I love Christmas. We just got home from a fabulous day Christmas shopping - we're 100% finished with shopping. yay. I love lights, decorations, I love gifts (giving & receiving), I love carols, and special foods. I love it all.

and in the midst of my cheer and joy I can hear a quiet voice....Cyndi, hey you, pssst....I'm over here.

And it's my Lord. He calls to me from a dark, dank, pile of hay. I don't want to forget about Him - I KNOW the real 'reason for the season'! But it's so much more difficult to focus on that nasty little stable than it is to look at the lights, the trees, the gifts, the carols....

Oh Lord. Forgive a soul that so easily loses focus. May I enjoy all that we created around Christmas but let me not ever forget who CREATED Christmas. Or actually even more important than that - WHY He created Christmas.

By far the most significant event in the whole course of human history will be celebrated, with or without understanding, at the end of this season, Advent. What we are in fact celebrating is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no amount of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to it. God’s intervening into human history came about with an almost frightening quietness and self-effacement, and as millions will testify, he will come once again with the same silence and the same devastating humility into any heart ready to receive him.
J.B. Phillips