un-christmas

This Christmas was different for me than it has ever been before. I know that may seem apparent on the surface, but I say that for several reasons. The obvious ones being that the seasons are opposite here (it is summer right now in the southern hemisphere), it's my first one away from family and friends, and in a new culture.

candy canes

snow

christmas trees

scarves

hot cocoa

carols

christmas lights

presents

A Christmas Movie

shopping

ornaments

ham

snowmen

stockings

nativity scenes

gingerbread

fireplaces

tinsel

sledding

parades

Very few of these things are actually present here.

Somehow over the years these things have become what defines or at least make Christmas feel like Christmas for me. It's the warm, fuzzy feeling of walking/driving through Christmas lights, the rush of finishing up your last minute shopping before it's too late, those smells that are only smelled once a year and bring you back to when you were a young child, the excitement of getting a gift for someone that you know they are really going to enjoy, the fun of building gingerbread houses together, and the numbness of your hands as you pack together snow for a jolly snowman.

Every year I say and think the same thing, that I really want to get to the root of the true meaning of Christmas. Isn't that a typical characteristic of American culture, to want to celebrate the real meaning and not to get caught up in everything else? Yet it is so difficult to do in the hustle and bustle of the season. I feel as if I was forced into the depths of that this year. Honestly, it hasn't been easy being far away from loved ones during the holiday season.

As things got difficult over the past couple of weeks, I was able to spend time thinking on the purpose of it all and the cross. Why did Jesus come? He came to die. The only reason we celebrate His birth is because His death gave us life. That is what the real celebration is about. His death, the fact that He was born to die. And that in His death we can have life. Apart from Him we are left to our sin and the destruction that it brings. But because of His great love He came to this earth, miraculously born of a virgin, to make a way for His people. This is the gospel. What our lives are to be centered on. What my life is to be centered on!

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10.31

I then got to thinking this is the reason for everything in my life and why I do what I do, think what I think, work where I work, eat what I eat, and live where I live. This is the reason I am here, in Mozambique. To bring the good news of salvation and hope to those without it. I've been called and sent here with a purpose. That purpose being to bring glory to God and spread the gospel. Christmas is about the gospel, our lives are a portrait of the gospel, and I am here with only one goal in mind. To know Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings,becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3.8-11

So even though I wasn't able to celebrate Christmas in the comfortable way that I might have liked, I was sweetly reminded of the meaning of Christmas, which overflows into the purpose of living here and my life. In our field only four out of eleven of us were actually healthy on Christmas day. So we postponed our festivities and spent a couple hours in the hospital, finishing the day off by eating Indian food at a muslim-owned restaurant. It was just a normal day. No different than any other. Throughout the day I was sent little reminders on the true meaning of Christmas and what that looks like in my life. Needless to say I often find myself falling short of the calling I've been given. But God is gracious and faithful to continue the work He has started in those He has called. So this Christmas I'm grateful to have been reminded of the purpose of it all.

"All of life comes down to just one thing, that's to know you, O Jesus, and to make you known."

--One Thing by Charlie Hall

One thing have I asked of the LORD,

that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to meditate in his temple.

Psalm 27.4