically sighing. Oh yes...to come home to Jesus would be such a beautiful gift. To leave all of the baggage outside the door and just enter in...to His rest and love and grace.
Tonight is Christmas Eve and a service awaits me..."Let it Be Christmas". I just want to "let it be"...I need to just "be" with Jesus and let Him come to me and cover my brokenness.
"God of love,
I long to come home to you this day..."
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