Warm, cozy images of Christmas draw on our hearts this time of year.  Inviting us to wrap-up in memories or urging us to create new ones, the smells, songs, boxes of ornaments and favorite foods all have this in common; 

a powerful calling to our deep, child-at-christmas-selves.

But if you listen, you’ll sense, (more than you’ll hear), a soft & slow calling that thrums a different rhythm than the fast and frantic pace of the surging holiday machine around us.

It gently pulls on our hearts like something very familiar, yet strangely mysterious.  

It causes us to feel nostalgic and homesick for somewhere we feel we've been before, yet cannot quite describe.  

For a taste we know is good, yet have never actually eaten.  

A voice that is both new and ancient.  

Comforting and disrupting.  

It’s the ache of Christmas.  

An ache that knows there is more and yearns to possess it.  

The ache of Christmas is the call of our good Father.  

His is the voice that whispers to our deepest soul space.  

This Christmas when you sense the tug and almost hear the whisper, lean in and listen.  

Allow the ache of Christmas to overwhelm you - do not fear it - but as you yield to it's calling, and as you hear it's true and deeper message speak to you, realize He is what your child-waiting-for-christmas-self really wants this year! …

Jesus.  

The One Who came wrapped in mystery 

to both reveal and relieve the ache.