God can’t use a chunk of the old earth to start the new earth because then the new earth will have sin in it, too.
– Will, my 9 year-old theologian

So, last night was the Christmas presentation at Park Ridge, the school that Parker and Will attend. It was pretty cool, but as I watched that little kindergarten girl holding the baby Jesus doll, I couldn’t help chuckling at how different it probably was from what we’ve come to know as the “Christmas story.” It also wasn’t anything like that other Christmas Story – you know, the one with the Red Ryder BB gun that’ll “shoot your eye out.”

Anyway, the girl last night just looked so peaceful as she dropped the doll into the hay, and I’m thinking that the real Mary was pretty shook up – long travel, tough time getting a place, lots of loud animals nearby, labor without drugs, and a bunch of strangers dropping in now and then telling her about how her son is a fulfillment of a promise from God.

Yep, I think I’d be doing a good bit of pondering, too. Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking that somehow the promise and will of God comes wrapped as neatly as the presents you’ll be getting in a few weeks. Nope, they usually are accompanied with a lot of confusion, questions, and pondering. But at the end of the day, they bring peace.

Isn’t that something we could all use a bit of this year?

w00t is the “Word of the Year!” Go figure…