Christmas Wonder

Yesterday, my girls opened up a Christmas gift from their aunt.  Inside, they found a glass ball on a stand.  Inside the ball, the figures of Joseph and Mary, heads bent adoringly over the baby in her arms.  We tipped the ball.  Glitter swirled around them like an aura of splendor and holiness as the notes of “O Holy Night” played.

A snow globe!  I saw the wonder in their eyes, the kind that only a child has, the kind that has often been forgotten by us adults who have lived longer and become distracted by the cares of this world.  Too often we have no time or are too jaded for wonder.  Our schedules are too full, our lists are too long, our burdens too heavy, our worries too numerous.  Wonder is largely lost on us.

But Christmas is a beautiful time for restoring for what we’ve lost.

Christmas was made for children.  Not necessarily for children in age, as is often thought, but children in heart, or what is known as childlike wonder.  Not necessarily the wonder of presents, lights, and music, though they are all wonderful things, but the wonder of what these things are meant to point to, a baby born, the Prince of Peace who was called Wonderful.A verse from the Christmas carol “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” says it well:

“And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!”Wonder is found when we take the time to rest, and listen, and see…with the wide-open, unhurried heart, ears and eyes of a child.  This Christmas, may you take the time to tip a snow globe over and watch the glitter swirl.  May you take the time to run outside and be the happy figure in the falling snow of your own private snow globe world.  But most of all, may you take the time to remember that the One who forms every perfect tiny snowflake, formed you for wonder, and bears the name of Wonderful…and is the only One who truly makes this the most Wonderful Time of the Year.

“Jesus invited a little child to stand among them. “Truly I tell you,” He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:2-3)

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

Have a wonder-filled Christmas!