Matthew 2

So at 11p on Christmas Eve we found our family of 7 stuck in a snow drift only about 100 meters from Brannon's parents' house we had just left. After 4 men shoveled and pushed and froze we returned back to my in-law's with nothing we needed (except all of the kids' flannel Christmas jammies I packed for some reason). Brannon and I had no toothbrush, no change of clothes, and wet socks. I was tired and frustrated and weary after getting five kids down in the upper den on couches, blankets on the floor, and me in a recliner with our little foster baby squirming on my lap. I looked down at her in the dark and she looked back with a confused look of her face. I felt myself getting crankier by the minute.

Then it hit me. What if I was pregnant and in labor and with my young husband far from home in a barn? Hmm. Changed my perspective. The kids and I all prayed our goodnight prayers and then I asked God to help us all remember this particular Christmas fondly as one when we got a little glimpse into what it is like to be away from home on Christmas. Preston said he liked it that he and the other 3 older kids could be the animals. But we were missing one thing. The star.

When I was kid I was fascinated by the star. I went to a planetarium show that made an elaborate explanation about what the sky would have looked like at the time of Christ's birth and how the position of the planets could have been interpreted by those astronomer kings as a sign of a major event. I thought that was a nice story, but when you read Matthew's account here (the only gospel to share this story), I don't really see it as a planet or a special constellation. Like most of the other miracles in the Bible, they defy scientific analysis. And I'm OK with that.

Sometimes things don't fall neatly into the categories in our life we'd like them to. Like a white Christmas that stranded people but is still a part of His sovereign plan. Or a mysterious star that moves and rests over a house. But God is just awesome like that.