It’s easy to feel lost at Christmas.

There are so many factors competing for our attention. December can become so overwhelming when our plates are heaped with lights, trees, stockings, school concerts, figuring out what gifts to buy, dreaming about gifts we might get, Santa Claus, Christmas cookies, family get-togethers, office parties, reindeer, caroling, Christmas movie classics, painful reminders of those we love who are no longer here. It can sometimes be too much, and we feel buried by all the expectations and miss the joy.

I wonder if in some small way that’s how Mary may have felt.

Everything changed when God chose her for this incredibly special assignment. She was pregnant. She had to explain to her fiance, and her mom and dad, that she was having a baby and it wasn’t Joseph’s. She had to endure all the stares and whispers. Many who were supposed to be her friends probably turned their back on her. Life got very complicated.

It was probably a relief when Joseph told her they needed to leave town to be registered in Bethlehem. But, the complications kept rolling. A cross-country journey on foot, or bumping along on the back of a donkey, at nine-months pregnant was painful and exhausting. Reaching their destination to find no rooms available was incredibly frustrating. Of course it was then that she began to have contractions and go into labor. They were finally directed to a stable, a dirty, smelly place, when the baby came. Her mom wasn’t there to help her and tell her to push. The only one to deliver the child was a man she had never known intimately.

With one last push, He was here. Jesus was born.

All of the complications of Mary’s life faded as she looked through her tears into the face of her son, the Savior of the world.

Christmas is simple. Jesus came.

Jesus didn’t just come to Earth on Christmas, He came for you. He came knowing where His life would lead. He knew the cross was ahead. We celebrate Christmas because Jesus came here for us to know Him personally.

Push through the complications this Christmas, and see the Savior.

Christmas is simple.

Jesus came for you.

Merry Christmas!