The song that won’t get stuck in your head

My nieces and I had been making a list of Christmas songs that went with different Christmas Carols. We couldn’t come up with one that went with Joseph. A few nights later, killing time as we waited for a school band performance to begin, the youngest leaned in and said, “Aunt Amy, we thought of a song to go with Joseph.”

She followed up with, “Do you have a notebook? Can you write it down?”

Sure thing! I pulled out a notebook, rummaged for a pen, and then turned back to her.

She looked me straight in the eye and said, “It goes, um, it goes, um, it goes blah, blah, blah, Joseph, blah, blah. Do you know the one I’m talking about?”

For this I rummaged for a pen?

Chances are you are safe from getting this tune stuck in your head all day. You’re welcome.

But I know that feeling, don’t you? Where you think you know the words, you’re sure you’ve got something figured out and you go to share it and all that comes out is blah, blah, blah, you know what I’m talking about, right? Knowing full well you don’t even know what you’re talking about.

All of this waiting we’ve been doing. The reflecting. The rehearsing of the story, we might think we have the Christmas story figured out. And I’m not saying that you don’t. You do and you don’t.

I love how my niece boldly asked me to get out a notebook and write down a song for which she couldn’t remember the words. We adults could take a page from her playbook. We’re nearly done with our waiting, in the next few days, let’s all be open to what we don’t know. What we don’t know about God, about Jesus’ birth, about our families, even about ourselves. Waiting for something means you don’t have it yet, at least not fully.

Britta and I have a short video—time being precious now— to round out our Advent series. If you’re reading this in an email, you can watch the video here. 

God so loved the world he gave his son. To what we understand and what we don’t yet fully understand.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve.

Amy