Trying to read through the Christmas story S L O W L Y this week so I can marinate in it a little bit. I’m on chapter 2. Ha! But it’s proving SO full of treasure!!!

Today I sat down for a quiet minute and picked back up where Mary visits Elizabeth. They’re both pregnant. They’re both seeing God’s hand at work in their lives. They’re both in awe. And they’re both probably trying to keep their pregnancies quiet. Mary was engaged and pregnant and that was just a recipe for a scandal back in Jesus’ day. And Elizabeth was well past her prime and I’m sure most of her friends were grandmothers already. Friends, can you even imagine the joy these two shared when Mary went to stay with Elizabeth??? I mean pregnant-with-the-Savior-of-the-world-Mary walks in and Elizabeth’s baby boy LEAPED in her womb and was filled with the Holy Spirit.

I know how much fun it is to be pregnant with a friend. My buddy Kelly and I were pregnant with our youngest baby girls at the same time – and it was like a crash course in getting to know each other and so much FUN and still is – an instant bond over the babies we carried and are now raising. Throw in that Mary and Elizabeth didn’t have social media, texting, doctor visits, FB support groups, tons of buddies, etc. They were a God send for each other!  The joy they shared visiting over their pregnancies must have been tangible!!! And the call of God on both of their son’s lives brings me to tears thinking about it.

As soon as Mary walks in she breaks out into a little narrative BRAGGING ON GOD. I read it three times and highly recommend it. It’s Luke 1:46-55. I read it out loud – home alone with babies sleeping 🙂 and I just wept!!!

At about verse 51 Mary starts into this detailed list.

“He has… He has… He has… He has… He has… He has…

just as He promised…”

FRIENDS. HE HAS. If there is a raw spot in your heart, could you sit and let that sink in?

I don’t know about you but I’m a lot like my 5 year old who currently has a “wish list” on our fridge. No longer her Christmas list as she knows that ship has SAILED. But a dang wish list now. We’ve spent every dime and then some that we budgeted for Christmas. She’s going to have more than she knows what to do with as it is. But still making another list……………………it’s all in this house, it’s all wrapped or hidden, it’s all waiting for her for Christmas morning, it’s all prepared for her, it’s all perfectly picked out just for her. But she’s still making that next wish list. She gets a pass because she’s a kid. I don’t have that excuse though.

How do we forget so often? HE HAS. He has done. He has come. He has loved. He has finished.

What more could we want?

Praying and hoping and reading for a more sober heart, prepared for His goodness and light, looking and waiting and watching and knowing that He does GOOD THINGS and HE HAS already done the very best thing by sending His son to be with us.

I have a lot of crutches – my health, my husband, financial security, my healthy kids here to name a few. But it was Jesus that said: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

It. Will. Not. Be. Taken. Away. From. Her. The one thing needed – we can’t buy it, we can’t adopt it, we can’t birth it, we can’t manufacture it, we can’t fake it, we can’t attain it, but we can receive it and abide in it and share it.

Merry Christmas friends! Hoping you get some time to be alone and quiet and choose what is best for you this Christmas and the year to come!