by Cindy Buchanan

cbuchanan101063@yahoo.com

Brightly colored gift-wrapped packages, bright blinking lights, "Silver Bells, Silver Bells!" repeated hundreds of times on my favorite radio station....

As a young Jewish girl, and then as a new mother, how I longed for my family to be a part of this spectacular season of gift giving, cookie baking, and Peace on Earth. But it just wasn’t appropriate for me to participate! My mother-in-law only took her children to church on Christmas and Easter, so my husband, basically "unaffiliated," went along with my Jewish wedding and "we’re raising the children Jewish" demands with little reservation. So why, at age 31, did I still have such a yearning to be a part of this Christian holiday that we were forbidden to even speak about, growing up?

In 1994, after being married for less than 2 years, my husband informed me he was being transferred to Mobile, Alabama, which I quickly learned was smack dab in the part of the country known as "The Bible Belt." Kicking and screaming, I packed up everything in our new home, and moved to this strange new land, 1300 miles from everything I knew.

God had a plan....

I had a hole in my heart for three decades. For what, I didn’t know, but there was always a strange tugging inside of me for as long as I can remember, until God Himself met with me during the most beautiful sunset, as we drove home through the Smokey Mountains one evening. "I am showing you my Creation, Cindy. I am here!" I felt an unusual calmness fall over me. He is here! This is what I had been longing to know the truth about for so many years, the Truth that would change my life!

"Do you believe in God?" I asked my husband Lew. "I guess so, " he quietly replied. . Still staring out the car window, I told him that God had just shown me the most amazing sunset, and meekly whispered that I heard God tell me He is here. This was the beginning of my fervent search for the Truth. I knew that the hole in my heart had everything to do with God, or, rather, missing out on Him! Three weeks later, I asked Jesus into my heart, and my husband prayed the same prayer just a month later, after telling me about a hole in his heart! It was late-November, and, while there wouldn’t likely be a white Christmas in southern Alabama, I knew we were going to have an amazing holiday!

I was one of the first in line to buy a Christmas tree and all the decorations I could fit in my shopping cart! I grabbed up gifts for my husband and new baby. I baked dozens of cookies, and had to have some cute Christmas dishes! Our house had more lights on it than any other in the neighborhood, and I had decked the halls beyond recognition. How happy I was to be a Christian on Christmas! Finally, I got to be apart of all the magical mayhem and magnificence that, in my eyes, represented this holiday in all its glory!

On Christmas Day, we attended our new church, a little Southern Baptist congregation. All decked out myself, I began to listen to the Pastor’s Message. Today we were celebrating the day our Savior was born! While it likely wasn’t December 25^th that day in Bethlehem, this day was set apart for us to give thanks to God for sending His Son Jesus, to save...ME! I finally really got it.

"For God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believeth in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life!" (John, 3:16 KJV)

The next year, we took our toddler to saw down our own little Douglas fir, added some modest decorations, and saw no need for the cute Christmas dishes. We bought a few fun gifts for our son, and waited expectantly for our Christmas service at church. In the year that passed between my first and second "Christian Christmases," my life had changed so miraculously, and all I really wanted to do for Christmas, was to revel in the gift from God, Jesus Christ, God the Son, incarnate on earth in a little manger, under the star in the east (Matt, 2:9.) Immanuel: God with us! (Matt. 1:22.)

"For God so loved the world...."

I can’t wait to tell you about my first Easter! He is Risen! Stay tuned....

Copyright Cindy Buchanan