for unto us a child is born

I'd like to thank my good friend Lori for posting this on her Facebook page this morning.

It's Christmas Eve day .... I woke up way too early with the weight of Christmas pressures upon me. So much to do today to make things perfect for my kids (and yes, for me!). These two days will be the stuff memories are made of, come hell or high water. They'd better - I've been shopping and baking for weeks. But as I awoke the only things on my mind were the flaws in this all but perfect scenario.

I forgot to buy candles for the advent wreath and it's impossible to find red candles this time of year. I have about eight loads of wash to do ... why didn't I address this earlier in the week? I won't be with my mom or my boyfriend this Christmas, and the thought of this made me so angry I set the coffee carafe down a bit too hard and it shattered. Just great. I'll be coffee-deprived this weekend (Christmas, of all times to be coffee deprived!). I am dog-sitting my boyfriend's pug and she's drinking the Christmas tree water. The monogrammed towels I ordered as gifts came delivered unmonogrammed. My son lost his phone and we haven't heard from him in days. Will he be here for Christmas? Is he even alive? God, don't let it be the worst Christmas ever.

But through Lori - and Facebook - I've been offered this brilliant message in the form of a piece from the great Handel's Messiah proclaiming, "Unto us a child is born, a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Wonderful, biblical words, but so lofty I have to bring them down to my own level to even begin to comprehend them.

I think of my own son. How perfect he was as a newborn, how he has grown into a man before my eyes, and how totally proud I am of the person he's become. I have to magnify this by about a million with Jesus ... such greatness I simply cannot fathom it. Yet this beautiful piece that my mother always played at Christmastime helps me get there, at least in part. This is SO not about me giving everyone an ideal Christmasy experience for the 2011 memory book. It's about the greatest gift we have all been given, being quiet and trying to wrap our heads around its massiveness, and celebrating it with whomever we are lucky enough to be with on this day. How perfect is that?