"If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does your heavenly father give good things to those who ask him?"

A few months ago, I posted a blog about how much God knows my needs and how perfect his provision is, if only i would ask him and recieve it.

This Christmas season has been amazing to me. Beyond anything I could ever ask or imagine. Some people talk a lot about how gift-giving is just materialistic and caters to our consumeristic society, but this year I have really come to embrace it; gift-giving has been a constant reminder of all God gives.

My mom says that my love language is gift-giving, which I think is probably true. I can see that, but it is strange becuae i don't see myself as a giving person. But this year I have really taken that and seen that it is true. I remeber thinking early in the season, before I even had time to consider seriously what i was going to get for my family, do i give my family gifts because I want to show them how much I love and care for them, or do i just do it becuase that is what has always been done?

In my family, we have always taken pride in giving the best gift. Every year we try to outdo each other, mostly with our youngest sister who is 11 and has downs-syndrome. Since I was little, me and my sister would make the annual trip to "Dollar World" in search of the perfect gift. We constructed elaborate displays and the faciest gifts for our parents since we (or my brother, at any rate) were old enough to reach our heads above the counters. I remember the year i bought my older sister the prettiest plastic bracelets, wrapped in a Christmas card box and, not being able to contain myself any longer, blurted the box's treasures on Christmas eve. The Christmas Eve spanking I recieved that year cured me of all secret-telling for the rest of my life. Or there was the year that the three of us constructed the most beautiful house out of cardboard and construction paper and filled it to the brim with pistacio nuts and landscaped with christmas tree candles and gum-drop trees.

This year has been one of the first years when I could see God's love clearly. This past semester and summer has taught me so much about being able to recieving God's love and being able to share it with others. When Christmas came, I noticed that my feeling towards the season was different than before- not a big climax or exception to the rest of my life, but a continuation of what God had begun. Today I look at the overwhelming amount of gifts God has given to me in the past few months, my entire life. I see that his greatest gift is the realization of what we truly are in Christ.

It is absolutely breathtaking to see how well God answers prayer, even prayers that I had not fully articulated. At the beginning of the season, my family began to ask me what i wanted, and i had no idea what to tell them. I am always afraid at Christmas to name specific things I want becuase I always wonder if they are all going to dissappoint. Its a little risky for me. So I just gave it to Abba. I asked him to not really show my what I really want, but just put it in my hand.

One of the most beautiful gifts God has given me over the past few months is the abiliity to trust him with my life, to lay those things down before I ruin them myself. He has taken my life out of my open hand and replaced me with this calm, this peace, this joy, this patience that I can only embrace when i let it go. This realization that the end of the world is already in God's hands and everything else he is going to let slip through his fingers.

If someone were to look into my life from a shop window, they might think that it is bad, a little scary, and quite painful. At the depths, it is. But to me, I look at my life and say, "Wow. I am standing in the midst of a rushing river, but i am not falling over." I look over to my side and I see someone, Guide, calmly standing there, moving my legs when it is time to take another step. And to my back is Daddy, holding me up, keeping me from falling over, and to my other side, Jesus, holding my hand, whispering love and encouragement in my ear. Sometimes each of these figures look different-- like people i know. My mom, my sister, my friends, my mentors and teachers. And sometimes its is just the three.

And i look around me and i don't feel frigid water numbing my toes and purpling my fingers, nor sharp rocks cutting my feet. I see a beautiful forest on the other side. Cool, refreshing waters all around me and warm hands surrounding me. There are times when the rocks to cut and the water does numb and the water runs down my cheeks, but the surrounding forrest and sky and smells overwhelm it quickly. I stand in the midst of a river.

This Christmas God has sent me a sort of a card with a gift certificate. One of those magazine cutouts in the shoe box promising something better later, to go with the other gifts he has given me throughout the year. I don't exactly know what the shoebox-magazine-cutout present is yet, but i know its good because who gives better gifts than the one who know me better than I do? Everyday i wake up and remind myself that I am alive because God has a purpose for me today and that purpose is good becuase God loves me enough to "Mourn as for an only son." That is gift enough, but he holds so much more, if only i would accept it. This year I have truly understand the meaning of Christmas-- and it is getting presents, its just a matter of allowing myself to take them.

So, ultimately, we can have Chrimstas all year round, but it will be no human act of wonder. We can have Christmas all the year around if we would open our eyes and recieve the gifts God gives to us, his precious children. What an even more meaningful gift when we realize he gives them despite what we deserve.

Merry Christmas-- Happy gift-recieving.