Looking for THE MAN

The anticipation for Christmas had been building for weeks. We had just celebrated Kristina’s 3rd birthday and Christmas was just icing on the cake. She was 3 weeks old her very first Christmas and the last few years the excitement had just been growing each and every year. This was the first year that she actually believed in Santa and understood.

Every night before bed for weeks we would talk about Santa and how he was coming and count the days until he arrived. We talked about the toys she hoped she would get and how excited she was and with each night the anticipation grew more and more until finally Christmas Eve arrived.

When she woke up on Christmas Eve morning she immediately began bouncing off the walls. She was so excited! I really don’t think excited even begins to cover her emotion. All day long she rattled on about Santa coming. We watched cartoons about Santa, baked cookies, told stories, just basically had a typical Christmas Eve with a 3 year old.

As she hurried off to bed I said "Now, go right to sleep so Santa can come!"

"Yes ma’am" she said almost like a solider answering his commander. She scurried into her room, jumped into her big girl bed and before long she was out!

As soon as my eyes popped open on Christmas morning I woke Shane up, threw on some warm socks and while Shane went into the living room to get everything ready I went and woke Kristina up.

I bent over her little angelic face, kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear "Wake up precious, Santa came!" She flung back her covers, jumped up on her bed, slung the window blind back and started looking out the window.

"Where’s his sleigh?" She questioned.

"What?" I said. "What are you talking about?"

She jumped off her bed, ran into the living room and started looking around. "Where is he?" She said in the most defiant tone I had ever heard.

Shane and I looked at each other in total confusion. She propped her hands on her hips and with her hair sticking up in every direction imaginable she looked right at me and said "Mommy, you said Santa was coming and I want to know where he is!"

Oh no....it was all becoming clear to me now! "Oh no baby, Santa couldn’t stay, he had to go take toys to all the other kids but look what he brought for you!" I took her by the hand and walked toward the Christmas tree showing her what all Santa had left for her. Well, she was not having it for a second. She folded her little arms, held her head down, poked her lip out and said "But, that’s not what you promised me! You said Santa was COMING! And he’s not here!" Her eyes welled up with tears and she collapsed with her back to the tree.

Shane and I did everything we could to console her and explain how it worked. We showed her gifts from Santa one by one. When that didn’t work we started giving her gifts from us to open but she refused. She simply sat there, head hanging low, eyes full of tears repeating over and over "But you said Santa was coming!" It didn’t matter how many times I went over the "rules of Christmas" she didn’t care. In her precious little mind she had thought all these weeks that Santa was coming to visit her.

As the day ticked on, she refused to open gifts at anyone’s house. When someone asked what she got for Christmas from Santa she would quickly respond "Nothing, he didn’t come!" All she wanted was Santa himself. The gifts meant nothing to her! She wanted the real thing.

Do you have the real thing or do you just have the idea of the real thing? So many times people walk through this life thinking their good deeds are going to get them to heaven. Others think their money will be their golden ticket. Many believe that because they have been to church every single time the doors were open since they were born they will be grandfathered in there somehow but that is not how it works. In John 14:6 Jesus says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Oh, dear friend, if you do not know him today is the day for you to get the real deal, the real thing, get the man himself! As my pastor always says, it will take you 5 minutes to make Jesus the Lord of your life and a lifetime to live it out. Don’t waste your talents, your energy, your life, even the day at hand on anything but the Father!