Don't pack up Jesus!

I recently spent some time with a new baby girl in between feedings and diaper changes. Now that she is couple months old her eyes dart around trying to look and see all the things. I sit and watch her in awe as she sees things for the first time. You can catch a little glimmer in her eye light up when she gains focus on your face or hands. Her hands reach out and pull whatever is nearby to her (including hair). And no matter what, as you stare into her eyes there is only one thought that passes through my head. “God is definitely real.”

We just came out of the Christmas season. The lights and décor that once twinkled around us is beginning to find its home back in that bin. We are letting those yuletide cheers wash away and its back to business as usual. We pack it up and with it the spirit of the holiday is gone, in a bin until next year. And the manger scene becomes a delicately wrapped and stored memory. But as I sit and stare into the gaze of a new baby, I am reminded of that of that tiny baby sent down to us who laid in a humble manger. In today’s society a teen mother like Mary would have been shamed for being pregnant and with a baby sent from “God” no less. I can hear the eyes collectively rolling at planned parenthood. Think of all that she must have gone through just to have a son that she knowingly would one day lose. All that traversing and traveling, giving birth in a barn surrounded by animals couldn’t have been easy. Staring into her new baby’s eyes in the background barn sounds play and smells I can only imagine ring in. And still our beautiful Heavenly Mother sat awe gazing at her newborn babe. At that moment she knew for sure that God was real, not that she doubted it. It brings me back to that tiny little baby I was recently enamored by, this tiny baby person, who needs her mother just to survive. Just like that tiny baby that laid in that manger all those years ago. Jesus so meek and mild. The Lord was sent not as a grown man but as a tiny defenseless infant who would one day walk a path that would save us all. So, as you pack away all your ornaments and wreaths try to give Jesus a little more room in your life this year, not just on your mantle for a month.