I’m so excited: let me tell you why…
I’m so excited.
When the heating clicked on at 5am this morning, my mind was instantly wide awake. My body wasn’t ready to wake up, but my mind was whirring. I was thinking about all that is to come in the next four weeks and I was super excited.
Anyone who knows me knows that that is not normally the case. Every year, I dread Christmas. I find it totally overwhelming. I feel crushed by the wait of expectation. I struggle physically to find the energy to do all that I need to do and I battle with dark days and dark thoughts.
So let me try to explain why this year is different. Here are all the things I’m excited about.
I’m putting my Christmas tree up today. My daughter and I take great pleasure in this. I’m also taking the time to sort through photos from the past year and get some printed and framed and up on the wall. My son and I shared the joy of looking through photos on my phone last night. And it’s my birthday tomorrow, so I’m going to the cinema tonight with friends to see a film of my choice, ‘Battle of the Sexes’, which I cannot wait to see.
And so yes, tomorrow is my birthday. I love birthdays. My husband calls me a big kid for loving birthdays, but I don’t care. It’s not so much about the presents, although I’m very much looking forward to seeing the gift my son selected which caused my daughter and husband to gasp in surprise and laugh out loud! If he has put thought into choosing it, then I will love it, whatever it is. I relish that feeling of being special for a day. It’s the day I can do whatever I want without feeling guilty. It’s my day.
My birthday is exactly four weeks before Christmas Day. For me, that’s when the countdown to Christmas really begins. In a couple of days, it will be the first of December and the advent calendars will appear. This year, the first of December will be extra special for me, as I am embarking on the next chapter of Join Our Journey. The first chapter took 3 years and 3 months. It took me that long to read the whole of the Old Testament and write about it in the blogs that appear up to this point in Join Our Journey. And so on the first of December, I start the New Testament, the next chapter which will take me two years and three months.
The timing couldn’t have been better. I couldn’t have planned it better when I started out on this journey over three years ago. I approach this Christmas studying the events of the first Christmas. This is what my advent will look like this year. My preparation for Christmas. And I’m so excited, I can’t wait!
The first four books of the New Testament are called the Gospels, the books of Good News: four books about the life of Jesus written from four different perspectives by four different authors. Instead of taking each of these books one at a time, I’ve decided to consider them simultaneously. And so in December, I will be looking at what a difference a baby makes. In January, what Jesus did and in February, what Jesus said. And then in March, that final week culminating in the Easter story.
As I said, the timing couldn’t be more perfect!
You can see why I’m so excited. Yes, I’m excited for Christmas too. I’m excited at the thought of having my whole family together in one place for the first time since last Christmas. That for a mother is the only time she feels complete, in my experience. I’m excited about sharing in my granddaughter’s first Christmas. There’s all that, but studying the Christmas story in detail really excites me too.
I’m really hoping that you will join me in this advent preparation this year. It will probably only take ten minutes of your time a day, but could really change how you experience Christmas. A bold claim, I know, but we often overlook the real reason for the season, because even as Christians, we’re far too busy with all the externals to take time to focus on the internal. We’ll learn a lot on this journey together, that’s for sure, even from this story that is so familiar.
Because it’s all about Emmanuel – God with us – God with us then and God with us now, speaking into our present reality.
This is good news – fresh, exciting, relevant, life-changing!
Join our journey!
