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.

It seems the older I get, the more the Advent season becomes a blur. Lately, I feel I turn around and another week has gone by. At this point, there’s no way I can get through all my Christmas movies and specials before December 25.

If I make Christmas into a single day, I will be disappointed. If I make the season about trying to make the reality of December match my nostalgic view of what Advent should be, then I won’t be living in reality.

But if I remember that Christmas means that Messiah has come, then I can relax and rest. I can celebrate Christmas as a new way of seeing and thinking and living instead of 24 hours on a calendar that comes around every 365 days.

Jesus doesn’t just live in our hearts one day out of the year but all the days of the year. I can be like old Scrooge and keep Christmas in my heart and carry it with me all through the seasons until the next December 25 rolls around again.

“Luckily Shasta had lived all his life too far south in Calormen to have heard the tales that were whispered in Tashbaan about a dreadful Narnian demon that appeared in the form of a lion.

And of course he knew none of the true stories about Aslan, the great Lion, the son of the Emperor over-the-Sea, the King above all High Kings in Narnia. But after one glance at the Lion’s face he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldn’t say anything but then he didn’t want to say anything, and he knew he needn’t say anything.

The High King above all kings stooped toward him. Its mane, and some strange and solemn perfume that hung about the mane, was all round him. It touched his forehead with its tongue. He lifted his face and their eyes met. Then instantly the pale brightness of the mist and the fiery brightness of the Lion rolled themselves together into a swirling glory and gathered themselves up and disappeared. He was alone with the horse on a grassy hillside under a blue sky. And there were birds singing” (C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy).

If you know anything about The Chronicles of Narnia, then you will know that Aslan is presented as a type of Christ. Shasta’s response at meeting Aslan for the first time should be my response when I meet Christ — falling on my knees with my face to the ground.

I know these days it’s popular to want to reinvent Jesus to fit your particular ideology. Your Jesus is safe. He never disagrees with you or interferes with your choices or your lifestyle. He likes all the same people you do and hates all the ones you hate.

But the real Jesus transcends human politics and emotions. This is the Jesus who will appear at the end of this world, and every single person who has ever lived will bow the knee, whether in worship or compulsion. This Jesus is worthy of worship even now.

This is the Jesus who didn’t make His entrance through a palace or through royalty, but through two peasants, Joseph and Mary, to a stable where he was announced to shepherds. This is the one who will come again in a far different manner as a majestic conqueror. This is our King.