By Ashley Larkin
I’m guessing you’ve heard the song “We Need a Little Christmas Now.” For me, its commands to fill stockings, bake fruitcake and deck the halls embody the bossy pressure I feel to make everything happen during the Christmas season.
Not only do many of us experience stress in the attending and tending, gifting and hosting, baking and making, but we also know the pressure to make the holiday meaningful, magical and memorable for ourselves and for others.
And by this point in the season, we might very well feel too exhausted to enjoy or even care about the day itself.
Brennan Manning asked, “What rules our lives as we prepare for Christmas? What has power over us?”
If I’m honest, more often than I would like to admit, it is compulsion to do more and fear that I will disappoint. Yep, I’m worried I will fail Christmas.
The world yells its accusations and demands, but on this Christmas Eve I am straining to hear the whisper of what I believe might be the most forgotten gift of Jesus’ birth: PEACE.
If you stop for a moment, you might hear peace in the whistle of the wind through bare branches. Or see it in the stillness of your children snuggled up under their winter covers. Or glimpse it as you look upon the glittering lights of the Christmas tree when, for a moment, all is calm and bright.
Yes, peace is a gift to you right in the middle of this day, whatever it might hold for you – in the midst of things that do not seem right and are not right at all. Peace comes as a gift to hold in both settled spaces and fleeting moments. Peace is an assurance in the midst of the storm.
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When Love came down in human flesh into a stable reeking of animals, into a long-waiting and hopeless world, the common shepherds were the first to know. The newborn King, they were told by the angel, would be in the feeding trough.
Then a huge number of angels filled the sky, praising God for the gift of Jesus, known in the book of Isaiah as the Prince of Peace. The multitude proclaimed “PEACE to all those touched by God’s favor.”
Songs of peace on earth, goodwill toward men flooded the heavens.
On this day before Christmas, how do you need to know peace’s flood? Where do you need peace to be born, like the newborn one in the manger?
Today, I will choose to find peace in giving thanks when stresses press. I will pray for God to carry the burdens of those suffering under grief, oppression, injustice, war, sickness and fear. I will light another candle. Read Christmas stories with my daughters. Gather around the table with those I love. Sing of hearts preparing him room, and hopes and fears of all years being met in him.
I will slow to feel the peaceful rush of breath moving into and out of my lungs. I will allow Christ’s peace to settle down deep.
And then, when some of the activity of the season has died down, I’ll snuggle up with my pen and journal, and then my laptop (though it’s a bit less snuggly), reflecting and musing and creating, allowing peace to be an overflow offering.
Isaiah 54:10 tells us that the Lord’s promise of peace will never be removed from us. This Christmas, might you know the truth of that gift: peace on earth, goodwill toward you.
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Ashley Larkin is a dear friend of Faith & Culture Writers. A member of the Advisory Board, Ashley will co-lead a workshop on blogging at the 2015 Mini-Retreat-Breathing Space Pre-Conference, April 10. She has served as the Agents and Editors Coordinator, scribe, and mentor at past conferences. She can be found sharing her heart at her Draw Near blog: AshleyMLarkin.com