Christmas Wonderings

When each of my four children were born and the midwife lifted them up for me to see and placed them on my chest all I could do was stare at them and whisper, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” This was the only prayer I could formulate and articulate: a prayer of thanksgiving, of amazement, and disbelief at the tiny, heartbreakingly beautiful little person we were blessed to be entrusted with.

The night of the first Christmas, before the heavenly host sang their Gloria, before the shepherds hurried to Bethlehem, and before the wise men brought their gifts, there was a mother, a father, and a perfect little baby. My heart bursts to think of Mary whispering those same words as Jesus was placed on her chest, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” Mary’s prayer carried the weight of so much more than thanksgiving and wonderment, it was pure adoration.

She was the first to stare into those eyes that had beheld the Father. She lay in quiet adoration of the One who was before the world was made; the One who chose her to be His first earthly home. Here in the stable the ineffable Word, who spoke into the nothingness and created all that is, took His first human breath and uttered the beautiful, heart-wrenching cry of a newborn. He who would one day give us His body and blood as eternal food and drink bleated out of hunger for sweet mother’s milk. The One whose love could not be contained within heaven itself had become small and helpless enough to be conceived, carried, delivered, and raised on earth among us.

Tonight, I’m reflecting on His willingness to be small, and how it has sanctified my smallness. I am wondering at what it means to sit in pure, quiet adoration of the Beauty that is ever ancient and ever new held within the person of a sweet, newborn baby.

Will you reflect and wonder with me? Here are two songs that have been at the center of my reflections this Advent:
In the Virgin’s Womb, Sister Sinjin
Winter Snow, Audrey Assad and Chris Tomlin

Copyright 2021, Megan Gettinger