Gifts in Sticky Packages..

Its just like Jesus to give US gifts in HIS season...

...little voices belt out, cracking cause they are singing with greatest volume," OH COME LET US ADORE HIM" in the back seat as we pull into the grocery parking lot... feet dance and skip across asphalt and shivering arms pull me until we are ALL skipping into the warmth of the store...and we finish our our race with another-- racing pennies into the donation bucket down ramps and around slides...2 pennies buy such delight!!

..earlier,we watched with wonder and enjoyment, clumsy little fingers wrapping up homemade gifts for teachers, wrestling with Loooong strands of tape and then unsticking the tangle, leaving powdery fingerprints--their identity adhered in tapey lines all over crumpled packages placed so preciously into backpacks...

NOW they are saying, "Mom, i LOVE to spend this time with you!!".... and "we will HELP you" in our grocery journey to Aldi where two little boys in their vigor throw a weeks worth of produce onto the conveyer belt faster than an "I Love Lucy" episode...one's bobbed blonde hair swinging over his eyes as he grabs and throws and helps with such exuberance that instead of correction i have to just fold my arms,step back to behold him now lifting that Biiiiggggg bag of potatoes over his head and just laugh with joy...

...then for the bagging--oh what an adventure each moment is if we see them as gifts!!..."watch OUT for the SOFT things,guys...HOW about putting the butter on the BOTTOM and then the vine tomatoes?" ...oh,well....it all flies by in cuteness and earnestness and their brand of wholehearted service...love...who can resist this God of love?... who paints my life with children's adoration to Jesus in the candle lights of advent...or who makes little boys run past me this morning in matching red jackets... eager to bring their gifts to school...

...did you run to be the gift in the manger, Jesus?...what gifts did you make for Mary and Joseph in the Carpenter's shop?...how did you gather up pieces of your Creation that you had previously fashioned to now construct into creations of your heart for the ones you loved...yet this time with the hindrance of little boy dexterity ...how did it feel to be a little Jewish boy?...how did you, the Darling of Heaven make YOUR FATHER and the angels smile and laugh?...

...I SEE your JOY and LIGHT..your Father's pleased smile... in the radiance of these ones who love you...who are WRAPPED in YOUR love and YOUR identity...your fingerprints are all over us...we are wrapped in you...

Love, GG


Praying to remember this:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. (From Philippians 2)