I Want to Feel Whole

My husband and I have a tradition of taking the day off on my birthday and doing all our Christmas shopping in one day. We typically begin this day without a detailed plan, hoping we’ll end up in the right stores to find the perfect gifts for each loved one.

Here’s the rub: My birthday falls only nine days before Christmas. This means we place all our bets on finding every gift needed for four kids, grandparents, extended family, and each other in a single day just over a week before Christmas. Clearly, we love a good challenge. Somehow, we find fun and wonder as we dance between the tension of stress and surprise. 

My walk with Jesus often involves a similar dance – the stress of not knowing how God is going to meet each need, mingled with complete faith that he will do it and the surprise of how he chooses to act on my behalf and for his glory. With some pain and laughter thrown in for effect.

I imagine Mary knew this dance well. Balancing the wonder of her call to carry the babe who would heal the brokenness of sin once and for all, with the pain of seeing him killed by the very people he came to save. 

I believe the tension we experience here on earth between faith and affliction is what the apostle John described as the “now” of who we already are in Christ and the “not yet” of what life will be at his return in a new heaven and earth devoid of suffering, stress, and sacrifice. (1 John 3:2) 

1 Peter Chapter 1, verse 3 assures us that we possess everything we need to live a godly life, but it’s followed by what we must continually strive to add to our faith – not to save us, but to sanctify us. And later in the chapter we are reminded that we currently remain in the “tent” of this body, but one day we will put it aside at Christ’s return. 

As we dance between the stress and surprise of this glorious Christmas season, may we remember that the babe in the manger is the King of Kings who conquers death and removes every tear from our eyes. That what we now see is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. That we currently only see through a veil the glory that will one day be ours to behold face to face. That we are never meant to feel whole until that moment, when all else will cease to matter in the wonder and wholeness of his presence.