Opening the Gift

This Christmas we decided to stay home in Colorado and not make our traditional 17 hour drive to Wisconsin to visit our families.  There were a number of reasons why we made that decision but the closer we got to Christmas the less important those reasons were and the more important it seemed to get our butts in the car and get near our family.  On Christmas Eve at 10 p.m. we squeezed ourselves in the car and headed out. Yes, we have been known to be a spontaneous family.

The long drive gave me a lot of time to think. I got the driving time from 2:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. and the thing that kept me awake was thinking about the Gift that has meant the most to me this Christmas Season; the gift of God's Son.

This year, more than any other year, I have realized how important that Gift has become to me on a daily basis.  It isn't just a Christmas Gift to me; it is a moment by moment Gift that I must choose to open and receive. 

All those years ago when that Babe was born it was God saying, "Gail will need the gift of my Son.  She will need this active relationship in her life.  She will need to open this gift.  Through my Son and through my Spirit I will be her Helper." 

I chose to open that Gift when I was 7 and I have been choosing to keep that gift open since then.  It is an everlasting gift. To be honest though, there have been times when I only looked at that Gift on Sundays.  There have been times when I was more excited about that Gift than other times.  But in the last 18 months I have chosen to keep that gift opened right next to me.  I look at it throughout my day, and doing this has changed my life.

One evening, last week, I was having a particularly tough evening.  I was feeling alone, annoyed, mad, sad, and a whole lot of other descriptors.  I went up to my bed early and just simply started to cry; that hard kind of cry that comes from deep within.  I hadn't cried like that in a long time but it was something I just couldn't control.  I take Tylenol PM now and again because I've always had a hard time sleeping.  I decided to take one that evening because I just wanted to sleep my hurts away.  I looked at that bottle and thought, "Boy would it be easy to take this whole thing and REALLY sleep my hurts away."  I also remembered an earlier time when I traveled over the bluffs in Wisconsin that Ryan had travelled over often when he spent a couple summers there.  I remember thinking how easy it would be to just veer off the road and end it all. But these were fleeting thoughts I knew I would never follow through with.  They were just honest thoughts that went through my head.  I knew that I would never bring more hurt on my family with selfish acts like these.  And, I would never want to ruin the testimony that God has given me.  But in those moments I understood how easy it would be for those who had no hope; for those who never opened the Gift.

On that night when I looked differently at that bottle of Tylenol PM it was God's Gift to me that kept that bottle tightly capped and in its' proper place on my bedside table.  It was God's whisper to me that said, "My Grace is sufficient for you in this moment Gail, there will be Joy in the morning."  Because I have been learning to truly trust God even when I'm not feeling it, I closed my eyes and trusted Him with my sleep.

The next day had some really tough moments to it but I purposed to give God the whole terrible day and keep his Gift right next to me, opened and in full view.  I sought His Glory throughout the day and found it.  By the end of the day my heart had found Joy again.

He doesn't promise me that I will walk in a fairytale type life, but He does promise me that He will walk through it with me and that I will see His Glory in it if I seek to find it. 

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Mathew 7:7

 

As I step into 2014 and wonder at what will come, I know that as long as I have that Gift with me and keep it opened and in full view, I will find God's Glory and there will be beauty ahead.