Christmas Eve

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It’s Christmas Eve and this is how my Christmas week has gone so far. I am on day fourteen in my Advent devotion book and my Advent calendar hanging on a door was last updated four days ago. Both practices were instigated by me to be more intentional towards the real meaning of Christmas and I have failed in my attempt. 

Yesterday I went shopping for my husband and bought him something he really doesn’t need but would like, I think. Driving to the mall I listened to Christmas Carols and fought to keep my mind on them as I drove in Metro Atlanta traffic and considered how I was going to turn over disappointments to God regarding some work to be done around the property by people who did not show up. When I got home I instructed hubby to sit in a rocking chair in the bedroom while I pulled out all his shirts from the closet and had him choose what was to be culled. I was determined to accomplish something!

But this morning, as I sit at my table and try to catch up in my devotion book, the writer has written about Hannah (In comparison with Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist and Mary, the mother of Jesus) and he calls attention to the prayer of Hannah (the prophet Samuel’s mother) -

 “And Hannah prayed and said,

My heart exults in the LORD; 

My horn is exalted in the LORD.

My mouth derides my enemies,

Because I rejoice in your salvation.”   

1 Samuel 2:1

Hannah is a woman who was a long time barren and suffered abuse due to her barrenness. The LORD heard her prayer for a child and she dedicated that child to God and handed him over to Eli the priest when the child Samuel was weaned. And she exulted in the LORD. 

Samuel is a major prophet when he grows up.  We know about John the Baptist and that Elizabeth also had been barren and most likely had accepted that she would not have children as she was in her old age, yet God had a plan. Mary was young when she was found to be with child, but all three of these women lived lives that I imagine were not as they had envisioned they would be. Yet God had a plan for all three women that was for the redemption of mankind. 

The redemption of mankind! 

And so as I move through this Christmas season my eyes need to ever be on the fact of that plan, the birth of a savior, the LORD Jesus Christ. And I also will rejoice in God’s salvation.