Free The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas by Ann Voskamp

dark. The birth of Christ is, for the band of survivors, the saved hushed there in the manger of Bethlehem, the moment of eucatastrophe, of joy —that “catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart.” In that eucatastrophe instant, undera Bethlehem star when humanity witnesses the King-God inhale earth air into His lungs, you can feel it: “joy beyond the walls of the world.” [23]
    Because the King beyond this world has entered this world, and the wonderland in Him we always hoped for is here and now and true.
    The unexpected Bethlehem King is the once and coming King, the King of the first and still coming second Advent, the King coming again to rule the earth and make all the sad things untrue. [24] The wonderland is unfolding even now, Kingdom coming, because His Word “will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:11-12, NIV).
    The dance of the sugarplum fairies just withered a bit.
    The very trees of the fields are going to dance and clap their hands. The King is coming, and the new Kingdom is stirring. And stirring in you. When the King rules your world, you cease to rule or worry. All worry dethrones God. All worrying makes you King and God incompetent.
    There is a King born in Bethlehem and on the throne. You can breathe.
    There are Christmas trees blinking in living rooms tonight in Americus, Kansas, and Quitman, Arkansas, and Mud Lake, Idaho.
    Someone plays it on a piano that needs tuned: “Glorrrry to the newborn King.”
    And in small towns and in the little town of Bethlehem, the lights on all the trees dance.
    For the coming King, the trees of the field all dance.

    Look for someone today who is doing some little, good thing that is likely to go unnoticed. Slip that person a happy note to say he or she is making a difference!

    It was not suddenly and unannounced that Jesus came into the world. He came into a world that had been prepared for Him. The whole Old Testament is the story of a special preparation. . . . Only when all was ready, only in the fullness of His time, did Jesus come.
    PHILLIPS BROOKS

    When have you felt like Bethlehem . . . poor, small, forgotten?
    What worries do you need to surrender to God, knowing He is firmly on His throne?
    Take a moment to thank God for the eucatastrophe of Christmas —for conquering evil with righteousness.

I will go in to see the king.
    ESTHER 4:16

    Esther told Hathach to go back and relay this message to Mordecai: “All the king’s officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him for thirty days.” So Hathach gave Esther’s message to Mordecai.
    Mordecai sent this reply to Esther: “Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?”
    Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.” So Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.
    ESTHER 4:10-17
    Sometimes you see them huddling under the bridge on the west side. Two or three of them, their hats pulled wind thin over their ears. They look like hungry prayers, their bare hands held out over flame licking off the sides of an old oil