The Unwanted Christmas "Present"

Monday night. Just 6 days before Christmas.  My husband called me from work to let me know that his firm would not renew his contract.  They did not have enough work for him and in less than two weeks we would be out of a job.   Again.   From the same firm.  Except this time things were more complicated. 

I held it together on the phone while he gave me details of his conversation, but as soon as we hung up I cried hard.  It was deja vu.  I was pregnant with Theo the last time this happened.  And here I am again, expecting our 4th, a little girl, in a few months. 

For the first 24 hours my mind and body went into a bit of panic mode.  We had a really bad nights sleep and a lot of worries and concerns went through my head the next day, especially concerning my health care.  I had just recently begun feeling well enough to take care of my household duties and was excited to have a wonderful Christmas break.   Solving our new found problems and questions was NOT what I wanted to spend Christmas break doing. This was not what I wanted for Christmas.

Tuesday night as we drove to the church so my husband could do tithing settlement and I could practice the organ for the Christmas service we were emotionally spent and it was taking its toll on us.  To top it off the kids had been particularly wound up with the excitement of Christmas being right around the corner.  Whereas I had just two days before looked forward to Christmas as a time to have fun, relax and enjoy being together without worrying about things now it felt like a stress, a burden.  I heard myself saying in my head as the tears began again: “I wish Christmas were over.” 

I immediately felt badly that I had even had that thought, but I didn’t know how to enjoy Christmas anymore with these worries looming over our heads. I knew I had to do something or my kids would feel the strain, which I didn’t want.  I requested a blessing, wherein I was told-not that everything would be solved right away-but that my body could feel at peace.

I wasn’t sure how this could be, how could I find peace and enjoy Christmas. The next day the words from a song I had been practicing with the young women suddenly came to my mind: “Do you have room for the Savior?” 

Elder Neal A. Maxwell stated: “Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!”
Suddenly I realized that I am the innkeeper to my own heart.  Only I have a say over who enters there.  Life will always have trials and some Christmases will be harder than others.  But if I don’t make room in my heart for the Savior it will be harder for me to feel his love and peace. 

I realized that I needed to open up my heart to him if I wanted to rejoice with him and celebrate his birth.  I pled with him: teach me how to trust. Teach me how to have greater faith.  Please come into my heart and let me feel thy peace. 

Sometimes it seems easier to have faith when someone else is going through a trial.  We have faith that things will work out for them.  It becomes a different story when the burden and hurt is suddenly our own.  Illness both mental and physical, death, job loss, infertility, disappointment, loneliness, to name just a few are some of the things that can cause great pain in our hearts.  We feel alone and maybe even forgotten. 

Do we have room for the Savior in our hearts? 
Do we make room to allow the Savior to come into our heart and heal us? Do we make room for him to come into our lives and wrap his arms around us and hold us? Do we let him enter?

How can we make room?

Are willing to make room for him in our hearts by casting out sin and proclaiming with King Lamoni’s father: “if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee.” (Alma 22:18)

Are we willing to make room for the Savior and with Alma cry in our hearts: “O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death”.  Will we with Alma experience what it is like when we do make room for the Savior and he enters our hearts and we can echo Alma’s words: “And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more.  And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!” and: “there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”  (Alma 36: 18, 19, 21)

Do we believe and embrace and even celebrate the tidings of great joy, that he “has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows,” that he was “wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities” and “with his stripes we are healed.”  (Isaiah 53:4-5)

In seasons of peace and prosperity, do we make room for the Savior by inviting him into our grateful hearts, knowing that all we have comes from Him? 

The Savior was born in a humble stable, not a perfect mansion.  Our hearts don’t need to be fancy, just humble and willing to welcome him.

He is standing there, knocking on the doors of our hearts, looking for room at our inn.  He knows our needs.  He knows our individual hurts and our joys. We are the only ones that can open our heart and let him in. 

As I opened up my heart to the Savior this week I was able to feel the joy of his birth, his life and his atoning sacrifice for us.  I don’t have any more answers for the struggles in my life, but I opened the door to allow him to enter and feel me with peace.  Whenever I felt the worries starting to bear down on me, I literally imagined my heart opening up to the Savior so that he could be a part of my life.
May we remember to make room for the Savior, today and always.

(These remarks were given Christmas Day, Dec. 25th, 2011, in the La Mirada Ward, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)