consider this

With Christmas rapidly approaching, I'd like to offer a suggestion. Instead of asking for socks, Starbucks cards, perfume, clothes ... the usual stuff ... why not ask that someone make a donation in your name to Gospel for Asia?

You'd be amazed at what a $11 contribution can do. For $11, you can buy a pair of chickens or rabbits for an impoverished family in India and help them start a cottage industry. Blankets can be had for just $5; Bibles for $3. Or if you want to help a woman feed her children, you can provide a treadle sewing machine for $85. The list--and the needs--are endless.

Here's the link to the Gospel For Asia donation site: Donation - Gospel for Asia

Once there, you can browse through the different categories and find something that tugs at you. Better yet, get your children involved. This is an opportunity to open their eyes to the world around them, teach them about giving, and perhaps even lessen some of the materialism that they (and us) have allowed to creep in.

Last year, this is what I asked for when my husband asked what I wanted. And when he gave me a printed sheet of all the things he'd bought at the site, it made me cry. I can't remember the last time a gift made me cry.

Do this once and you won't want to stop. I promise.

7:25 a.m.

I'm pretty sure the last time we slept in on Christmas day, Zac was a toddler and didn't know any better. But that was fifteen years ago. Every year since then, when his internal, 4:00 a.m. Christmas clock has dinged (or Tera's ... he gave her one when she arrived in the Woodward household), our door has creaked open and a little hopeful, expectant voice has asked, "Is it time to get up yet?"

Every year ... until today. Today, Dave and I opened our eyes at 7:00 to a silent house. Tera slept in. Zac slept in. We're up, and we're alone.

So many changes, most of which sneaked up on me. Zac's Playmobile Pirate Island has given way to a microwave, flatware, and towels--items he'll need when he gets his apartment this summer. Tera's Barbie Dream House has given way to teenager fleece boots and an iPod.

But some things will never change. When we wake them (and I'm really thinking we're going to have to wake them), and they stumble into the living room, I'll still steer them, first thing, to the creche arranged on the end table, and ask, "What's different today?" They'll point out that Baby Jesus has made His appearance, finally, after waiting these long weeks in tissue-paper limbo, hidden away in my bedroom.

Dave will pray, just like he does every year, and thank God not only for the blessings we can see--these children, and this home, and the precious friends and family He's surrounded us with, but also for the blessing none of us witnessed--that long ago miracle, when God left the beauty of heaven and came to visit earth in human flesh.

Amy Grant's Christmas album will be playing in the background, just like it's done every year since it came out. Though we live in Washington state, our accidentally official Christmas morning song is "Tennessee Christmas."

Dave and I will watch the unwrapping with twin mugs of coffee in hand, and only open our own at the insistence of the kids. Like always, the best part will be watching them open theirs (although this year, I really can't wait to watch Dave open one particular gift: a set of Rock'em, Sock'em Robots. I had to get it for him. Whenever the subject of his childhood comes up, he mentions those robots, and always with that, "Oh, to be a boy again" look).

When Dave opens his stocking, he'll find new wool socks, smoked almonds, Almond Roca, and Toffee Symphony bars (4), just like he finds most every year.

When the kids open their stockings, they'll find jars of Nutella, and big jars of mandarin oranges, Pop Tarts (which I never buy otherwise), and socks.

We'll tear into those packages. We'll make giant, gift-wrap mountains. We'll ooh, and aah, and hug each other, and say thank you. Later, we'll have biscuits and gravy. We'll nap. We'll go visit family, and start the happy process over again.

Some things don't change. And I'm so grateful for that.

Here's hoping that all your most beautiful habits warm you today, and that you remember that Baby, that miracle, and the Hope that was born in that dark, cold cave.

making room

This morning, while finishing a book edit, I moved my favorite Christmas decoration aside to make room for my cup of coffee. As I do often, I picked up the jar and shook the straw inside. Then I decided to tell you about it.

Here's an article I wrote for HomeLife magazine about eight years ago.

* * *
I remember–distinctly–how overwhelmed I felt the first time someone suggested an Advent celebration to me.

Four nights. I’d have to set aside four nights during the busiest four weeks of the year. Lighting the candles sounded nice. I liked candles. Prayer was fine. I liked prayer. Sitting around a table asking questions and singing songs–that part I could do without.

“You’d be blessed,” my friend promised.

I didn’t believe her. It sounded like one more activity, one more “have to” in a month already crammed with have to’s. I accepted the paper she handed me, glanced at the suggestions, and thanked her. When she left, I filed the paper in the very back of my filing cabinet.

It probably would have stayed there forever except for a half-hearted prayer I tossed toward God one day soon afterwards.

I’d been out shopping with the masses. Armed with four pounds of toy catalogs and flyers, I elbowed my way through crowds, hissed over parking spaces, stood in lines twenty people deep, and heard enough musical bells and animated Santas to drive a person insane. I spent too much money on things I was certain no one would like or appreciate. Worst of all, on a whim I picked up the newest book by Martha What’s-Her-Name on “How to craft the world’s most memorable Christmas ever using only a glue gun and fresh bay leaves from your own bay tree.” Despite the fact that I didn’t have a bay tree and couldn’t remember when I’d last seen the glue gun, I plopped the book in my cart.

