On the seventh day of Christmas…

Today, I have a very special treat for you:

Our guest blogger this morning is Amanda Avery, the wife of our Children’s Minister Chris and also a very active member of our worship team.  Enjoy!

by Amanda Avery

I heart Christmas

There are very few things that bring me thrills like the Christmas season!  I’m one of those crazies you see on TV – I put my tree up on November 1st only because my husband Chris, thinks it might confuse the trick-or-treaters.  Break out the holly and the jolly – this girl has some holiday spirit!

I also love Christmas music with a serious passion.  It’s such a shame that the church Christmas season is a mere 4-5 Sundays because there are tons of fantastic Christmas songs.  One of my most favorite Christmas songs of late is Audrey Assad’s “Winter Snow.” This lovely song is on Chris Tomlin’s Christmas CD, Glory in the Highest, and has been on repeat on my iPod for the past two Christmases.

Assad chose her words in such a way that cuts me to my inner soul.

Especially when she speaks of how God “could’ve swept in like a tidal wave.  Or an ocean to ravish our hearts.
You could have come through like a roaring flood 
to wipe away the things we’ve scarred.”

I love the way she proclaims the mighty strength of our God—how He is so much bigger than the strength of a hurricane or tidal waves.  How He has the power to bring us all to our knees at the sound of His voice.  How He could have ridden in the streets of Bethlehem like a mighty King ready to rumble—and yet, He chose to come unannounced to the majority of the world in the middle of a busy night.  No plush surroundings, no hospital, no modern medicine, no midwives to assist with the birth.

Just a girl, a carpenter, a baby, and a stable.

So humble.  So lowly.

So incredible. 

I don’t know about you, but there is nothing more beautiful than waking to find that snow has come during the night.  I love the way it brings such beauty to everything it covers.  I think of the barren trees that become flocked with ice and snow.

The snow takes something so completely stripped of life and turns it into a masterpiece.

It’s incredible the way that He chooses to cover our mistakes, our sins, and our shame in the same way.