From the sound of a crackling fire beneath a mantle of hung stockings, to a puppy wrestling its way through piles of torn off wrapping paper, to the drive around town in search of the newest and coolest Christmas light displays and everything in between- Christmas is a time of year filled with so much tradition.
So what if all of that was taken away?
What if you had to set aside tradition?
What if you were called to be a tradition breaker?
There was no lack of remembering the true meaning of Christmas this year! In fact, Jesus was the reason for our busyness this entire month. He’s also the reason for and of this entire journey.
Jesus.
The tradition maker.
The ultimate tradition breaker.
In the past 3 weeks we’ve broken the tradition of Christmas.
No lights.
No Christmas tree.
No tacky sweaters.
No cookie baking.
Instead, plastic bag wrapped candy bars from Santa, sweating through cups of hot chocolate, riding in the trunk listening to Spotify Christmas playlists…
all while celebrating the greatest gift we were ever given: Jesus.
Christmas this year was celebrated traveling village to village in Côte d’Ivoire. Meeting people who had never seen a white skinned person in their entire lives. Dancing with children who haven’t had a whole meal since they were born.
We witnessed over 50 people surrender their life to the Lord!
50 lives forever changed!
We preached in churches.
We preached in the middle of the dirt streets of Africa.
We preached on the radio.
We prayed over children on national television.
We prayed through Malaria.
We fought through illnesses.
We worshipped through Christmas Eve into Christmas Day with a whole village.
We harvest yams on a yam farm.
We hosted over 40 women for a Beauty for Ashes retreat.
We supported a local friend through the death and funeral of her mother.
We sat and broke bread with 10 different villages.
We were even given tribe names and were recognized through the village as such.
(Fun fact: your name is based on the day of the week you are born, so I was given the name Audwa, for Tuesday)
As hard as it was, and believe me it was really really hard at moments, I was so overwhelmed by everything we were being asked and able to do that my perspective of tradition shifted.
Tradition says get distracted by the busyness and lose sight of the Spirit.
I say break tradition and get distracted by the Spirit of Christ and loose sight of the busyness.
Tradition says be overwhelmed by the things of this world in order to feel the spirit of Christmas.
I say break tradition and be overwhelmed by God’s Love so that it influences the spirit of Christmas.
As we are days away from the start of a new year, my thoughts on time are too vast to even consider putting to words, but I end this year with the question.
What traditions do I want to break this coming year?
[Hear me when I say, my heart behind this questions isn’t to say that tradition is a bad thing. I love Christmas, and I love the traditions that stem from it. Tradition is very valuable in my eyes- full of memories and anticipation. But it wasn’t until I chose to break tradition that I realized a lot of good can come from it, too.]
I believe 2018 will be a year of breaking traditions into new and better traditions!
Merry Christmas
And
Happy New Year!
XOXO
Tay
