A Christmas Eve Message

written for our at-home Christmas Eve, 2020...

To Cruz and Mila...

I think you are both old enough to remember bits and pieces of this 2020 year forever.  The year we took you on a plane with your first passports, went to the beach and ate lots of nachos just as a global pandemic was about to change life as we knew it.  You never went back to school to finish out your kindergarten and third grade year and instead learned at home with mom at the Jorgensen Academy of Excellence.  It was here we learned we could balance our entire body on an egg, studied the different types of clouds and recreated them with shaving cream, and slept in a tent as we learned about the beautiful National Parks in our country.  And while Dad and I did our best to keep your worlds safe here at home with Harry Potter nights and lots of Hartman hikes, the world outside our little quarantine often felt uncertain, confusing, scary, and overwhelming. 

And now, we’re just a week away from a fresh new year.  We have stayed healthy, some pretty smart people created a vaccine that will put an end to all things COVID (we hope!), and we’re so ready for a lot to return to normal – I can’t wait for you to not have to wear your masks to school every day, I look forward to some live music this summer, and can’t wait to never hear the words “social distancing” again, but at the same time, there are lessons from this year I hope our family never forgets. 

1. The importance of investing in home.  Because the foundation we invest in building under our roof will withstand the storms when they come.

2. A reset to simple.  A cleared calendar, a meal around the table, and a snowball fight in the basement, have been a nice change of pace and a welcome reminder that we do have a say in how full our lives get. 

3. The beauty in adventure, whether here in our backyard for some flag football, a canvas tent outside Mount Rushmore, or an impromptu hike through a newly discovered pocket of Hartman, I was reminded this year that lungs full of fresh air and legs moving through the woods truly are the best medicine, especially when it involves a thermos of hot cocoa. 

4. The importance of community and choosing to fill your lives with the kind of people who make you feel seen, who make you laugh, keep you grounded, and who point you to what’s true are worth your investment.  Find the ones who bring out your best and love them big.  

5. God is at work in our lives all the time.  His plan is so much bigger than we can ask for or imagine, but he gives us glimpses of it in his people every day.  If 2020 has taught me anything at all, it’s that when I can’t plan for or control a single thing, God continues to show up, continues to give us opportunities to seek and find joy, love others, and place our trust in him. 

One of my favorite ways we’ve ended this year has been on four corners of our living room reading through some of the greatest Bible stories of all time.  Reading through God’s word with you is kind of like watching the next big Marvel movie, except this was all real!  It’s been so fun to hear your observations and I am reminded at how smart you are and how important it is to open God’s story to discover who he is and how we can follow him in our every day lives. 

Through Jonah we learned that even when we’re scared, or want to run away from God, He loves us enough to chase us, all the way to the belly of a whale if he has to! 

Through Joseph we learned to faithfully stand in who you are and God will show you a plan bigger than you can ask or imagine. 

Through David we learned that God doesn’t pick the most powerful or the most popular, but picks the people who have hearts that are kind and hearts that trust in Him. 

And you know what’s pretty remarkable about all these stories and people in the Bible?  We are just like them.  We are each our own little character in God’s big story of rescue and redemption.  Just like these people in the Bible, I can see God’s plan and purpose in people in my own life this year. 

My friend Jess and Jaxon, who are walking through deep suffering but still faithfully trusting God and finding joy in the middle of really hard stuff. 

And your dad, who was a kind, gracious, and generous leader for Pat this year as she had to be away from work for many months while she battled cancer. 

In nurses and doctors who bravely kept going to work and being there for people who sick and scared, when the rest of us got to stay home more. 

We are all uniquely made, bursting with gifts, here to be people who show others what it means to live and love like Jesus.  It really is as easy as it sounds. REST can mean what we’ve all done a lot of this year, but I want to go into 2021 ready to REST in all God has already done for us.  His plan that we’ve watched unfold since that Garden of Eden also includes YOU.  We are part of God’s story – like Abraham, Esther, Mary and Joseph – we get to faithfully rise up and live a life that honors Jesus.  I am thankful for the lessons and blessings of this 2020 year, and thankful for Jesus, who never promises an easy life, but was born in a little manger on Christmas night so he could be here with us.  He is our Emmanuel, our King of Kings, our Prince of Peace, our comfort and our joy.