Merry Christmas!!!

First of all, I'm sorry that it seems like I dropped off the face of the earth. I've been too busy with work, Christmas preparations, and homeschool co-op responsibilities, to even think about blogging. But, with Christmas fast approaching, I wanted to post a little something, to commemorate the birth of our Savior.

For Christmas, I thought I'd follow Larry's example and share a little story from my distant past. The little guy you see in the picture above is none other than yours truly. It was taken in our living room, in Bucharest Romania. Perhaps the most noticeable piece of furniture was the donut-shaped coffee table that you see in the lower-left corner of the picture. I seem to remember that it was made of a brass-like metal and had a sizable hole designed into its center. At Christmas time, that's where the tree went, right in the middle of that table.

Now, as an interesting sidebar, I should mention that in Romanian tradition, Santa (the Romanian name for him is pronounced "mosh-cruh-CHOON" and translates to "Old Man Christmas") brought the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. My parents would tell me to go take a nap, and then they would scramble to get the tree ready in time. I remember one time when we had a bunch of people over, and I was in my room, playing with my friends, when all the lights went out. We were pretty scared and ran towards the living room. When we got there, they came back on, and there was the tree, fully decorated, and all the presents underneath it! And since we didn't set up the tree until so close to Christmas, we kept it up way into January.

Anyway, back to my story. I was probably six or seven, and I was still on Christmas break. Mom was at work, and while Dad was technically home at the time, he had to step out for a few minutes. I guess I was bored, because I must have gone into the living room and noticed that the tree was a little crooked. Being the little perfectionist that I was (and still am!), I thought that just pulling on the tree would fix it. Yeah, right.

Well, needless to say, the tree was little too big, and the boy was a bit too small. There I was, barely able to keep the tree from falling any further, and Dad was nowhere in sight! I cannot say whether the tree was too unwieldy, or if I was just too panicked to think things through, but I felt utterly unable to do anything but just stand there holding it up, and hoping that Dad would be home soon, to rescue me.

Mankind, before Christ, was much the same way. During the time of Moses, God set up the Law, imperfect as it was, to show us the way. But Israel made a real mess of things and got itself in a position where God's intervention was necessary. Jesus came to save us from our sins. When we were burdened with the load of sin, He rushed in and took that tree upon His own shoulders. He took the blame for our mess and made a way for the Holy Spirit to come and make us righteous, as God intended from the beginning. This is why we celebrate Christmas. :)

In case you were curious how it all turned out, Dad came in pretty quickly and was puzzled and amuzed to see the predicament I had gotten myself into. He took that big tree off my hands and straightened it, as only he knew how. I was so relieved that he was there to help me. He got me out of plenty other rough spots, but those are stories for another time....

Nearly two decades later, Jesus came into my heart, took that load of sin upon Himself, and straightened me up, just like that crooked Christmas tree. I am so thankful to Him, for everything He has done (and continues to do) in my life!