This Christmas was different than any Christmas before, and it will forever be near and dear to my heart.
There’s just something irreplaceable and iridescent about spending Christmas Eve holding the hands of small street children and dancing barefoot in the road, and Christmas morning waking up to wet kisses and watching some of the most beautiful girls in the world experience their first Christmas in a new house that you barely finished working on the day before.
Yeah, it sucked to not be home. I’m bummed I missed the snow, that I missed the fire burning in our living room, that I missed my mom’s world renown crab soup and scallops, that I didn’t get to help Yungcah pick out dress shirts and ties for Jim Curry, or help Jim Curry try and find each exact item on Yungcah’s Christmas list that was guaranteed scratched onto a piece of scrap paper, that I didn’t get to invest time into my siblings lives and take them to the mall. But watching a girl who’s never had Christmas open her first gift? Seeing the joy on a small girls face when you spin her around to Jingle Bell Rock under a black sky littered with glimmering stars? To give instead of receive? Priceless. My heart has been so blessed.
It was crazy, sitting there with the girls and reading them Luke 2, realizing the page and a half long story, simple and to the point, was the reason I was sitting there in the first place. That, without that birth, I would never be in this house, loving on these girls who deserve more than all the love I can give. That, if Jesus could humble Himself enough to spend a few Christmas times away from Heaven to love on and serve the people of this world, that I should strive to humble myself in that way and do the same.
Because, after all, Christmas isn’t about the giving, or the gifts, or the not giving of gifts, it’s about something much greater than that. It’s about love coming down, in the form of a weak baby boy, to save a world that would hate Him. Its about serving, even when its frustrating and you’re tired and you’ve been throwing up over the side of a boat for hours and didn’t get any sleep. It’s about hugging and holding the hands of girls who want your love even when you just want to be alone for once. Its about treasuring other people, and adoring them with the light of God and His gift of life in your heart. Its not about you, its about Him. I’m saying this to myself now. Its not about ME its about HIM.
Sorry this blog is a little late – life has been crazy. Between living with the girls, leading their devotions, doing some odd jobs around the ministry, traveling with the girls for two days straight so we could get to a basketball tournament of theirs (which is where I am now, in Boracay) I haven’t really had time to even process anything, hence this is the worst blog ever. Very uncharacteristic of me.
But here’s to yall – a late merry Christmas and happy new years 🙂
Less than a month to go til Africa!