Driving home, I realized that something was way out of whack. My month was as full as it could possibly be. I’d loaded our schedule with every festive event I could find: concerts, parties, cookie exchanges, pageants, tree lighting ceremonies. There wasn’t room for a single thing more. And still I wasn’t happy, or satisfied, or contented. I didn’t feel close to God. I didn’t even like Christmas anymore. In fact, if I could have my way, I would have ripped December right out of my calendar.

I couldn’t pinpoint how it had happened, but somehow Christmas had taken on a life of its own. It drove me, in an endless cycle of haves and wants and musts. I was on the Christmas roller coaster and feeling sick.

“Something has to change,” I said out loud. Not much of a prayer. But God, I’ve learned, can read between the lines and find a prayer hidden in our little outbursts.

I lugged my purchases up to the house and hid them in the bedroom closet. With a cup of tea in hand, I curled up in my favorite chair and opened Martha’s new book. I turned the pages, slowly at first, then more rapidly. One by one I vetoed the projects and recipes. Too big. Too expensive. Too weird. Gold leaf on cookies? Who puts gold leaf on cookies? Who eats gold leaf on cookies?? Most of the projects called for things I’d never owned and probably couldn’t track down if my life depended on it.

Dejected, I tossed the book on the coffee table and wandered outside. Voices drew me to the sheep barn, where I found Dave and Zac, then four, spreading fresh straw.

Dave used the pitchfork, but hands-on Zac was down on his knee scattering straw with his hands.

“How was shopping?” Dave asked.

“Oh, you know. Plastic Santas. Angry people. No parking. Same as always.”

I wasn’t good company. My two men wisely kept working and said nothing. Until Zac, finally, made an announcement.

“That doesn’t feel good,” he said, pulling straw out of his sleeve. “It’s not comfortable on your skin.”

From my perch on a bale of straw, I watched but said nothing.

“Mom?” he pressed.

“What?”

“It doesn’t feel good.”

“Well, then, don’t put it up your sleeve.” Cranky mother.

“Well, it’s just . . . I was thinking. Was Jesus really born in a barn?”

A cave, I thought. It was probably a cave. But I just nodded.

“Why did that happen?”

“They tried to find another place for him to be born, but there just wasn’t room.”

“That’s not good.” Zac shook his head.

He’d heard the Christmas story every Christmas of his young life. I couldn’t understand why this was bothering him now. “It’s just the way it happened,” I said.

“But, Mom,” he said, walking toward me, “feel this.” He laid a handful of straw on my arm and stepped back. “It feels bad.”

I looked at Zac. I looked at the small pile of straw on my arm and felt it prickling my skin. He was right.

His eyes were troubled. “They laid Him in a manger. I know what that is. That’s a thing full of straw. That’s not a place to put a baby.”

No, I thought. That’s no place for a baby.

“They should have made room for Him some place better,” he continued.

They should have made room, my thoughts echoed.

“It was God. He should have been born in the nicest hotel.”

The straw was still sitting on my arm. I collected it in my hand and let myself feel its scratchiness. And I tried to imagine my Savior lying in a bed full of plain, rough, scratchy straw.

Something clicked for me in that moment. Zac’s words pierced my mind and burrowed into my heart. No room. No room for Jesus. The Innkeeper was me, and I had left no room for the Savior.

I saw what was wrong, suddenly. I had pushed the Baby out and let unimportant things take the place that was His. I had banished Him to the far corners of our holiday. Church on Christmas Eve, maybe a prayer or two. A quick read of the Christmas story. Nothing more. All the rest had been reserved for talking Santas and toy catalogs and parties and such. A whole lot of fancy nothing.

In my quest for the perfect Christmas I had lost the meaning of the manger. I had forgotten the simplicity of the straw.

Our Christmas changed after that. I started by bringing that handful of straw up to the house and stuffing it in an old canning jar of my grandmother’s. Then I set it in a place of prominence, where it would remind me, with each glance, of the miracle that happened in a long-ago cave.

Next, I pulled out the Advent paper from the recesses of my filing cabinet. Studying the suggestions, I decided they were a bit too formal for our free-spirited family, so we started from scratch and formed our own Advent celebration. That first year Zac and I fashioned a simple wreath from evergreen branches we found lying in the yard and molded five little balls of clay into candle holders, which we tucked around the wreath. Nothing fancy. And on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, not knowing what to expect, we gathered around our table, dimmed the lights, and lit the first of the five candles. Dave opened with prayer.

“Lord, we ask Your forgiveness for our neglect. We want to honor You. We want You to be the center of all we do this month. More than anything else, Lord, we want Your presence.”

“Dad,” Zac whispered, “it’s not polite to ask for presents.”

* * *

This year, I pray you find your own way to make room for the Baby--the Baby the whole world is desperate to dismiss. May the miracle of the manger become a reality to you again ... or for the very first time.