Wonderings and ponderings

I've been absent from my blog for a while, partly because of the busyness and fullness of life in this season, but mostly because I'm undergoing some decently intense "training sessions" lately, largely in the areas of mothering and holy living. There has been much stretching (and sometimes breaking), growing, learning, and shaping taking place. This is a good thing: I can rejoice in the midst of struggles and setbacks much more instinctively if I can see God's hand mercifully and steadfastly guiding me to a deeper place of maturity in my faith and my life. A few weeks ago, I couldn't make out God's hand through my anguished fog. More recently, however, He has been making His presence known to me and clearing away some of the fog. I am very much in the position of a pupil, waiting for each new nugget of His word to help me understand things in a better way, to make the picture more clear. I think God is passing me each "nugget" at a pace He knows I can digest, and not any faster or slower than that (though I know at times I hold up the pace with my obstinancy and unwillingness to be teachable).

These last couple of days, my growing edge has especially been the question of what the Christmas season should look like for our family. I've thought about Christmas since early October, but I still do not clearly know what our celebration of its meaning should look like for us. It is especially poignant to me that this is Nathanael's first Christmas, and that we have another little Wolfe on the way...Our family is growing, and we desire to lay a solid foundation for them. I've gotten caught up in the gift-giving, despite my intentions throughout not to do so. Gift giving can be a joyous expression of love and appreciation for others...But I have a sense there is something deeper missing from our season -- something richer and more lasting.

I've been pondering a thought prompted by a combination of my reading in John and a couple of short blog posts (here and here). This is the passage that leapt out at me from John:

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth...For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ (John 1:14, 16-17).

Grace upon grace. That is what we have received from Jesus Christ. We had the Law before Christ, and it was good. But it only pointed to what God would provide for us through His Son. Jesus' birth brought the reality of grace and truth to us here on this earth. And that in abundance!

So, at the end of her post on realistic expectations for your children during this season (the latter of the blog posts to which I referred above), Kendra writes: "Enjoy those little ones. Their wide-eyed wonder at our earthly celebrations will fully mature someday when they are struck by the gravity and meaning of the grace of God in the midst of their sin." And this is what grips me: What will our earthly celebrations look like? How will we celebrate together with our children the abundant mercy and profound mystery of God's provision of grace and truth to us? Grace. Truth. Given to us through God's only Son: Jesus.

I am still trying to soak in this reality myself; I don't have any idea yet what the expression of this knowledge will be.