I’m in the kitchen and the house is still still, and the sky’s dome’s lightening blue, night’s grey pigments blending with morning’s warm hues, and her voice calls from her pillow.
It’s her first waking thought.
She calls it out to the day stretching awake and to me, to her Mama that she knows is always here somewhere, always here.
“I want to see baby Jesus again.”
I smile. The kitchen’s empty. The house still drowses with night. The Christmas tree, rung with Jesse Tree ornaments and brown paper snowflakes, still glows with lights from last evening’s readings. But I’m standing here in the quiet, smiling happy greeting to these words.
These first thoughts in first light.
To wake wanting Jesus.
What was my waking thought?
“You may come, Shalom.”
I hear her whisper of feet, tip-toes across old planks, and then there she is, that nest of straw curls. She patters past, directly to manger scene. She bends, drawing face close to crèche. I can’t see her eyes for wild hair. But I hear her, words not for me, but for Him, gift of hushed adoration.
“I’m so glad You came.”
Christmas has passed. Boxing Day come and gone too. Soon, to pack up all the decorations of the holy-days.
But, standing in the kitchen, watching Little One kneeling before the nativity, Child pondering the incomprehensible, I decide. I’m not boxing up the symbol of the Rescuer, the Savior who comes to the barn to save bestial world mired in sin and pain’s muck.
I’m too glad He’s come.
He’s come and He’ll stay … because, though often I don’t know it, what I want more than anything is to see Jesus here in this place.
Is there a better reason to run out to greet the day?
Lord, might I wake wanting You first, wanting to see You in this day. I can wake glad. You’re here!
Related: See
Photo: nativity Mary in morning light, pondering all these things in her heart
