Human

Writing Christmas songs is hard.

There are truly two types.

One, the fa la la stuff. The glitter. The jingly ones. Tinsel, bows, lights. The party songs.

Two, the Christ in Christmas songs. The ones about the Gospel come to life. I find these to be the best, the most heart wrenchingly beautiful ones.

I'm always in love with the Christmas season because it does something to me. Experiencing Christmas every year again teaches me something new every time. It's amazing.

Last night, Caleb and I went to the Dave Barnes Christmas concert in Nashville. It was the best concert ever. For a thousand reasons. But I could have just sobbed hearing a man (in the concert-- way to be outside the box DB!) read his own story about Mary and Joseph.

A few thoughts struck me while I was listening to this aged, white bearded man read his story in his cushiony velvet seat. Mary had just given birth. And so many strangers gathered around her in her post partum distress.

I recalled how utterly fallen apart I felt after Selah was placed in my arms for the first time.

The in love obsession was not what I expected when I first saw her. I was completely asleep to anything and everything else going on around me. I was fixated upon this little baby, and only aware of Caleb next to me and then absolutely nothing else. It wasn't a moment I could even fully feel.

I cannot even imagine what it felt like for Mary to not only see her baby, but to see the King of Kings in the hormonally explosive recovery period after birth.

Ohhh God must have been holding her together in so many ways.

But then I considered how her faith had been so tried while she was in labor. No room anywhere. Sent to deliver in the midst of animals. So unfit. So devastating. How much she must have felt forgotten, slighted, unseen.

And then after the pain, the exhaustion, concentration and determination of only a woman in labor, calm.

People came.

She wasn't forgotten.

I wonder if she doubted that she was really even carrying Jesus. Her Savior.

If I were her, I think I'd have had some pretty ridiculous self talk going on.

"Maybe I'm not a virgin and pregnant. Maybe you can get pregnant from drinking milk gone bad... I know I've done that a few times..."

We talk such nonsense when we're trying to grasp something too far out of reach. Too holy. Too much to comprehend in such a human state. Somehow insanity feels more sane than the unearthly world we came from, from the Father.

As people crowded around the manger, the little baby, the Jesus the Angel assured Mary was the Messiah, I wonder how Mary felt. Did she feel the awe of worship that cripples human and flawed thoughts or doubts?

When my family and Caleb's family flooded into the delivery room when Selah was only minutes old, I felt ok. I felt better than I looked, though. I didn't know how beaten up I looked until Zach showed us the pictures he'd taken. I'd had a cold, and I already looked awful. Then add 27 hours of labor to it, and delivering a baby at 5:43 in the morning... I looked like I'd given all the life I had in my body to the little life then cuddled in her father's arms. I look back on those moments wondering how everyone must have thought of me. My sisters told me I looked awful, though beautiful as everyone HAS to say about a woman who'd just delivered a baby. I feel a bit self conscious when I remember how I actually looked.

But it didn't matter. My baby was here.

Did it matter to Mary? I'd imagine not... her baby was there. But not only that... her Messiah was there. Finally. He has finally come.

Did she doubt? I would have. To look at a baby, so human, I think I'd have questioned the Lord. Yes, she had just witnessed a miracle. She had to have known that the baby was truly conceived by the Holy Spirit. Of course she knew. Of course it felt indescribable to watch her pregnancy progress, knowing this was done by the Lord. But to see the baby look like that... like a real baby... like only a baby... I wonder if she felt despair.

In such a shambled mess of humanness, I need to remember this. Yes, there is brokenness in humanity. But it was saved. We live in the year of our Lord. In a time where humanness isn't the final answer.

The Lord, in His power, in His grace and love... humanity is only a way to show Himself great, now. It was accomplished. His plan. Such purpose in His ways. Such direction and intent.

Even sin can't separate us from Him, now. No humanness, no limitations we possess can deter His purpose.

What a heart breaking, breath giving love.