In preparing for my cousin’s safari baby shower in a few weeks and rolling diapers for centerpieces, it takes me back to 9 (!?) years ago when we were getting ready for our sweet Jackson’s arrival.  It was my first time being enormously pregnant at Christmas.  Not only was I wrapping presents for our other 2 littles but I was washing all the newborn baby boy clothes and soft receiving blankets, tucking teeny, tiny diapers into the changing table and putting together the double stroller and basinet.  I was nesting big-time that Christmas and it made me think more about Mary than I ever had before.

I couldn’t imagine being so pregnant and having to travel by donkey from Nazareth to Jerusalem.  Then upon arrival having no place to stay and giving birth in a barn!?  And placing my baby in a manger!?  Ah!  Then so soon after He was born they had to escape to Egypt in fear for His life from king Herod.  Preparing for Jesus’ arrival was a luxury Mary and Joseph didn’t have.  And to think I felt guilty that Jackson didn’t have his own nursery and had to share a room with his brother.

As we prepare for another precious baby in the family this Christmas it has been a sweet gift to remember that special Christmas of being pregnant with Jackson, thinking about what this new little one will be like, and about that holy night when Jesus was born and the Word became flesh bringing Light into this dark world…for us.  As I continue to prepare all things baby I will continue to prepare Him room.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman.  Galatians 4:4