Preparations

It has been a month of serving, and of preparation. Of multiple visits each week to help and encourage my 93 year-old father, and of shopping and cleaning and preparing for our Family Christmas. There will be two dozen loved family members around our table later this week! Family will be traveling from New York City, from San Francisco, and from Dallas to join us and those who live nearby. 

There have also been preparations of mailings, of gatherings with friends, of worship, of Advent. And I am thankful. 

And I have also been reminded of the hidden preparations that also have needed to take place. Each day. Preparations of the heart.

Oh, how I have needed to prepare my heart. I can get so caught up in the doing, and I need to be reminded every day of the importance of the heart. For the things of the heart are of most importance. It is for the heart that Jesus came. Without Him, our hearts are empty, and we are lost. And our Greatest Gift ... is Him.

I don't have to work for the coming of the Lord -

I don't have to work for Christmas ...

I always get my Christmas miracle.

I get God with me.

That's really all I have to get ready for Christmas - my heart.

So I will just come to Him just as I am.

God gives Himself as the Greatest Gift this Christmas ...

Because the greatest things aren't things!

(The Greatest Gift)

Thanking Him for the readings from The Greatest Gift each day of Advent, for how He cares for all the details of our lives even as we love and serve our families and friends -  and thanking Him for sending us JESUS, our Greatest Gift; Immanuel - God with us.

Thinking of you, and praying for you,

as you prepare your heart and your home

for Christmas.

Credit for WordArt above: JSM_dD-Christmas.