Backseat Bible

This is, by far, the busiest Christmas season I've ever had. Every weekend evening has been packed with Christmas parties or Christmas baking or Christmas shopping or general Christmas frivolity. It's a happy kind of busy but it's also the kind of busy that makes the season feel less like a religious celebration, more like an opportunity to wear my sassy gold dress and guiltlessly bake too many chocolate goodies. At church today I was struck by the fact that I had been more concerned about which adorable brown boots to wear, what lipstick went with my green dress, than I had been about where I'd misplaced my Bible.

My Bible, as always when I "lose" it, was in the backseat of my car, where I always absent-mindedly toss it when its placement in the passenger seat is no longer convenient. Ah, the metaphor! I toss it there when I pick up a friend on the way to a party, when I need space for newly purchased cookie ingredients, when I'm too lazy to put my gym bag in the trunk. My Bible stays comfortably on that passenger seat for less than 48 hours after every Sunday. And every Sunday morning I wonder where it has escaped to, but that worry is never as intense as what heels make my calves look thinner.

I, like many Christians, have a hard time remembering the "Christ" part of Christmas sometimes. I get as caught up as anybody in the joy of new clothes, fancy parties, yummy food, buying gifts, wishing for mistletoe. And tossing my Bible onto the backseat of my car (which, it goes without saying, means I'm not cracking that Book open very often during the week) is the perfect illustration of how easy it is for me to allow the season to swallow me without giving due reverence to the joy of its importance. And although I've taken note of that frailty before, today was the first time it really made me sad.

I had a lovely, festive, Christmasy weekend, complete with parties, cookie baking, Christmas parading, and hot apple cider drinking. Excellent. But I prayed very little, thanked God less, forgot that He was the reason I was happy (not the existence of those awesome shoes I got on sale at Target). I do not value materialism in others, I will not coddle it in myself. So while I see no harm in finding smiles and a bit of confidence in new things or new crushes or new adventures, I don't ever want to lose sight of who forges my ability to be happy, who creates in me an image of Himself, who loves me enough to die for my salvation. And that is why I love Christmas, for everything God gave the world, for His knowing me in the womb, for His holding me and cherishing me despite my habit of tossing him aside. I am so thankful to know that Grace does not throw me in the backseat to languish between foibles and failures. Seems the least I could do to say a tiny "thank you" would be to bring my Bible in from the cold, warm it up.