Joseph's Staff

I caused myself a lot of anxiety this Christmas.  And a large part of that anxiety lead to blog-freeze (a new term I just created to describe my brain's inability to form a coherent blog entry).  The other responsible party for the blog-freeze would be Julia, the Twenty Minute Napper.

I have always been pretty low-key about Christmas.  I do not get roped into everything having to be just perfect, but I enjoy the pursuit of making it memorable.  I love the decorating and baking and gift-purchasing.  The most enjoyable activities for me is setting out the Nativity scene and attending Christmas Eve service.  Now, as much as any other parent, I do love seeing my children filled with excitement and joy when they open gifts, but this year I began to fear that the focus of Christmas would get shifted to the presents, which is so easy for young and old to do.

Fretting often causes a state of agonizing indecision for me.  I wandered down toy aisles and craft aisles over-analyzing every gift and the spiritual impact it might have on my children.  Meanwhile, the rest of the holiday season continued stress-free.  We participated in church activities and purchased gifts and food for the less fortunate and almost every night enjoyed singing Christmas songs.  We focused our activities on celebrating Christ's birth, but how to gear the presents in that direction nagged at my heart daily.

I had read on a blog an idea to present gifts that resembled the symbolic gifts that the Magi brought to Jesus.  I loved the idea.  I still love the idea though it sadly became a source of holiday frustration.  I adopted this idea to give the children's gifts a spiritual focus.  Frankincense was burned in the temple and signified drawing close to God in worship.  Myrrh would be used to prepare a body for burial and an appropriate gift for children would be something hygiene related that teaches us to value our own bodies.  Gold was a gift for the King of Kings and should be replicated by the parents by giving a gift to show the child how much they are valued.  I loved the idea, but I found the gold aspect surprisingly hard to fill.  I adore my children.  My daily life is committed to a sacrificial love for them.  Finding a gift that communicated this became an impossible task when surrounded by a sea of gaudy-colored toys that held the potential of being discarded two days after gifting.

Two days before Christmas with only gifts of Frankincense (a child's devotional) and Myrrh (toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner), I handed the task over to my husband with no small amount of angst.  He charged through one store and made some very well-recieved purchases.  Though I felt relief, I also felt a strong sense of failing to really expose through the gifts what Christmas really should be centered around.

And it wasn't until just a few days ago that I ushered those feelings out the door.  I would like to share with you what has been most frequently played with since Christmas.  The item that has been the source of hours of play, as well as several sharing altercations, has been a cardboard tube that once held wrapping paper.  Everyday since Christmas, Colette dons a blue blanket affixed to her head by a headband, wraps a baby doll in a blanket, and hops aboard a hobby horse which is lead by Mary wielding the cardboard tube.  If you haven't guessed, they are Mary and Joseph reenacting the Christmas story and the tube is Joseph's staff.  The fights take place when "Mary" decides that she needs a staff too because she's pregnant afterall, and can't be expected to ride on the donkey the whole time!

I can not tell you how many times this sweet display of their knowledge of the true meaning of Christmas has brought tears to my eyes.  And they have made me giggle too when Jon was playing the role of one of the Wise Men and was reprimanded for coming in too loudly and waking the baby up or when Colette (Mary) told Mary (Joseph) that the baby was about to be born and he needed to go to the store quickly to buy some hay for the manger.

The lesson in all of this?  Sometimes I think we tend to get fancy with the simple act of speaking God's Word.  Sometimes we get so fancy that we forget that the power is in hearing God's Word, not in our fancy presentation.  I am going to trust that as I continue to share God's Word with my children it will be His love that points them in the right direction, not my creativity or intellectual reasoning or my persistence.  Romans 10:17 "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ."

I am not at all implying that God does not use us in creative and exciting ways to bring His message to the lost.  I strongly believe that we are each gifted in a manner that God uses for specific purposes in ministering to the hearts of the unsaved.  What I am implying, is that we can become easily distracted from the power of the simplicity of hearing God's Word.  In all that we do, we should make sure that the message of Christ is coming through loud and clear.  I trust that Colette, Mary and Julia are getting the message because God's Word promises it.  Isaiah 55:10-11 "As the rain and the snow come down from Heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

The "staff" is becoming slightly mangled from the daily journeys to "Bethlehem," but I am keeping what others would discard because it is valuable in the eyes of my children.  What was on its way out to the trash, became the most valued "toy" in our household.  In the eyes of the world, we may seem to be discardable with no potential worth keeping, but God sees not just the salvageable, but his most valuable possession.  Just when we think we are heading out to the trash, we can become the staff that leads the way to Bethlehem.