In Celebration of Christmas

Let's take a break from the Jane Austen serial to talk about the reason for the season.

Lately I've been reading Jesus the Christ as part of a stake assignment, and I'm on track to finish it by Christmas as a personal goal. It's my first time reading it and with all due respect to Talmage's vast knowledge and insight, I have to say that while it has been interesting, I'd much rather read the account of the Savior's life directly from the KJV Bible. Jesus the Christ has been helpful in teaching me the historical and cultural environment into which the Savior was born and brought His Father's message--but there's something about the scriptural record that inspires my actual devotion. John's testimony especially is one I find incredibly moving. His love and awe for the Savior seems to arise from every word of testimony, just as Paul's faith in the atonement is the signature feeling his testimony inspires.


When I was younger--through childhood and young adulthood--I was nearly impatient for my faith in the Savior to be strengthened so that I could bear a sure testimony. I wanted to honestly be able to say, "I know," rather than "I believe." It was source of embarrassment to me that I couldn't say that when plenty of kids my age seemed to be able to. I'd sort of binge and purge my spiritual knowledge, waiting for that testimony to come along, and it just didn't happen. I remember feeling like maybe I ought to just let it go--not my testimony, but my instinct to try and cultivate/insist on a testimony. So I did. Instead of going out and trying to make myself know the things I believed, I stepped back and observed and let the Spirit teach me. It's been through this process of patience and faith that slowly, steadily, my knowledge of the Savior has grown.

I'm just so grateful Him. I have felt Him enable me beyond my own capacity to cope with the challenges of my life, to turn a source of devastation into a source of joy--not by changing the devastation, but my changing me (Have you ever felt that? As though someone were rearranging your spiritual furniture, nudging here and there until the room was staged as it always ought to have been?). I love Him, especially His example of treating all people with respect and love; for His extraordinary ability to reform a person without breaking them entirely; how he can be firm and calm all at once; his acceptance and enfranchisement of groups and people society has determined are secondary; the pain and the humiliation He endured. But mostly and selfishly I am humbled by the love He has for me and the love I feel for Him; this knowledge never fails to lift me when I'm down. I know I've always got my Savior and that to strive to be worthy of His sacrifice and to emulate his example is what it's all about.

It seems like that's what it's all about: taking things slowly, step by step, and dealing with the challenge that is immediately before you. He'll lead you to Him, if you aren't to busy plotting out your own path to Him. He'll teach you how to believe in Him, so that He becomes the Savior you need Him to be for you. I don't mean to be preachy, I just want to say how much His love has changed my life. And so when Christmas comes around, it's impossible for me to think of just the baby in the manger. I can't separate the reasons behind Christmas and Easter because they reinforce each other. His birth meant He'd arrived to accomplish His purposes on earth, and his suffering and resurrection typified a second kind of birth.

We were discussing in Relief Society last week about our feelings of the Second Coming of the Savior, and a friend of mine mentioned how she gets anxious and frustrated with people who are so eager for that to happen any time--because she is still raising her family and figuring things out, and I have to say I agree entirely. It's not that I want people to keep suffering and for wicked people to keep getting away with the sorrows they inflict on people. But I am so grateful for time, because time means learning and progression (one would hope), and progression draws me nearer to Him, which is what I really want. I haven't yet gathered from life the things I'd like to. And I think it's safe to say the world at large hasn't, either. We still deal with the fundamental problem of learning to love and live with people who differ from us.

So, anyway, these are the things that are on my mind this Christmas. I don't really have a message or a moral of the story anecdote. I just, amid all the "share the gift" messages out there, wanted throw my testimony out there, too. Hope this season finds all our friends and family well. We're certainly grateful for you.

Merry Christmas!