Devotionals for the Heart: Don't forget

Why I Disappointed My Daughter This Christmas

A devotional by Voni Harris

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” – Isaiah 7:14 (NIV)

I don’t like to decorate for Christmas. My daughter hates that I don’t like it. Sorry.

Wait! Let me defend myself here. These are my reasons why:

· Real life keeps happening, even in December. I don’t have time or energy to move around furniture and hoist up tree and decorations. We didn’t really have space to do so up until the last few years, anyway.

· Besides that, we had the tradition of spending the day at both of hubby’s grandparents and hubby’s parents. Or we traveled to spend time with my mom out-of-state. This is not quite applicable any more since our move to Alaska. Some Decembers, yes, others we stay at home. Still undecorated, most years.

· I do not have the money to make things look beautiful as they are on TV and in the community (see below). Plus, I’m only 4’6” tall, so putting up lights…eh, not so much.

· We do have Christmas money, of course, but it is focused on gifts. I love gift-giving, but I’m bad at it, no matter how much I love the gift recipient. Sorry about that, friends and family.

· In our community, we YoungLife volunteers “babysat” during the Kodiak Area Native Association Christmas party, throwing the kids their own Christmas party. There is always a Dickens Christmas community event with a true-hearted live Nativity. We walk every other day or so with our grandson to where our neighbor has given the gift of Christmas fun via outdoor decorations, tons of them. Caroling. The Harbor light-up with decorated boats. Our church’s Christmas Eve candlelight ceremony. Christmas movies. Party at a friend’s house …

In other words, there are a ton of community events, and they make my heart glad. Family and friends and community. Sharing Jesus. Sharing each other. I love it! Who has time for decorating?

I focus on the new year every December, ready to make my coming trip around the sun glorify God. Little brain space to decorate our house is left.

It means a lot to simply put up the Christmas cards we get. They make me smile whenever I walk by. Secondary true confession: I’m no good at Christmas cards, either. See the previous reasons for that, too.

None of these is a deep reason for my non-decoration tendencies. The truth is that the only truly meaningful Christmas decoration we have is our manger scene. If another breaks we just say “Aww” and throw it away. That’s it.

We currently have two manger scenes. Our plastic one plays songs and lights up, with a narrator telling the Christmas story. Perfect for our toddler grandson. We had a beautiful carved wood Christmas tree hanging; the carvings told the Christmas story. It is no longer with us, because, well, we have a toddler grandson.

Our main Nativity scene is still with us, though. It melts my heart putting it up; the reality of Jesus’ birth is there in front of my eyes when I do.

Christmas glitters with decorations and warms the heart with event and cards and presents. The real magic of Christmas, though, is the rise of your heart when you pause long enough to think of the birth of God’s son. Jesus. That’s what I love about Christmas: the birth of our Savior.

God’s son came in a manger and died on a cross, forging an inextricable link between Christmas and Easter. All prophesied. All completed. God is truth. He makes promises and He keeps them. He can be trusted with your soul.

I don’t want to hurry and scurry to make Christmas happen, and in the process forget.

~*~
Author Bio:

Voni Harris writes from her family’s home on the rain forest island of Kodiak, Alaska.

A legal-eagle husband, a breathtaking daughter, an adventurous grandson, and two enthusiastic dogs all conspire to keep her from spending too much time at the computer.

She holds a Radio-TV degree from Drake University, and her short story “The Wedding” was published in Heart-Stirring Stories of Romance.

Voni's novel Nothing Hidden won the 2013 ACFW’s First Impressions contest and the 2015 Daphne du Maurier unpublished inspy suspense category. It was also a 2018 ACFW Genesis finalist.

Devotionals for the Heart: Joy

Joy to the World
A devotional by Victoria Bylin

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” – Isaiah 9:6 (KJV)

What happened on a particular December afternoon in 2006 bordered on a family tragedy. I say “bordered” because what happened didn’t involve human flesh and blood. No one was physically hurt, and the only thing that broke was my husband’s heart—and mine too, though to a lesser extent.

We have a long family history of putting up a nativity scene in our front yard. The tradition began in my husband’s boyhood, when his dad put up white plastic figures of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. My husband’s father hand-crafted a wooden shelter and manger, which gave the store-bought white plastic a natural and personal touch. Lit up from the inside, those white figures glowed with a serene beauty.

I don’t remember exactly when my in-laws passed that nativity set to us, but I vividly remember putting it up in the 1990s when we lived in a snowy mountain community. We put the creche up near the street where people could see it. Neighbors noticed and commented, but the best response came from a snowplow driver working all night in a snowstorm to keep our roads clear. He told us how bright and beautiful the figures were in the falling snow, and how much seeing the nativity encouraged him.

We really loved that family heirloom. I don’t know how old it was when the disaster struck in 2006. Maybe fifty years? We were starting to worry about the wiring, but my husband always checked it carefully.

As things turned out, it wasn’t the wiring that did the set in. It was a ladder—a very tall ladder that topped sideways and landed smack on Mary. The damage was irreparable, and the figure turned out to be irreplaceable even on eBay.

Our family heirloom lay crumbled and crunched on the brown winter lawn. It was just plain sad to see that treasure brought to ruin. We still miss that set, but that’s not the end of the story. The next day, My husband went to Walmart to look for a new nativity. To his surprise, there were hundreds of big boxes stacked against the wall. The figures were a different style—painted with pretty colors and facial details—but we shifted gears and bought one.

It was nice, but it wasn’t the same . . . until God made it special.

When Christmas rolled around in 2007, we were shopping for other things at Walmart and decided to check out nativity sets. We couldn’t find a single one, and we haven’t seen one for sale since then. They must be out there, probably online, but it’s no longer a Christmas display that’s easy to find. It seems that our old white set broke just in time to be easily replaced.

What we thought was a miserable accident turned into a story we tell every Christmas about how God replaces what’s broken with unexpected blessings. As Christians, we don’t always understand why difficult things happens. Life is full of unexpected twists and turns. But the one constant is God’s love and grace—that he died for us while we were still sinners.

Tonight, the nativity we purchased back in 2006 is brightly lit on our lawn—a symbol of God’s great goodness and the miraculous gift of his son.

Merry Christmas to you!

~*~
Author Bio:

Victoria Bylin is the author of 18 traditionally published romances. Known for tackling difficult subjects with great compassion, she delights in stories that shine the spotlight of God’s love on ordinary men and women facing realistic challenges.

Writing has always been a part of Victoria’s life. As a child, she wrote hundreds of letters and scribbled in journals. As an adult, she worked as a freelance journalist and editor before taking on the challenge of fiction.

She had one goal when she started her first novel: to finish a book-length manuscript, good or bad. That first effort will never see the light of day, but it led to a second manuscript and a sale to Harlequin Historical. Since then, she has written westerns and contemporary romances for both mainstream and Christian publishers, with Together With You winning the 2016 Inspirational Readers Choice Award for Best Contemporary.

Writing is a joy and a challenge for Victoria, but faith, friends and family matter to her far more. She’s a wife, mom, proud grandmother, and a dog-mom to a wacky Jack Russell Terrier. Originally from California, she and her husband currently make their home in Lexington, Kentucky. 

When she’s not writing, Victoria enjoys long walks, travel, and dark chocolate.

~*~
Connect with Victoria:
Website: https://www.victoriabylin.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Victoria.Bylin.Author
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VictoriaBylin
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/victoria-bylin
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/568102.Victoria_Bylin