A Very Special Baby

*This was originally posted on this day in 2007. Here is what my baby Kate looked like then, and following is the lesson she taught me that Christmas....



Well, it's done. The Christmas decorations are up. I know, I should sound more excited, but I have to tell you, getting them up was not exactly the experience I had in mind. First of all, we moved the week before Christmas last year and apparently I was so sick of packing and unpacking that I just randomly threw my decorations into the laundry room in any crack or crevice they would fit in. This meant digging through those boxes and boxes of random stuff we never unpacked after our move.

Every year I have visions of holiday music playing, cookies baking, and my family dressed in Christmas sweaters as we decorate the tree. Isn't that sweet? Well, in reality Josh was drugged (legally) playing PS2 on the couch, the kids were running around half naked breaking every decoration I've been given in my entire life, supper was burning on the stove and I was in the laundry room screaming as I was attacked by wooden deer falling out of boxes onto my head. It was a special time.

However, before the chaos I had to rearrange the living room to make a place in front of a window for the tree. I had everything situated and then I looked at the place that was supposed to be for the tree. In the rearranging I had moved the bassinette and it was sitting where the tree would go. For some reason that moment struck me. I thought about putting the bassinette together all by myself at 8 months pregnant because I was so excited I just couldn't wait for Josh to come home. I remembered how for a few weeks it sat empty in the living room waiting for Baby Kate. And then, it made me think about this season we are celebrating and how it never really was about Christmas trees, cookies or spending too much money. It's about a baby.

I have to say that there is nothing in the world that compares with the excitement and anticipation of waiting for a baby. Having recently had Kate and finding out that I am an Aunt-to-be (just call me aunty em!) I know that no other event equals the anticipation of wondering what the baby will look like or the eagerness of dressing the baby in all of the clothes that have been waiting for months.

I thought how Mary didn't have any of those preparations done and I wonder if her nesting instinct was driving her crazy as she was stuck on a donkey traveling to another land. Did it bother her that she didn't have the perfect outfit for her baby boy? I doubt it. I'm sure her mind was filled with much more serious questions. How do you raise the Son of God? The messiah who has been anticipated not for 9 months, but since the beginning of time!

I know, only my mind could wander that far from rearranging the living room. But I'm so glad God gave me that moment. I pray that this holiday season as the busyness takes over that He will continue to fill my heart with thoughts of the Baby Jesus who would grow up to be my Savior! I pray that we will all feel an even greater rush of excitement over the baby who the prophet said, "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which is translated, 'God is with us." (Matthew 1:23) That baby came to be God with us!!! To experience and feel everything that we feel and experience. To enable us to say, "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was at all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:14)

What a very special baby!!!!!!