It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...CRAZINESS!!!

I don't know if this is you...but I tend to be an extremely organized person. Now, don't click the exit button! And, please, don't be hating. It's come from years of being frantic and chaotic with littles and just a desperate need to, well, get things in order. Maybe to my own detriment sometimes.

But we are entering the Christmas Season...a time to slow down and reflect, a time to sit and just be still with our families...right? Maybe. Sounds nice. Wish it were that easy for the mamma who has five loads of laundry, packing, baking, shopping, wrapping, nursing the infant, feeding the toddler, and keeping them alive basically.

Where am I going? Even my little organized space and calendar are cluttered with "go here's" and "do that's". And I'm desperately trying to keep some "white space" in my calendar so I can have a silent night at least once this season.

"I need a Silent Night..." Do you know this song by Amy Grant? It has felt so true the past couple of Christmas seasons for me. All the hustle and bustle of the season is easy to get lost in. Going here, running there, making sure the traditions happen on time and in camera range, not to mention the daily grind of home and hearth.

There is a part of the song that goes "Did my own mother keep this pace, or was the world a different place?" And I gotta say...I don't think my mom did. I think she had some of it. But I believe that as time has gone by, more and more is expected of us moms. There are more programs, more TV channels, Pinterest...the bar has been raised. The word is a different place. Times seemed much simpler when I was a kid with three channels to watch and we spent most of our time playing in the snow.

There's another song that gets to me every year this season - "Welcome to Our World". There are several versions of this song, but my favorite is probably by Michael W. Smith. "Hope that You don't mind our manger...how I wish we could have known..."

How do I not only catch the Christmas spirit and find time to keep my family in the joy of the season, buy also teach them about the reason for the season? That is of utmost importance to me and my husband. Even  more so as this world continues on it's current trajectory.

The song goes "Bring your peace into our violence, bid our hungry souls be filled. World now breaking Heaven's silence...welcome to our world..." Is anything more true than this? His peace into our violence. Look around you...what could we need more than peace? Love? Joy? All the things that God promises will come as a wellspring of His presence in us.

"So, wrap our injured flesh around You, breathe our air and walk our sod, rob our sins and make us holy, perfect Son of God...welcome to our world..."

So, ask Him...Lord, give me the space to BE STILL with You this season. To slow down with my family. There's no way I can make this happen on my own. But I believe He can. And I know He wants to.