Heavenly Father–Creator, Preserver and Lover of Heaven and Earth:

Thank you for sending your son to us in the precious form of an infant–small, fragile, yet bursting with the joy and hope you had already promised your people.

As we look at our own children, remind us of the gift of humility–of recognizing our own weakness, and turning to you as our strength.

Teach us to trust you the way our children trust us. Our infants do not understand where milk comes from, and yet they drink contentedly. Our toddlers don’t ask what we plan to feed them, but they are delivered to a seat where fresh bounty is within their grasp.

Father, when do we replace this innate trust with our need to understand and control? In sin we learn that we must plan and produce–yet you teach us that the true gift is your provision. Show us how to trust you, as our children wholeheartedly trust in us.

Father God, you are our perfect father–giving and taking away in your loving and all-knowing time.

You have given and taken away our loved ones.

You have given and taken away our understanding.

You have given and taken away our dreaming.

Father, we do not understand your plan–we do not understand the universe you painstakingly created with your being. And though we cannot understand, you allow us to question. Like children, you allow us to turn to you–to express our anger, our sadness, our pure joy and gratitude. Like toddlers, you allow us our tantrums, our tears. You never say “because I said so,” but instead “because I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

Father God, we will never understand why you sent your son, a part of the God-head, to a corrupt and lowly Earth. But you did. And you choose us. And today, post-Christmas and the celebration of the greatest gift to us, we choose you.

Father God. today I choose you. Today I thank you for the gift of my son, our children, and the deeper meaning they bring to our understanding of Christmas. Today I choose again to be guided by your parentage–to remember who I am and who you are. And when I remember who you are, to be in awe that you chose me as a daughter–a royal priesthood to the King. The maker and sustainer of the universe, who decided that this world needed someone just like me.

Father God, what would you like to speak into my heart today?