“The Word of the Father, by Whom all time was created, was made flesh and was born in time for us.

He, without whose divine permission no day completes its course, wished to have one day set aside for His human birth.

In the bosom of His Father, He existed before all the cycles of ages; born of an earthly mother, He entered upon the course of the years on this day.

The Maker of man became Man that He, Ruler of the stars, might be nourished at His mother’s breast;

that He, the Bread, might hunger;

that He, the Fountain, might thirst;

that He, the Light, might sleep;

that He, the Way, might be wearied by the journey;

that He, the Truth, might be accused by false witnesses;

that He, the Judge of the living and the dead, might be brought to trial by a mortal judge;

that He, Justice, might be condemned by the unjust;

that He, Discipline, might be scourged with whips;

that He, the Foundation, might be suspended upon a cross;

that Courage might be weakened;

that Healer might be wounded;

that Life might die.

To endure these and similar indignities for us, to free us, unworthy creatures, He who existed as the Son of God before all ages, without a beginning, deigned to become the Son of Man in these recent years.

He did this although He who submitted to such great evils for our sake had done no evil and although we, who were the recipients of so much good at His hands, had done nothing to merit these benefits.

Begotten by the Father, He was not made by the Father.

He was made Man in the mother whom He Himself had made, so that He might exist here for a while, sprung from her who could never and nowhere have existed except through His power” (Augustine of Hippo, Sermons 184-229: Sermons).

This is not the first time I’ve posted this poem here. In fact, I try to post it every year around this time because it speaks so beautifully to the true meaning of Christmas. That God should be born as a baby on a dirt floor in a stable is no less marvelous than that God should come into my heart and be born there.

God didn’t wait for me to get cleaned up or get my act together or finally figure out my life. He didn’t wait for me to come to Him. He came to me where I was in the middle of my mess and make me all those things I could never have made myself — clean, whole, pure, with a purpose.

May this poem still speak to you as it still speaks to me:

“Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: ‘Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place’?

Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts and says, ‘Yes,
let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here–
in this place’ (Leslie Leyland Fields, Let the Stable Still Astonish).

I had a sort of epiphany. Not the religious, angels-we-have-heard-on-high type. More of a bucket list addition type.

I want to stay at the Opryland Hotel. I don’t mean just in any room. I want to stay in a room that overlooks the Delta Atrium at some point during the Christmas season.

I don’t expect that to happen any time soon — if at all. But that’s why it’s on my bucket list.

To me, a bucket list item should be something a bit crazy and out there. It shouldn’t be something that’s a normal wish but with a little extra. It should be a WHOLE LOT extra.

But the Delta Atrium is my favorite because that’s where all the good eats are. Plus, there’s a shop that used to have a good music selection at one point. Plus, Opryland Hotel at Christmas time is a vibe that never fails to get me in the holiday spirit.

I am perfectly content to stick to my yearly visits where I ooh and ahh over everything and take 500 pictures (or until my phone runs out of memory). Plus, I have my slice of pizza from Paisano’s and get in my 20,000 steps (or what feels like 20,000 steps).

Maybe when I finally strike it rich . . .

“If you put your faith in your experience anything that happens–toothache, indigestion, an east wind, incongenial work–is likely to upset the experience, but nothing that happens can ever upset God or the almighty reality of the Redemption; once based on that, you are as eternally sure as God Himself” (Oswald Chambers, Run Today’s Race).

The problem that people get into is that they want to interpret God and His word through their experiences instead of the other way around. But the problem with experiences is that how you view them is based on what you’re feeling or how much sleep you’ve had recently. So many factors can skew how you view your experiences.

It’s a lot like building your house on sand. If you live based off of emotions and experiences, you’re like that shifting sand that never settles. But once you put your house on the firm foundation of God’s unchanging truths as revealed in His word, then you’re rock solid and rock steady.

As the old saying goes, what you think and what you feel can lie to you and what you experience is based on your very limited perspective on the world. But God is eternally sure and secure, as are those who hope in Him and live their lives on His word.

“Suppose a child gets separated from his mom in the grocery store. He panics and runs to the end of an aisle, not knowing where to go. But just before he starts to cry, he sees her shadow at the end of the aisle. He starts to feel hope. But what is better? The happiness of seeing the shadow, or having his mom step around the corner and seeing that it’s really her? That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing.”

I love at the end of The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis how they all discover that what they had known as Narnia and the real world was merely a shadow and a copy of the real thing. Once they see the true Narnia, they know that they have at last really and truly come home.

It’s like seeing a painting or photograph of a sunset versus actually witnessing the sunset in person. As good as the artist is in faithfully reproducing the imagery, it still can’t compare with the real thing.

Advent is a reminder that we’re living in the Shadowlands. Christmas is a reminder that the real thing is breaking through and displacing the shadows. All of our best hopes and desires and wishes, everything that we ever loved in this world, will be in the real thing in their purest and truest forms.

Christmas means that hope is born and the light has come.

I think one of the truest memes I have ever seen involves how we wish we could get rollover minutes from all those naps we refused to take when we were younger. I know I faked a few naps back in the day that I wish I could have back. It’s probably not scientifically viable, but I’m sure that I’m 5% more tired from all those missed naps back when I was 8 years old.

I have been especially sleepy this week. Of course, that has nothing to do with me scrolling through funny Facebook videos for an extra 15-20 minutes every night. I like to blame the extra early 5 am start to my day.

Thankfully, I have a staycay coming up next week. I plan on turning off that alarm for the duration of my time off. Even if I wake up early out of habit (which I undoubtedly will), I can simply roll over and go back to my happy dreams.

But I still regret pretending to nap as a kid. That was dumb.