It’s the day after Christmas, and my house is still. Everyone else is asleep. And I’m sitting here by the twinkle lights of my tree, thinking about the past couple months.
Months of planning. Weeks of shopping and searching for just the right gifts. Hours and hours of baking and wrapping and plotting and planning.
Now we’ve opened the packages and eaten the goodies. We laughed and joked and cried and laughed again.
It’s the day after, but it’s not over.
The excitement of the day is over. The culmination of all the organizing and activity of the season is over.
The things that were once only items on a Christmas wish list are now a real part of my kids’ lives. They can hold them and use them and enjoy them and play them.
The smiles of pure joy on their faces as they opened “just what they wanted” are tucked away in my memory forever. It was worth every minute. Every peaceful, fun, panicked, stress-filled minute of the preparation.
There were 400 years of silence after hundreds of years of prophecy of Messiah. Then the angel appeared to Zechariah and shattered the holy hush. Then to Mary. Then to the Shepherds in the field.
Messiah was born! After centuries of foretelling and preparation, the fullness of time had come. Finally. Angels and shepherds and mangers and miracles.
Jesus was born. Prophecy was fulfilled. But it wasn’t over.
Now Mary had to raise the Son of God!
The first couple years still had some excitement with Simeon and Anna at the temple. There were warnings and dreams. Trips to Egypt and then coming home. Magi traveling from a far off land with gifts for Messiah.
But mostly it was just mundane life. Changing diapers. Feedings. The sleepless nights that accompany all newborns.
She taught the One who who spoke the world into existence what a tree was. Showed him the color blue. Taught him to talk and walk and read.
There’s so much excitement in the planning. In imagining excited reactions and expressions of glee.
There’s elation in the day itself. Then sometimes there can be such a let-down once it’s over. The day after. It becomes part of your memories and it’s back to mundane life.
There was anticipation in the hundreds of years of prophecy. Expectancy in the angels appearing. John’s birth. Then Jesus’. Thrill in the shepherds and angels and wise men.
Then all that remained was the mundane, everyday, day-to-day 30 years before Jesus entered His full-time ministry.
Some of us are in the expectant stage. Keep dreaming.
Some of us are in the culmination stage. It’s Christmas morning. Our dreams are being birthed and it’s so exciting.
But some are in the faith-made-sight-a-while-ago stage where it’s “the day after.” Or month after. Or years down the road. We prayed and believed and stood and waited and prepared and now…we got the promotion. We got our miracle. Our dream has come true…
…and things are monotonous. It’s work. Putting away the gifts. Raising the baby. Doing the work that follows the dream.
We balk at mundane. Where’s the excitement? I didn’t sign up for changing the diapers…I want the angels in the sky singing Glory to God!
The same One who breathed the dream to our heart and sent the angels in the sky and brought the dream to pass is still there in the unremarkable “day after” times that follow.
Remember, there’s purpose in “the day after.”
Jesus had to grow up. Had to have His diaper changed and learn his colors. He had to learn to read and write. He had to go through mundane life in preparation to fulfill His destiny.
If Jesus had never learned to walk and talk, He couldn’t have gone around doing good and healing. He couldn’t have said, “Lazarus, come forth!” He couldn’t have marched up Calvary, hung on that cross, and said, “Father, it is finished.”
There’s purpose in the ordinary, uneventful days of life. That’s where character is built and relationship with Him grows deep. It’s where we rest and refresh. (Who else is exhausted by noon on Christmas? Rest comes the day after. 🙂 )
It’s where He prepares you for the destiny that still lies ahead.
Stay steady and press into Him and enjoy the mundane days. There’s still so much more to come, and you want to be ready when you get there.