A Birthday Worth Partying For

I don't know what kind of semester you are coming off of, but if it was anything like mine, there was probably highs and lows and everything in between and over the Christmas break I'm pretty positive that when asked how college is going you will smile and say "great, I really love 'insert your university here'...." Personally, my favorite response is: "college is great, it's the school part that I'm having a hard time with." Guaranteed to get the typical I-used-to-party-dad to say "God, I remember the days" followed by a hearty laugh. For the past two years Christmas break has been a really interesting time for me because I go from being insanely busy to school zone slow and the hardest part is that when I start slowing down I begin to digest what I have been learning and that is often scary. One of the most daunting realizations that I have come to is that time isn't slowing down and I'm growing up.
Pretty obvious observation I know, but I'm in the time of my life that you hear people tell stories about from the time you are a little kid, that your middle school and high school counselors have tried to prepare you for for years and the era when decisions matter. It gets overwhelming sometimes and while people think back on their college years and remember the really good times, they seldom tell you about the really hard growth periods. The tough thing about growth is that it's not painless.

With christmas tomorrow, I've been reflecting on what the birth of Jesus means and trying to not be so numb to everything as I approach my twentieth Christmas. As I was looking through scripture it hit me though. In Matthew 1:23 it says "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel." Immanuel means "God with us." Do you get what that means? It means that God sent his son into the world as a way of proclaiming as loudly as possible that when the test results get back and they are positive for cancer, God is with us. When you aren't sure if you and your girlfriend are going to make it, God is with us. At your frat party, God is with us. When you come home and things don't feel exactly like they used to, God is with us. When you're studying in the corner of the library, God is with us. When you're procrastinating and sitting around hanging out with your roommates, God is with us. In the midst of trying to figure out what your purpose is and how you are going to charge into the future, God is with us.

Tonight when you hear the Christmas story, try not to tune it out or brush past it because you have heard it so many times, look at it from the fresh perspective of hearing about how God didn't give up on us, how in the midst of all of our shortcomings, he is riding shotgun with us through all of life's ups and downs and that Jesus was born to die a death on a cross that would give everyone the freedom to come into an abundant relationship with the creator of the universe. Merry Christmas.