Ready or not...

It's December 21st.  Four days before the big day.  Everybody is scurrying around baking, shopping, festivus-ing, getting it done.  It really is one of my favorite times of the year.

But I have to say that this year, for some reason, I'm just not feelin it.

Thanksgiving came late this year and it really threw me off coming back from Turkey break and realizing it was December 1st.  The usual stuff happened...two kids sick with sinus infections, me with a needles in your throat kind of virus, lots of doctor and dentist appointments, teacher conferences, all that.  And yes, there were a couple big Life curve balls thrown our way that we obviously weren't expecting. Somehow, though, we managed to get a tree up and lights on the house for the first time ever (because we are the "ONLY ones in the neighborhood who don't put lights on our house" obvs).  I've been playing Christmas music, watching Christmas movies while I do laundry, and of course battling through family advent devotions at night (total failure, btw).

Still not feelin it.

This bothers me.  But not as much as it used to.  I remember being a teenager and sitting in the hall while my mom hauled the Christmas lights out of the attic.  I sat there and cried, admitting that it just didn't "feel" like Christmas.  What was wrong with me?  I was doing everything I used to do to experience the magic and it just wasn't happening.

Nowadays I know that there's more to Christmas than all the fluff, for sure.  But some years I am able to kind of mold our Advent season in a way that seems to prepare our hearts for celebrating Jesus.  In the past I have planned family Advent activities and scripture for each day and the kids really love it.  (Sidenote:  it's nothing extravagant, just a little something to help us laugh a little and turn our eyes to Christ.)  I couldn't get that together this year and frankly, I am struggling to even open my devotional in the morning to focus my heart in the right place before I blast out of bed.  Like I said, I'm just not feelin it.  But here's what I'm hearing in the midst of this weird Advent...

Christ's coming is not dependent on my feelings.

If you think about it, really nothing surrounding Jesus' birth seemed to go right.  I'm sure Mary didn't feel like being ostracized for being an unwed mother.  Joseph didn't feel like marrying a woman who was pregnant with a child that wasn't his.   Neither one of them were probably feeling like taking a long trip while they were expecing a baby.  And there's no WAY Mary was feelin it when she found out she had to give birth in a stinky, gross stable.

Yet regardless of their feelings, Christ came anyway.  Ready or not, He was there.

That's some really good news for this lady.

Just an hour ago I was sopping poopy water up off the tile in the kids' bathroom from a toilet malfunction.  Tomorrow I have friends coming over to bake in my dirty kitchen.  In approximately 32 hours I am going to have my entire family (plus gifts) packed and in the car headed to Charlotte.  My throat needles are still in full effect, I haven't been to yoga in forever, and my eyebrows need a serious waxing.  But I am grateful that in four days, no matter how I feel about it, I'm going to celebrate a little baby who came to give me full life.  Ready or not, here He comes.