I have a picture of Christmas. It's a new one, still stuck in my head, but maybe one day I'll sit down and draw it, hang it by my desk, see it every day and remember the picture of Christmas.
Because I have other pictures too. Or at least, I've been living like I do.
I have a picture of Christmas: a girl, strangely like me, who's busy. She tries to get gifts for everyone, to do enough, to be "christmas-y" enough. So she writes letters and licks envelopes and rushes around wondering where "peace" and "joy" is.
But today I took that picture down. I'm replacing it with a new one.
In one corner, there's a bag of gifts. They're small, sweet, with candles and chocolate and a long, beautiful letter, special like the girl who gave them to me. There's a sticker too, "I'm praying for you." And somehow, that gift is the best one I could have gotten all Christmas season long.
That's part of my Christmas picture, but there's more. Across the top in flourishes and designs, there's a word that's beautiful. I read it slowly.
Enriched.
To abound. To bring fullness. Richness.
Enriched.
Enriched in Jesus, in the Person of Christmas. Just like it says in 1 Corinthians.
So that in everything you were [exceedingly] enriched in Him...
- 1 Corinthians 1:5 (AMP)
And there's the last part of the Christmas picture.
It's the same one I draw every year. The same little stable, the same star, the same dark night with deep blues and purples.
It's enriched. It's Jesus, rich and beautiful and good and wanting to shower us with Himself, fill us with the peace and joy of Christmas. It's more than the rush and the hurry. Despite my scribbles and stick people, it's beautiful.
Because everything points to that. The little gift my friend gave me, it points to Him. It's all this gift that enriches us - Jesus.
Like when He walked on earth, Jesus enriched everything He touched. The storms stilled. Water turned to wine. The lame walked. The world found a picture of fullness.
That's what "enriched" is - it's drawing right beside Jesus so that we start becoming like Him. It's us, crawling next to the manger, experiencing Christmas firsthand.
Like when He walked on earth, Jesus enriched everything He touched. The storms stilled. Water turned to wine. The lame walked. The world found a picture of fullness.
That's what "enriched" is - it's drawing right beside Jesus so that we start becoming like Him. It's us, crawling next to the manger, experiencing Christmas firsthand.
That's my picture of Christmas. It's my dream, my heart, my hope, my prayer. I might add more - include my little sister giggling in my arms as we shop for friends' gifts. Or the times of singing, friends gathered together, us praising Jesus as one family.
All of it, enriched. Beautiful pictures, flowing together. And us, drawing closer to Jesus, huddling beside the manger, being enriched because of Him, loving because of Him, intimate knowledge.
I have a picture of Christmas. I'm in it too, right beside the manger. And that's where I need to stay forever. It reminds me to remember, rejoice.
Maybe you could make one too.
But until then, Merry Christmas, dear one. You're so incredibly loved. ♥
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.
- 2 Corinthians 8:9
~♥~