You Bring the Present: A Women’s Christmas Devotional Sýnishorn

Mary: Little Full, Lotta Sap

During the Christmas season, women have  a lot of beautiful and well-laid plans. 

Last Christmas my mom and I spent the entire day in the kitchen baking a top-secret, special recipe for a casserole. Not just any casserole; this was my grandmother’s famous, to-die-for casserole she made every year for our family’s Christmas Eve lunch. With her not being there for Christmas last year, my mother and I decided to take on the tradition; we would surely carry the torch. We followed the recipe to a T. We were finally finished and had just taken the casserole out of the oven...Oh no... we were so close. We did everything right! But, my mom looked down at her neatly manicured nails and realized…one was missing.

Today, I want to talk to the woman who feels like things are completely out of her control during the holiday season. To the woman who has all the best-laid plans but everything is going completely wrong. To the woman who feels like Clark Griswald putting up his way-too-big Christmas tree. He knows it’s a disaster but all he can muster is: “Little full, lot of sap.” Mary understood your plight. 

Mary had some beautiful plans. She was a normal, young woman who was planning her wedding. But an angel showed up and completely changed everything. All of her conventional wedding plans were now turned into a birthing plan with a trip to her new husband’s hometown thrown in--not to mention a crazy king who wanted all the first-born boys dead. 

Then her birthing plan was thrown out the window when they couldn’t find a place to stay. Instead, she gave birth among the animals, in a cave, and had to put her new baby in a camel’s food bucket. But with all of her best laid plans gone awry, Mary brought the present of Christmas traditions that will be practiced till the end of time. Her messed-up plans brought us live nativity scenes, beautiful songs, gifts to loved ones, and most importantly—the gospel. 

Mary literally brought the gift of Christmas because she carried the presence of Jesus inside her body, and the journey was anything but smooth. However, every time she had to pivot, every time she had to change her expectations, she fulfilled prophecies, created a beautiful story, and birthed Christ into the world. 

Sometimes the most beautiful moments are crafted in the aftermath of cancelled plans. 

My mom and I, when we realized all of our hard work was ruined by a flipping finger nail, we fell to the kitchen floor and just started laughing. We ended up bringing cornbread instead, but we have an infamous story and a hilarious moment that I will cherish always. 

You might be dealing with changed plans this Christmas: a cancelled party, a loss of a job, a death of a loved one. Make space to grieve the change. Give yourself grace this Christmas, but also know that there will still be beautiful moments to cherish. Moments that are created in the wreckage, changed plans that are an opportunity to create something new, something beautiful, something that will be remembered forever. Jesus’ birth was anything but “normal,” but in that chaos, we have the glorious hope of the gospel that brings life and hope to the world. You still bring the present this Christmas because you have that presence in your heart, and he will shine no matter the plan. Keep bringing the present.