Grown-Up Christmas List

I have loved the Amy Grant Christmas song "Grown-Up Christmas List" since Christmas 1994, when my older sister, Tracey, gave my parents the Amy Grant Home for the Holidays CD.

I have sung that and many of her songs at the top of my lungs every Christmas ever since -- wow, that's 20 years I have sung this, and other songs.

This year, as a mother, I found myself wondering what I would put on my grown-up Christmas list, and I found that I had two grown-up Christmas lists.  One was my list for the good of humanity -- the list that SHOULD be my grown-up Christmas list; and, the other was my fun, Brooke grown-up Christmas list -- the list of my grown-up wants and needs that I wish Santa would deliver under the tree.

My Grown-up Christmas list for the good of humanity:

• For marriages across our nation, and the world, to be healed, reconciled, nurtured, grown, and solidified
• For parents to delight in their children, and delight in their role of training, teaching, and loving their children
• For grandparents to lovingly invest in the lives of their children and grandchildren and recognize their unique and beautiful role in their children and grandchildren lives
• For wives and mothers to love being wives and mothers and fill their homes with the love and God and Spirit of Christmas this season, and always
• For husbands and fathers to be leaders in their family and draw their family to the study and learning of Biblical principals
• For families to cherish each other and for them to be together this time of year
• For a spirit of forgiveness to sweep across the earth like a powerful wind
• For hearts of stone to draw near to the manger and experience a life-changing transformation
• For children, and adults, to experience the magic and beauty of Christmas, and for them to know that magic, and beauty, and wonder of Christmas is the Love of God coming down to Earth -- Emmanuel, God With Us
• For these three to reign -- faith, hope, and love... and the greatest of these is love.