What Child Is This?

I thought I would be more frantic by now.

Christmas all by itself does that.  This final week can easily fill up with last minute stressors that crowd out my calm and peck at my peaceful intentions.  But everything's coming together so well that, right at this moment at least, happy anticipation prevails over fussing.

Packing for Thailand all by itself does that.  I leave for a month away not two days after Christmas, something I've never done before, even in all the times before there's been for this trip.  But the planning and packing are pacing themselves quite cooperatively, and right at this moment at least, eager expectation prevails over the finicky.  

It's not that everything's perfect this Christmas, or that there won't be hard things to do when I get to Thailand, far from it.  People I love are missing.  Grief is the uninvited guest at the table.  Others are in the midst of sufferings and treatments and all manner of demands this far-from-heaven reality these past twelve months have been all too kind to remind me of.

Upon arrival in Chiang Mai I will, in a matter of days, travel the difficult road up to the mountains to speak at a new year's festival event in a remote Karen village.  The combination of jet lag, the grueling trip, the 'different' accommodations, and the ministry responsibility will be physically and emotionally demanding.  Then upon returning to Hot Springs, there will be a family of 26 kids, their parents and other caregivers, and a whole community of faith who are still reeling from last September's shocking, gruesome loss.  As am I.  Being there in the midst of that, I will feel it more than I do here, which is already an always-every-day-thing for me, still. 

And yet, even with all that being true, right now, right now I am calm, focused.

It's a focus this past year's struggles have strengthened for me; a focus of determined joy and reckless hope.  It's a calm based not on any confidence I may or may not have in myself, but in the One who has been Fully Present with me every step, every breath.  The One who's fought for me all year long.  The One who now shelters my Christmas.  The One who goes before me on that treacherous mountain road.

How else can I explain it?  I should not be this okay right now.

Tomorrow I will preach a final Christmas sermon about a Messiah who is powerfully sovereign AND mercifully sympathetic.  Abundant gratitude for this truth, and the chance again to direct my praise toward Him together with my incredible family of faith.

Tomorrow Ken and I will sit around a table with our kids and their kids and marvel at how these could have in any way been entrusted to us, and be over the top grateful for them in every possible way.  And the table is already set, and the gifts are already under the tree, and the love is waiting in all the details, waiting for us to just be with each other.

And on Tuesday I will get on a plane and go do this again with another family.

And I ponder the question in an old Christmas carol....What Child is this? 

What kind of Messiah  would lavish me with all of this? 

A Messiah I would follow anywhere.