Devotion 410 - Jars

It was a sweet little Christmas tree in a jar.

It was everything I love…an up cycled jar and a precious symbol of my most favorite holiday of the year.

The crafter had me at hello.  She knows me, knows my love of all things beautiful.  She also knows I adore a sale;  she whimsically said, “All Christmas is half off.”  “Sold,” I thought and now owned my very first tree in a jar.

I did realize I could have made this little wonder, one jar, one tree and a bit of fake snow, but Christmas is busy and a sale is a sale.

One less thing to make seemed like freedom to me.

Let’s just say, I have patented the art of complicating things, and I am a pro at complicating Christmas.  I love all things Christmas.  I love the gift giving.  I adore gift wrapping.  I select papers and ribbons based on the personalities of my family and friends.  I want name tags to coordinate and fluffy bows are a must.  I love finding gifts that have meaning and substance; ones that will bless and whisper love.

I love decorating.  I adore entertaining.  I love card writing and Christmas photo editing.  I loved Christmas teas and Santa visits and I am in love with the fact that we have extra reasons to stay home close to hearts we hold dear and hearths decorated in green.

 

I love Christmas trees in my family room and I even love Christmas trees in jars.  I unwrapped my new treasure and went room to room, table to table, shelf to shelf.  I am a woman of tradition.  I hang the same ornaments on trees that go in the same places every year.  Our wreaths hang on the same doors and fresh greens adorn the same vases.  I knew once I found its spot, my new little friend would be there for years to come.

I read the same advent book from the 1^st until the 24^th and I hope somewhere in the magic, my children sense the majesty of Jesus.  For eleven months out of the year I pray Jesus, I worship Jesus, I speak Him and love Him.  But I also love festivities fiercely enough in these last days of the calendar; I seem to push the Holy out.

It’s absurd and I know it.  Somewhere in the sweetness of shopping, baking, wrapping and gifting, I forget the extraordinary gift of Jesus.

I realize ……….He broke the jar.

He left perfection.  He abandoned the companionship of angels for the depravity of a cross.

When Beloved, do we move past comfort, to truly find joy?

What does your jar look like?

Is it illness?  Are you immobilized by suffering? What if it is the company of that very pain that will bring the fellowship of healing to a sister or brother?

Is your jar full of want?

Perhaps your budget feels like a prison. Just maybe His path for you is the generosity of soul and the sweetness of spirit.

Or perhaps, like me, your jar is decorated in garland and lights and it smells like cocoa. Perhaps your comfort is close to perfect and your jar cozy, yet you see and hear and know there are those who have never drunk from a cup of hope or partaken in a feast of peace. 

This is our gift.  This is what we must give away.  This is the jar we must break so our hearts can open wide.

This is our offering.

Whether humble, simple or small, it is sacred.

However lovely, however warm, however safe inside, outside is holy.  He waits for you to speak into loneliness, uplift sadness with cheer and displace lies with truth.

He is our gift and dear one, we are His.

For this reason I kneel before the Father,  from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  

Ephesians 3:14-21