MOST OF US have already prepared the tree and the manger too. Christmas is coming for sure. But how do you prepare?

You scurry around, gather gifts, make plans. And all that’s fine. 

But are you taking time — time out for yourself? Not in a selfish way, but in a way to get ready. How will you receive the Child this year? How will you welcome him?

Think back to the first Christmas. Mary and Joseph too were scurrying around, making plans, looking for a place to stay. And the Wise Men gathered their gifts.

But Joseph and Mary found no room at the inn. All they found was a stable. That would have to do.

It might have been dirty, unkempt, probably smelly. It was, after all, where animals gathered to eat. 

But Joseph and Mary made the best of it. They prepared the space they best they could so Mary could give birth to her Son. God’s Son.

They prepared a place for the Child to arrive. 

And upon his arrival, that dirty, smelly, messy stable would then become a holy place, a sacred place.

What about your preparation? What’s going on in your heart now? 

Maybe in some ways your inner life is messy too, like the stable they found in Bethlehem. Maybe it’s unorganized. Things aren’t exactly the way you want them to be. And maybe you’ve been trying or hoping for a change for some time now.

So during this time of Advent — this time of preparation — get ready. Get the manger inside your heart ready. Prepare the space the best you can, within your reality now.

Open yourself up to the arrival of hope.

Open yourself up to new possibilities.

Open yourself up to the Good News of forgiveness and salvation.

You don’t have to do it all yourself. In fact, you can’t. 

But that inner, messy, unorganized place can be transformed by the coming of the Son of God, the Messiah, the Lord.

Let the arrival of the Child make your inner life holy. He can change your life.

Prepare a space for him to arrive.

Let him make your heart his home.

And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7