Buzzz saw Brenda to the rescue!

In a playful homage to Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story lore, I have to tease my beloved wife, Brenda, for her asthmatic induced snore and its delightful sounds that awakens me in the early morning hours.

This morning does feel like a buzz saw cutting through the cerebral hemispheres while the high pitch whine of Buzz's rockets peal in my ears.

You would think that with migraines that I would sleep better than some. However, the opposite is true. I believe that I do not sleep soundly at all. I find myself waking almost hourly if not more feeling restless, my head throbbing, and sometimes my stomach queasy.

I am grateful for this day, for my Savior, who set aside his divine right and seat in heaven above, to be born in a lowly manger. To us the scene seems warm and idyllic; however, think of it, the manger is a feeding trough, it is dirty and crass. The air is filled with the scent of dirty animals and manure. This is not the place anyone would want to give birth to a baby. Here is the High King of Heaven, found in a feeding trough. Why, a feeding trough and not a regular bed? Why not a king's palace? He certainly deserved that and more.

I believe he had to be born in so lowly estate to demonstrate how low our sins carry us. Our sins are like the stench of manure, like eating from the trough of an animal pen. It is not warm and idyllic, but cold, crass, and putrid. It makes you want to wretch. This is what separates us from God, our sin. We are born with it just as surely as we are born with our skin. Its cancerous lesions fester inside and boil with stubborn pride at the first willful "No" or the disobedient act of the toddler. God knowing our low estate wanted to identify with us and gave us a beautiful word picture of his provision for this sin problem.

So this Christmas, remember that it is His gift on the tree that is most precious; more precious than any gift under the tree.

God bless my friends.