Christmas, for Mary, was learning the ultimate truth of this one statement: "Nothing will be impossible with God!"

Perhaps Christmas, for all of us, is about building a life on that one bold statement, "Nothing will be impossible with God!"

When Christmas rolls around each year, we must embrace the absolute faith and perpetual assurance that absolutely nothing is impossible with our God! Christmas is a reminder to all of us that we must continually keep our focus on his divinity and not on our frail humanity.

My friend, you honor God when you ask of Him the impossible. So this year, rather than giving Santa an enormous and materialistic list, perhaps it would be most sincere to change your focus from temporary to eternal, from material to priceless and then to ask God for your true heart's desire.

Impossibility is God's specialty! It is what He does best! You serve a God who loves to show Himself miraculous in the face of profound disappointment and darkness.

Most of us go through the Christmas season focused on self, on what we want and desire and deserve. Some people want a new house, or a great piece of jewelry or for all of our children to come home for the holidays.

Some folks emphatically believe they deserve a Christmas bonus, a tree laden with expensive gifts or someone to clean the house for the holidays.

If those are your desires, you are missing the heart of Christmas. If that is all that you can ask for, may I humbly submit to you that you have Christmas all wrong.

You are missing the difficult yet sacred lesson that the life of Mary teaches all of us today: Our plans pale in comparison to His interruptions.

The most significant and meaningful desire you will ever embrace is to humbly but sincerely ask God to interrupt your life with His matchless love and with His eternal plans.

What these verses don't describe is the public outrage Mary had yet to face. This girl, who has just had her world rocked with a message from heaven, would now be spat upon and cursed as she walked down the streets of Nazareth. Formerly she was known as "pure" and as a "virgin," but now, her reputation was one of a loose and promiscuous woman.

Perhaps now as Mary daily walked to the village well, she heard the coarse language of the men, calling out nasty innuendos accompanied by raucous laughter.

Mary learned, as we all must, that Christmas is not about "self." Christmas calls all of us to die to self, to sacrifice preference and to forgo normalcy. Christmas is the clarion call that convinces a person never to live for only human purposes ever again. We have all been embraced by the call of Christmas that resounds from Mary's heart into our world today, "Live for His purposes! Live for Christ alone!"

Christmas is about the intervention of God into our ordinary lives; it is about Christ being born into our disappointments and failures.

Christmas is not about me, but it is about Christ revealing himself in me and to me. Now, that's something to celebrate!

Carol McLeod is an author and popular speaker at women's conferences and retreats, where she teaches the Word of God with great joy and enthusiasm. Carol encourages and empowers women with passionate and practical biblical messages mixed with her own special brand of hope and humor. She has written five books, including No More Ordinary, Holy Estrogen!, The Rooms of a Woman's Heart and Defiant Joy! Her most recent book, Refined: Finding Joy in the Midst of the Fire, was released last August. Her teaching DVD, The Rooms of a Woman's Heart, won the Telly Award, a prestigious industry award for excellence in religious programming. You can also listen to Carol's "Jolt of Joy" program daily on the Charisma Podcast Network. Connect with Carol or inquire about her speaking to your group at justjoyministries.com.

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