In early December, I had the awesome privilege of sharing my testimony at our Oasis Christmas Coffee morning. I was floored and humbled that they would ask me to share. We wanted to give the ladies all a gift as they left and as always God provided the perfect heart ornament. We bought 60 of them and there were 61 people including me! How great of God to allow us to have the perfect amount. I love to see how God works the details all out. Here is what I shared.
Merry Christmas!
The heart of Christmas- Oasis 2013
Wow, what an honor
and privilege it is to be here today and share with you all what the heart of
Christmas is to me! I love
Christmas! I love the excitement and the
anticipation of Christmas day. I always
have, I can remember as a little girl having a really hard time going to sleep
on Christmas Eve because I just couldn’t wait to wake up Christmas
morning. Then I would wake up really
early on Christmas day, ready to go downstairs and see what presents were there
for me.
Now, as a mom, I
am on the other side of that excitement.
My boys, Ben and Nate, are VERY excited about Christmas this year. They have asked for all things star wars and
have even made up some star wars things they think would be fun, like a yoda hat
and yoda book. Oh, the excitement and joy of Christmas time!
For a long time Christmas
was all about me and what I was going to get and what I wanted. It wasn’t until I really grasped the breadth
and depth of God’s love for me at Christmas that I understood the joy behind
Christmas.
The
heart of Christmas to me is that God sent His one and only son, Jesus, as a
baby to earth to grow up and die for me! For my sins, for the many times I am selfish and hurtful and thoughtless
to those around me. God sent his son as
a baby so that I might have life eternal with him in heaven. And
not just life eternal but a life filled with peace and
love and joy and I did absolutely nothing for this gift! PEACE, knowing that God has
forgiven me, LOVE, knowing that I can do nothing to earn or lose God’s love,
JOY, the result of trusting him relinquishing control of my life to Him. These are free gifts of God given to
those who believe in his name and recognize their need of a savior. I am so thankful that years ago I accepted
God’s gift of salvation.
Most of my life, I
celebrated Christmas south of the equator in the country of Kenya. It was hot and sunny at Christmas time. We wore sundresses and went to the
beach. Then there was a time that I
spent Christmas in the states through university and my first year of
marriage. During those years, it was
really easy to have the peace, love and joy of God living in me. Life was good; there were bumps along the way
but nothing that really rocked my world.
Then there was the
year, I spent Christmas in a war zone, in Iraq as a US Army Nurse. We got to Baghdad the first week of December,
if it had been my choice, I would have just skipped over Christmas all
together. This wasn’t how I was supposed
to spend my 2nd Christmas as a married woman. No Christmas tree, no waking up to
presents. Instead I woke up to go to my
12 hour shift in A&E, to take care of road side bomb victims and children
who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or harder still working long hard
hours to save the lives of the “bad guys”, who had put the bombs there. As you can imagine it was a very dark and
hard place to be, not full of peace, love and joy.
But as we read
earlier, “This baby would be like that bright star shining in the sky that
night. A Light to light up the whole world. Chasing away darkness. Helping
people to see. And the darker the night got, the brighter the star would
shine.”
On the outside it
looked like it would be a very dark Christmas.
I was seeing death and destruction all around me. But the reality was; it was one of the
brightest Christmas’ I have ever had because I knew where my hope lay. My hope is not in this world or in a perfect
Christmas. My hope is in the
future. That the God, who made the
heavens and the earth, loved me enough to send his son to die for me and to be
the Light that shines in the darkest of places.
God showed me that Christmas that I had to surrender to him and allow
him to fill me with his peace, love and joy. We are told in Jeremiah 29:11 that Gods plans
for us are for good and to give us a hope and a future. My Christmas in Iraq did not come as a
surprise to God but was always a part of his good plan for my life. He used that Christmas and that year to teach
me so many things about his love for me and to show me how brightly His light
shines!
Once, I had chosen
to surrender to his will for me that year, I was filled with His peace, that even when there were guns shots all
around He was with me. His Love-I was reminded of my need for Jesus, and
though I have never done some of the terrible things those men did, I am still
as sinner in need of a savior. I was
able to care for men and show them the respect and dignity that we all deserve
as children of God. And His Joy-Was I happy all the time? No. But I had a joy about serving. I got to cuddle little babies and take care
of their wounds so that someday they would get up and run again.
In a little bit,
we are going to hear the song, “Mary Did you know?” Mary had no idea what lay ahead of her, she
was happy and engaged and then all of a sudden she was pregnant with the Savior
of the world. Our lives can change in an
instant and my prayer for all of us this year is that, we would truly believe
the Christmas story and let God’s peace, love, and joy rule in our hearts and
homes. As you leave, we have a little
gift for you. It is a heart ornament. It
has the words, peace, love and joy. As
you hang it on your tree or place it somewhere to see it, may it be a reminder
of what the heart of Christmas truly is.
Thank you.
