Celebrate Christ-Mas

...An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Matt. 1:20-21 (NIV)

I had to laugh this morning.  I am a subscriber to the Proverbs 31 Ministries devotional.  Every day a devotional is delivered to my Inbox.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the blogs and devotionals in that inbox so every now and then I delete them without reading them.  I learned today that sometimes my coworker does this too.  We were both ashamed to admit it, as if we are doing something sinful by not reading them.  Ha.

Anyway, I had looked through most of my e-mails this morning, but two remained and one of them was my daily devo from Proverbs 31.  I almost read it twice, but was distracted by other things and didn't. 

A few minutes ago a friend forwarded me today's Proverbs 31 devotional and said "this made me think of you."  Well, I had to read it then, didn't I?  Whoa, someone had taken over my thoughts!  It was all about the writer of the devo losing her Christmas focus because of little things like...an unstable Christmas tree that kept falling over.  (I think if you click on this link, you can read the devotional  http://www.proverbs31.org/devotions/ )

Of course, I had to tell my coworker to read it, which is how I learned that she had shamefully deleted it!  (Who could do such a thing;)  She read it and was amazed by the similarity to my tree situation.  We decided that maybe it was God talking to me, telling me that I needed to get my head screwed on straight (not a tree) and quick worrying about all the petty details.

What really matters...that Jesus Christ was born into a sinful world to die for an unworthy soul (e-mail deleter) like me; that my family is healthy and nearby; that we have jobs that support our family so we don't have to struggle; that I'm surrounded by a wonderful church family and some pretty great friends.  

There's so much pressure to have the perfect tree, the best Christmas card (I'm working on a New Year's card...ha), kids in perfect Christmas outfits, the ugliest Christmas sweater, the yummiest snacks and goodies, the most creative gifts...we lose sight of true perfection.  Jesus.  Although he is lying in the manger in our nativity scene on top of our TV stand, where is celebrating Jesus on my to do list?  Hmm, I'm not sure I ever put him on there.

I'm pretty confident that God isn't concerned about whether or not our Christmas tree, one we killed for our decorating pleasure, stands up straight or has pretty white lights or ugly colored ones.  I'm also fairly certain that He isn't going to get mad at us if we go back to an artificial one next year.  What He really wants is for us to celebrate Christ-Mas (Christ-More).