Oh the Bliss!

A couple weekends ago my daughter was in our church's Christmas musical, she was the adorable one. :) Anyway... The first thing she (and every other child to grace a stage in the history of EVER) does when she walks out and takes her place is search. I could see her twinkling eyes squinting in the bright lights trying to find me in the crowd. In the herd of 7-12 year olds it took me all of 2 seconds to find her, but she couldn't see me, so I did what any loving parent would do and I waved like a maniac... no shame, people, no shame... but she never saw me. She sang all the songs, did all the motions and played her part beautifully, but every chance she got I could see her still looking. And the split seconds of disappointment when she really thought I wasn't there? I saw those too. So many people, so many lights, so many distractions, I was RIGHT THERE, but she just couldn't find me. Where WERE you?? She hugged my waist afterward. I was here... I saw the whole thing...

I was chatting with my big bro the other day about Christmas gifts and I mentioned something about a gift having a "WOW factor". As soon as I said it I knew something was off. It felt weird. Like I was a different person, similar to who I usually am, but just tweaked a little. I brushed the feeling off and continued on my merry little gift analyzing way. But the words kept coming back. "Wow factor". It was unsettling. (Disclaimer: Ya'll know by now that I mull things, words, over and over, sometimes for days/months, before I can pinpoint exactly the feeling behind them. I haven't quite reached the perfect stewing point yet with this one but I feel like this is time sensitive, so I'm going write a little prematurely here. Forgive me if it's a bit choppy.) There is a sweet, sweet joy in giving gifts at Christmas. The entire reason why  we give gifts at all is a direct response to the Greatest Gift we were given; Jesus. The whole concept of gi...