Dear Reader:

When I think back on the “special” days that have remained in my memory…(which houses decades of time now)…I have come to realize that few of the permanent memories took place on a holiday, or graduation, or a birthday…or any pre-planned event that was anticipated about over a  long period of time preceding it.

No…the most memorable events in my life took place on ordinary days that suddenly turned extraordinary. One good example would be the birth of my three children…even though later it would mean a birthday date for them …at the time… each day of the birth of the three children started out as just another ordinary day…that brought about a miracle by its ending…an extraordinary miracle.

And isn’t that what happened to Mary too? You have to wonder why she made that long trip with Joseph to pay taxes…he couldn’t go and pay them himself…or she didn’t want to be alone with the due date so close and him so far away? I don’t know what the customs were for payment back then (as it would turn out…also…for the day Jesus was born)…I am sure it started out as just another ordinary day.

Every time we read about a miracle or a non-explainable event that occurs in scripture… don’t they just pop up on  what starts ouy as a “same old, same old” quite normal kind of day?

Max Lucado makes a good argument for this repeated phenomenon throughout the Bible. The Christmas Story unveiled itself in the most non-descript simple manner possible…no fireworks, media build-up, or avalanches of “groupies” following behind. Just Joseph, Mary, the baby Jesus…and some startled shepherds formed the now famous nativity scenes.

There was no interruption to the regularly schedule programs to talk about the new king that had been born or cameras flashing around the manger scaring the animals and waking the baby…no the greatest story ever told took place in a humble manger with a frightened young husband and exhausted young mother…just an ordinary, turned personally extraordinary day.

Here is an excerpt from Max Lucado’s book God is With You Everyday in an article titled:” Today could be your Christmas Story.”

Since Jesus didn’t make a grand entrance into this old world but entered it as ordinarily as any other child we can now pause and think. “My, might Jesus be born in my world? My everyday world?”

“...My everyday same routine world? Not a holiday world. Or a red-letter-day world. No, we live an everyday life. We have bills to pay, beds to make, and grass to cut. Our face won’t grace any magazine covers, and we aren’t expecting a call from the White House. But then…neither did Jesus.

Congratulations. I reckon we qualify for a modern-day Christmas story. God enters the world through folks like us and comes on days like today.

So be alert… today just might be your Christmas story…my Christmas story.”

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So until tomorrow…We must remember God’s Story IS our story…Christmas story and all.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Jo Dufford came and picked me up yesterday and told me to think of her as my UBER driver…wherever I needed to go …that is where we would go…so we went to “Belk Land and then traveled (internationally) over to the World Market.”

I have finished my shopping…what a great Christmas gift! Thank you Jo for taking an ordinary day and turning it into an extraordinary day. (And yes, Jo, I “Pinkie Promise” I kept my foot up the whole rest of the afternoon!) *Our cute waiter, Mitch, the best of the best!