When I launched this blog in March, I wanted it to be a place of fashion, food, and fun… a lifestyle blog filled with advice, random musings, and body positivity. I wanted to create a page where people can learn to love themselves and others boldly and loudly through self-expression, and to make it a space of safety, free from divisive politics and religion that can hurt people. Well, hold on… today I ask you to allow me a moment to share something that may not exactly fit the usual format. Today is Christmas Eve, and I would be remiss if I did not share what is on my heart today.
Christmas is when I feel God’s love most keenly. I’ve been a Christian most of my life, and I know that Easter tends to be the central focus of the evangelical world. Not for me. Christmas is what everything is about. When Linus steps on stage and shares the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke 2 during A Charlie Brown Christmas each year, it strikes me like a ton of bricks.
You see, I can easily understand how Christ would feel compelled to give his life away. Though it must have been the worst, most excruciating experience, I can see it. It’s the basis of every classic hero story, right? Someone who sees that they alone can rescue all of humanity, laying down their life for the benefit of everyone else. NOT that I am comparing Christ to Harry Potter, nor discrediting His sacrifice and its role in my life. Somehow the story of Christmas just penetrates my heart in a different way.
The fact that the God who created the universe and all of time would love ME enough to send HIS child as a sacrifice for me, is beyond my wildest imagination. Me, Jennifer, with all of my brokenness, and flaws, and rebellion! It just doesn’t make sense. A love so big that He reached down, not just to me, but every single person who ever has or ever will live. Why?
Each day I try to live my life in a way that shows grace, empathy, and compassion to people in my path. But, there is no way I can understand a love like God’s. One that would give up His most prized possession for a bunch of people who could never deserve it or repay Him. That tiny baby in the manger was God’s own heart, given for me. I am overwhelmed.
Tonight, as I stand in the candlelight and sing Silent Night, my heart will be filled with wonder. The wonder that someone so powerful, so creative, so mighty, and so kind could look down and see a broken disappointment like me and love me enough to keep me from an eternity of emptiness and pain. Alleluia and Amen.
As you reflect on the greatest gift ever given tonight, I invite you to listen to my Christmas meditation playlist, That’s What Christmas Is All About, Charlie Brown. It’s a collection of songs that focus my heart on the love I feel this night most of all.
Merry Christmas.
Forty Fat and Fabulous 