Day 4 and Thankful Thursdays - Christmas

I'm going to combine my daily Christmas post with Thankful Thursday this week. If you're interested in reading all of my daily Christmas posts for 2008, please click on my blog banner and scroll down to the second post on December 1 or head over to the blog archive section in the right margin and find the title "Day 1 - Counting Down to Christmas." It explains what I'm doing.

This week I am so incredibly grateful for Christmas and the reason behind it. Not for the lights, shopping, holiday parties and gifts but for what it means, who it stands for. To think of the Prince of Heaven stepping down from His throne, giving up so much - some of His power, His seat at the right hand of God, all that it must mean to be the begotten of God...to come to earth as a mere human baby renders me just speechless sometimes. I can't fathom it, I can't imagine love that deep and when I see how I behave sometimes I really don't understand it. All I can say is Praise God I'm not God and He is because if it were left to me, earth would be in trouble.

While I don't focus just once a day on that gift, I am grateful for the time that we can. Every year I pray there is some way to reach those who see this day as nothing more than a frustrating time to "get through" instead of the celebration of the most amazing proportions it should be.

While we are so busy trying to find the "perfect gift" for our family and friends, we can often lose sight of the fact that the perfect gift is the person for whom we offer birthday wishes on this special day. Nothing - absolutely nothing - can ever compare to what God offers us and what Jesus did for us. I will be eternally grateful for that gift and pray I never take it for granted.

Today's Christmas thought:

Last Days of Advent

The liturgy of Advent... helps us to understand fully the value and meaning of the mystery of Christmas. It is not just about commemorating the historical event, which occurred some 2,000 years ago in a little village of Judea. Instead, it is necessary to understand that the whole of our life must be an "advent," a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ. To predispose our mind to welcome the Lord, who, as we say in the Creed, one day will come to judge the living and the dead, we must learn to recognize Him as present in the events of daily life. Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward Him who already came, who will come and who comes continuously.

~Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)

For more Thankful Thursday posts, visit Iris at Grace Alone...