What Joy of Christmas; This

Do you love receiving cards? I do! ...then as I ponder the messages and look around at all the loneliness, longing and sorrow in spite the hope-joy-peace proclamations and celebration it strikes me that without love; really believing and receiving Love, God's free gift, all true, lasting joy evades us...

What thrill of pleasure in the making of new memories

Untamed measure of moments fall from yon’s hope-spangled seas

And morning soon adorns storehouses of lost yesterdays

As Christmas carols set the hearth of heart-home-fires ablaze

What happy chatter as we decorate the tree with cheer

And reminisce about the swift, dismissal of a year

The touch of words tucked into cards delight and tug at strings

Which suddenly are all a-tune with sentimental things

What wonder is revived as we consider Christ, the King

Whom God sent as a little Child eternal hope to bring

Not in glitter of tinsel or in Christmas trees or trim

But to the hearts of everyone who will believe in Him

This is the joy of Christmas; not the presents or the treats

But love; it warms each wish we send with heaven’s sweetest sweets

…without love hope and joy and peace cannot be reconciled

God, help us find the love You sent in that First Christmas Child

© Janet Martin