Traveling with the four chicklets within the Space-A system makes for interesting tales and painful lessons in waiting. We finally got out a week of so before Thanksgiving and returned home Sunday.
The trip forced me to reacquaint myself with holiday hustle and bustle and really just crowds in general. They were everywhere and always seemed to be in my way. Likewise, American TV bulged with endless commercialism during this festive time. I’d forgotten. Even just the pace of life was more harried and stressful than life in my peaceful German hamlet. Screaming from across the airwaves came demands of what I must do, must buy or must wear . And, I guess, when a body is submerged in such noise, it quickly becomes numb to it. Coming back to it all, the obnoxious advertisements were just that….loud and irritating. The words “tis the season” take on a hue of “oh well” as we get jostled around the cash register. Sights and sounds of JOY fight for my attention.
What have we done to this season? How did buying THINGS become the focus of a celebration of God’s choice to rescue us from ourselves?
The town was Bethlehem, and yes, even then, He was squeezed out.
Interesting, isn’t it, that things haven’t changed that much. All but a few missed that first Christmas. The ones who didn’t were looking. For HIM. And they found Him in an unexpected place.
In the quiet.
I was just re-reading this post and had to laugh at the irony of me reading it the first time and missing the "quiet" tone… too caught up in my overwhelmed, self-absorbed world to quiet my spirit and focus on Him.
Thank you for sharing your heart. You continually bless me!