Countdown to Christmas. Day 17.

Dearest Abba,

 As believers await the traditional day of celebrating Your Son's arrival, I am awaiting the birth of a grandson. He will be born in a clean hospital surrounded by loving family. I watch my daughter carry him and recall the emotions that accompanied my own final days of pregnancy-- and truthfully my mind isn't capable of conceiving of the circumstances that faced the earthly parents of your heavenly son.

To think that my daughter and her husband would be staying in a smelly stable when the time for their baby's birth arrives is almost too much to bear. And yet as I consider how and where Jesus was born, I have to believe that every painful detail unfolded as it did so that the contrast between Holy-Heavenly-Highness and earthly-worldly-lowness could not have been more stark. That Your Only Son would leave paradise for earth in order to save us is a marvel beyond compare, and I am speechless, amazed and incapable of adequate thanks.

 Praise God from Whom all blessings flow--most especially salvation through Christ The Lord. Amen.