Advent Lesson: Is There Room at Your Inn?

Looking back over past blogs, I realize that each year I have posted something about Advent.  For those of you who may not observe, Advent is the period of time before Christmas in which Christians examine their lives, their hearts, their faith, in preparation to celebrate the birth of Christ--Christmas.

Each year it seems as though something that I hear or see or read during Advent speaks to me.  Last year, it was the idea of Mary being open to God's will.  This year, I have been reading a book (Flannery O'Connor's Prayer Journal) and an online Advent reading called Good News of Great Joy.  But, as I think He often does, God spoke to me in an unexpected manner.  Pinterest.  Yep.  You read that correctly.  I may have other insights to share with you from the readings or from church homilies over the next 18 days, but for now, I shall share what I found on Pinterest.

When I read these words and asked myself whether there was sufficient room at my Inn, I felt a bit like I had been punched in the stomach.  I'm full of excuses.  My life is crazy, I travel a lot, I have to spend a lot of time on the phone (thank you long distance relationship), I have to go to kickboxing, I have meetings, some nights a girl just needs some down time, I have laundry to do, I need to wash my dishes, it's college football season, I need to update my planner, it's late and if I don't go to sleep in the next 6 minutes I'll only get 5 hours of sleep......I'm here to tell you, I could go on forever.

But you know, none of that matters.  Not a single, little, tiny bit of that crap matters if there's no room in my inn for Jesus.  I've got some serious changes to make, some major re-prioritization to do, and some major prayers to say to prepare for this Christmas.