The days leading up to Christmas are a busy time for many people and can cause anxiety in otherwise calm lives. What to buy as gifts, the catering and visiting arrangements all have to be decided. For many, their professional lives increase in intensity.

Teachers have assemblies and Christmas plays to produce, butchers have clients to please with arrays of delights, postmen have increased loads to deliver and shopkeepers seek to please customers. All these and many more have to increase their busyness levels and find it difficult to look forward to Christmas.

Mary’s unexpected pregnancy must have caused her anxiety and Joseph’s new sense of responsibility, followed by the need to make a long journey, followed by the difficulty in finding accommodation, must have given them both trying moments.

Just as Mary and Joseph trusted God’s message to them, so we can trust God to give us support and a sense of calm at this very busy time of year if we are willing to trust Him.

We should find times of quiet, peaceful relaxation in our own homes, with friends, listening or singing carols, to relax and think about the original and true meaning of Christmas.

God’s plan was to send His own Son to the world to give us a glimpse of His power and love.

Let us focus in this busy season on the love God showed people, the love that Jesus showed to all kinds of people He met in His earthly life and also the love we can show those around us. Psalm 23 gives us a picture of a calm place to prepare for the busyness in our lives:

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul.”

Let us prepare peacefully for a wonderful Christmas this year guided by God’s loving care.