Living Life on the Other Side of the Cardboard

This morning I woke up thinking about the message at the Christmas Eve service we attended at our church. I love it when I wake up thinking about things like that instead of what I'm bothered about for the day. Anyway...our pastor was talking about why in the world God would come to earth in a manger surrounded by dirt and stinky animals and journey to a place where He was shamed, humiliated, beaten, and nailed to a cross. It is...to us...such a strange way to save the world. During the course of his message, he kept saying, "I hope that we can start living with our cardboard flipped." I didn't really understand what he meant but knew that...like always...he would tie it in somehow and by the end of the message it would make sense to me. And of course it did. The way he tied it in not only made sense, but moved me...and my husband...and I believe every person in the church to tears. He stepped off the stage, the lights went down, and music started playing, and one by one individuals, couples, and families would come to the center of the stage holding a large piece of cardboard with a message on it. Messages like this: homeless, addicted to cocaine, no hope; addicted to porn, failing marriage, filled with anger. And then they would flip it over and another message was written. Messages like this: found Christ and living free every day from addiction; wife continued to pray, reborn, and marriage is healthy and alive. As those messages were displayed and cardboards flipped I started thinking about what mine would say. I came up with way more than one and realized that He saves me in some way every single day. Over the course of my life, some of those messages have been a little more life-changing than others; nonetheless...there's a million plus ways that He has saved my world...none of which I deserve. After the music stopped and all the people had shared their story, our pastor came back to the stage and ended it by saying, "This is why He came in a manger and went to the cross...so that we could live life with our cardboard flipped."

It's difficult for my human mind to grasp that kind of love, but I know He doesn't expect me to grasp it. He just wants me to accept it and live my life on the other side of the cardboard.