Treasuring unplanned moments

My first Christmas as a mother did not go as planned.

“You’re going to have the best Christmas with that sweet baby,” people would tell me as they smiled at my little cherub.

But as it turned out, she didn’t care that it was Christmas. Babies do what they want, when they want. Every mother has learned that lesson a few times over.

I had dreamt up images in my head of my little family enjoying a lovely, traditional Christmas as we always had in the past, not considering how a newborn would change things.

Needless to say, as I walked my fussy babe up and down the halls of the church during the Christmas Eve service, my heart fought off feelings of disappointment. Christmas was not shaping up as I had envisioned.

Do you think Mary felt the same way? Riding for miles a donkey, she had probably been dreaming of the moment she could finally lay down on a soft bed to relieve her back ache and get some rest, only to discover there wasn’t a vacant room in town.

The only option was a stable with hay, and well, when you're tired enough, that will do. Tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable spot, the pains began. She was having her baby in a stable, which I'm sure is far from how she imagined it, but it was happening whether she liked it or not. 

I wonder if Mary felt a little disappointed as she was lying on that stable floor giving birth to her first child. Why couldn't it have gone the way she planned? You know, not in a barn? The whole event was likely not shaping up as she had imagined.

Yet scripture tells us that Mary, sitting in a stable, surrounded by animals, laying her newborn son in a feeding trough, " treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." (Luke 2:19) She knew this was a moment in time she would never get back. That tiny baby, cradled in her arms, would grow and change in the blink of an eye. God was doing something big, bigger than she could have imagined, and she was soaking it all in.

She treasured the night. She stored the memory. A sweet moment to think back on years later when cradling her son would no longer be an option.

Whether this Christmas is shaping up as you had hoped or not, next Christmas won't look the same. Neither will the one after that. But each one holds sweet moments if we’re willing to look for and consider them. Moments we can store up in our hearts and treasure for years to come.

Like Mary, as she celebrated the first Christmas, the one that went according to God's perfect plan.