I have never met our guest blogger in person, but we have connected in our hearts as Christian sisters in Christ. And her words–her words that she wrote about an experience which occurred years ago are still very profound today.
Recently Rhonda shared her words in my book, Trusting God When Life Gives You Crap. Today she shares her story with us . . .
As we pulled up to the stop sign, I heard my little boy sweetly exclaim “Mommy, I want a nativity like that one for our yard!” Glancing to the left, the glowing silhouette of a nativity scene shone vibrantly in the darkness. In true, mom-fashion an answer formed and was offered before my mind comprehended my own reply, “We will have to ask Jesus to make his manger in our hearts this year, buddy.”
Quietly ricocheting in my heart, wisdom greater than my own dropped gold into my waiting spirit, the echo of Advent – coming for me.
He comes. This newly formed Jesus, sculpted in tenderest places, pushed forth screaming, birthed in the excrement of animals and the stench of sin. And though my light and happy are drained dry, I can still feel the wonder on the edges of me.
He has come.
For me.
For you.
For us.
And He will come again. The smallness of Him-then enlarges the smallness of me-now. And I’m stretched wide to hold Him in as He expands and fills all these emptied, marred, carved out places with Himself.
That Christmas was so painful. It was the first one after my mom died. I was deeply aware of how fragmented I felt and how much I needed Jesus to do something in me I couldn’t do in myself. That night, as those words came to my mind—make his manger in our hearts—it was the first time I had experienced the Spirit’s tangible presence since the absence of my mom. Absence meeting Presence.
You see, without the absence, the emptying and the loss, there would have been no room for Presence. Philippians 3:8, “I consider it ALL loss for the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost ALL things,” took on greater meaning for me.
Advent points to ultimate redemption when ALL things will be made new. Where the absence of wholeness is redeemed in the fullness of His presence. When His light comes into our personal darkness and He fills the carved out, manger places within us, with Himself. We are emptied, precisely to be filled, the Kingdom of Heaven nestling down into lowly places – making His manger in us.
And the weary world rejoices, within and without, yet again.
Rhonda