Advent Beauty and Chaos

Last night we began our advent activity.  

Yesterday was chaos.  

My kitchen table looked like this all day...

All four of us were involved in this project.  

The girls did surprisingly well spreading the paint around so there aren't huge globs on these little boxes, which I found super-cheap at Hobby Lobby, by the way.  

By super-cheap I mean 99 cents and 30% off!  

The star was a bit more, but I wanted one big box to open on Christmas morn as the culmination of our advent journey to the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One.

After painting, there was still a lot to do.  

I had already looked up the various names of Christ.  

They filled up four journal pages!  

And I only had 25 boxes.  

How to choose!  

Here are the ones I chose, after MUCH deliberating...

Jesus

Messiah/Christ/Anointed One

Lord

Mighty God

I Am

Redeemer

Bread of Life

Living Water

Wonderful Counselor

Prince of Peace

Lamb of God

Faithful and True

High Priest

Man of Sorrows

Advocate

Lion

Shepherd

Bridegroom

Light of the World

The Word

Alpha and Omega

Messiah

Teacher

True Vine

Physician (Healer)

I wrote each of the names on a little piece of card stock in my scrap-booking stash.  

Below each name I wrote the verse (or verses) where that particular name was found, along with any notes that helped explain the name.  

For example:

Jesus

Matthew 1:21

Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua which means "the Lord saves."

Looking up the verses and choosing which ones to put on the cards was probably the most time-consuming part of this whole process.  

But it was by far the most rewarding.  

I told my man that I felt pretty sure God wanted me to do this project primarily for my benefit.  

I learned a lot and loved the reminders of all that Christ is to me.

These little name cards went in the boxes...

Then, just for fun, I tied on a little ribbon...

Here they are under the tree, waiting to be opened...

Beauty.

Now for the truth.

First of all, I just finished all of this tonight, day two of advent.

We opened our first box last night during our regular Bible story time.

But the presents weren't under the tree then.

They were sitting on my kitchen table.

And only about 5 of them had names in them.

We only got them all under the tree tonight, after the girls were in bed.

Secondly...

So far, this has fallen a bit short of the picturesque family time I had envisioned.

The girls fight over which present to open.

Then they fight over who gets to open it!

Then they jump on the couch and crawl under our legs as we're reading the Scriptures and trying to talk about them.

Tonight we asked them, "What was the name we just discussed?"

Neither could answer.

After sending them to get their toothbrushes, I admitted my disappointment to my man.

"This isn't going quite as well as I imagined.

But I just pray that something I say sticks."

And as my man said, that's all we can do.

At least we will have these boxes for years to come, and we can hope for a more captive audience as they get older.

And, as someone said this week, all of life is a little messy, a little chaotic.

But all of it has beauty too.

May we choose to see it.

Attitude of Gratitude:

96.  Christmas lights

97.  Season of advent

98.  Little girls' laughter and silliness and energy

99.  Air conditioning in December

100.  Jennie Allen's study, Stuck