A Labor Of Love

Our home looked like so many others on Christmas morning.
Months of planning culminate on that one day.
Presents are selected and purchased months before.
Wrapping paper so neatly tucked and taped is now scattered on the floor to be thrown away.

Gift giving is worth it.
Gift giving is a delight to the giver.
Gift giving is a delight to the receiver as well.
If there was just a way to make those gift-giving moments last a bit longer.

Our Christmas celebration was a bit different this year.
We have two new members of our family since we had two weddings this past summer.
All nine of us celebrated two days before Christmas.
We had a big meal served on our special Christmas dishes.

We exchanged gifts with my son and his wife since they were leaving Christmas Eve morning.
My daughter-in-love got to sit in the Christmas chair, which is tradition in our house.
The Christmas chair is where each person sits when they open their gifts.
She seemed thrilled to be in the Christmas chair as an official member of the family.

We had a smaller meal on Christmas Eve.
We had our traditional breakfast on Christmas Day.
We waited until our daughter and her husband came over around lunch time.
It was then that all the siblings gave their gifts to one another.

My daughter and son-in-love had a box for my husband and I.
There was a combined gift along with an individual gift for each of us.
I was handed my present, which was wrapped in green tissue paper.
I opened it carefully.

My son-in-love is a teacher just like my daughter.
They both teach in the same school district.
He is a high school history teacher.
In fact, his first year of teaching, he taught my youngest daughter.

My youngest daughter loved that American history class.
She came home and talked about all the things she learned.
I thought that her teacher should know how much he was impacting my daughter.
I wrote him an email.

I knew how much my own daughter loved to get encouraging emails from parents.
I knew how those encouraging words helped her on a discouraging day.
My email was sent; it was received with appreciation.
I didn’t think any more about it.

Fast forward years later.
My daughter met this wonderful young man at a Bible study.
He soon asked if they could meet for coffee.
She happened to go to the wrong Starbucks.

He sent her a text and told her to stay at that Starbucks; he would be right there.
He arrived and they talked for quite a while.
Before they began to date, my daughter told her younger sister.
Are you OK with me dating your former teacher?

It was never a problem.
My youngest daughter was actually very excited for her sister.
The night that he came to our house, officially dating my daughter, he took out his phone.
He had kept the email I sent him all those years before.

God was in the planning all along.
God went ahead of them before they even realized it.
God is central to their lives.
God is the cornerstone of their marriage.

I unwrapped the green tissue paper carefully.
There on my lap was a wooden cross.
Delicately carved on the both the vertical and horizontal beams was the Nativity scene.
There was Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wise men, angels, and Baby Jesus in the manger.

Each cut was meticulously done in the wood shop.
Each hour my son-in-love worked on this cross was his gift to me.
This handmade gift was a labor of love.
The cross now hangs in our foyer.

After the wrapping paper and the boxes are put away, Christmas is still in the heart.
At least it should be.
Jesus, fully God and fully man, did not come to earth for a one day celebration.
Jesus was born to save us from our sins.

It is Christmas every day when you carry both the manger and the cross in your heart.
It is Christmas every day when it is not about the presents but rather about the Lord Jesus.
My son-in-love’s gift reminds me of this because it depicts the story of Christmas.
With each meticulous cut, my son-in-love thought of me.

And this is why the wooden food trough led to the wooden cross, and why you will never get to the heart of Christmas if you don’t grasp the meaning of Easter. Christianity is not good advice about what we should do. It is good news of what Christ has done. (Alistair Begg)

My precious Lord Jesus thought of me and He thought of you, too.
It is Christmas every day when you remember how much He loves you.
Christmas is not about one day of the year.
Christmas is to be kept every day as we remember the manger and the cross.

Christmas is indeed a celebration but earthly celebrations end.
Gifts are put away.
Wrapping paper is thrown away.
Christmas is kept in our heart and cherished when we have our eyes on eternity.

It is a way of living.
It is a way of loving.
It is breathed in us.
It is shared with others.

But His mother treasured all these things in her heart. (Luke 2:51)

Mary endured a labor of love to give birth to Jesus.
We go through a labor of love for another when we give of ourselves for their sake.
The handmade cross reminds me of a labor of love both now and then.
It is a gift, a timeless gift to keep.