My son and I were able to celebrate a couple of birthdays in November. My son absolutely LOVED the birthdays! When he saw the candles light up on the cake and then get blown out, he was so intrigued. He kept looking around with his hands up and said “huh?” which is how he asks “Where did it go?”. We relit the candles and blew them out about 10 more times. I am possibly raising a pyromaniac.

It really is a bizarre concept. The fire was JUST there, you made a funny noise and POOF-everyone stopped singing and the fire is gone! What in the world!?!?

Happy Birthday is still his favorite song.

I keep wondering how I’m going to make the next upcoming birthday special. The day we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

To be honest, I don’t know what the lights and the tree have to do with anything. I’m sure I could google it, but I don’t have time, and honestly, I don’t care. I was thinking we could make a cake and put candles on it to celebrate Jesus’ Birthday. Then I realized, that sounds like a lot of work for something I’m not really interested in doing. I sat and thought about what kind of traditions I want to start to make that day symbolic for what it is. I still don’t have an answer for that, but I have had some thoughts on why Christmas should be so special.

My life has not been easy. Missing my husband is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. It is excruciating. I take so much hope and pleasure in the reality that Jesus came to fix broken things. That’s one of His gifts, he takes something that is a wreck and He makes it beautiful. Because of Him, I have a bright hope that I can have something beautiful. My life is not ruined, it is just damaged. Nothing is damaged beyond repair. My relationship with the Savior has literally saved me. My relationship with the savior consistently pulls me up out of dark places and puts me on a higher ground. It keeps my head above the water. It gives me the space to breathe.

I thought about all the people that had the hope that a savior would come. They had problems just as real as mine and just as real as yours. Instead of depending on an act that had already happened to save them, they were depending on an act that would happen. They had to have faith that this mysterious savior would come and somehow wipe away their problems. They didn’t know how and they didn’t know when. Yes the prophets told them as much information about it as they could, but a lot of it was up to them to just have faith that one day, there would be a savior. Somehow, in some way, the savior would fix it all, would change their broken hearts, and make the impossible, possible. They had to depend on him before he ever even showed up.

Can you imagine what it would be like to spend your life waiting and hoping for a Savior to come?

It would be hard. I think harder than having faith that He did come.

So what is Christmas?

Well, the timing is kind of funny to me because for those of us in the state of Washington, we have just begun our winter season. The dreaded winter season. The days are short. The sun isn’t out until 8 A.M. and it goes down at 4:30 P.M.. Even when the sun is out, you cannot see it, or feel it, past the grey skies and the misty rain. A lot of people go through seasonal depression because of it. It’s cold, damp, and dreary. Then, on December 21st we hit our darkest day of the year and the days are SLOWLY getting lighter and lighter. Slow enough that you won’t even notice the difference until April

. So here we are in the midst of our winter drudge and we get to celebrate the beginning of the greatest thing to ever happen for us

There is this moment, and this being that everyone has been anxiously waiting on. He has FINALLY arrived!!!! The Savior has come to redeem us all! To change the world, to make broken things right, to bring His light and love and conquer death. To fix it all, to give us the hope that we so desperately need. He came to selflessly pay a price that we could not afford.

There was no big bang, there were no fireworks, there was no massive celebration on the day He was born. There wasn’t even room for him at the Inn. On the day of the greatest beginnings of all, there was a new mother, in a stable, with a husband that just helped deliver a baby, with a cow for a doula.

I’ve thought about Mary, pregnant and going out of town with her husband, knowing that the birth of the Savior of the world would be happening soon. If I were Mary, I would have been more and more excited at every Inn keeper that said there was no room. I would have probably been thinking “Of course there is no room at the Inn, God isn’t going to have the Savior of the world born in an Inn, we’re going to turn the corner and someone from a royal mansion is going to invite us in, tend to us, draw me a nice bath and fan me while I deliver this baby.”

Then, Mary and Joseph finally settled on the stable that was offered to them. When Jesus was born, the world didn’t stop moving, the people didn’t change, and Mary probably felt like she was hit by a bus.

Life doesn’t always happen how we think it would. Stories and prophecies of this moment had been told for centuries, and there it was. The Savior was born, in a town away from the comforts of their own home, surrounded by animals, hay, and strangers. On top of it all, taxes were due.

Things don’t usually happen in an instant. They can, and they do, but for the most part, they seem to happen at a slow pace. Revealing a little bit more just how important each step of the process was. Just like winter turning into spring, and a baby born in a stable.

That’s what Christmas is, it’s the start of a everything getting better. Not in an instant. Christ had to develop into who he became. Our winter will develop into our spring in a similar way. Slowly, steadily, and in it’s own process. It will come

The moment everyone had waited for, The Savior had arrived, and most people had no idea.

Jesus spent His entire life saving ours. He spent His life discovering what it was He had to do and devoted all that He was to that purpose.

That is what the Savior’s birth was. It was the start of a beautiful process that saved us all.

This year, Christmas has brought me more hope than ever before, because it is a reminder that not everything good needs to happen immediately. The good things can take time to develop into all that they are meant to be. Just like the life of The Savior. A baby was born with a purpose greater than any other, but He still had to develop into all that He was meant to be. It’s also a reminder that greatness is born into our lives and sometimes we completely miss it until it’s big enough to see a little better.

It’s a reminder that there is hope! The days are getting lighter, whether we can recognize it from day to day or not. It is happening.

Any forward progress is great, and if you’re not paying attention, you might completely miss it.

Christmas is a reminder that good things are happening, even if they take a while to develop.

It’s a reminder that for us, there is nothing God isn’t willing to give.

God is working out great things. Sometimes we get to be the people that have to have faith that a miracle happened, sometimes we have to be like the people that kept hoping a miracle would happen. Other times, we get to be the people that see the miracle happening. Either way, Christmas is a reminder that, to God, there is no price too great to give us a new beginning.

I have faith and hope that my future will be brighter than my days are now, because the Savior has the power to fix it all. I’m excited to celebrate His arrival as I start a much needed “new beginning”.

What does a new beginning mean to you?