Swaddling Clothes? 

     How many times over 80 plus years have I read or heard the story of newborn Jesus wrapped in "swaddling" clothes, and never once curious about what swaddling means?

     This is the Son of God, to be Savior of all who believe...born in a manger (another reading calls it a cave). 

     Well, there was something normal. Infants were wrapped in blankets or similar cloths, so their movement was restricted, for safety. 

     Lowly shepherds would never expect the Savior of the world - if they even knew there would be a savior - to be born in such a lowly place, in the middle of the night. God did and still does meet us in unexpected places. 

     I've blogged before about how I met a woman at a restaurant - her friends - not me - were hoping I would be her husband. We talked for three hours - not normal for me. Back in my apartment I laid down to sleep - nothing unusual in my thoughts - when God told me, I have reserved her for your wife. He didn't speak to my ears, but to my mind.

     My ear drums and most everything else will die. But there is a "heart" or "soul" that lives on. I read that when we believe that God can appear in the unconventional, we open ourselves to experience His grace in unlikely ways. Such are the moments God uses to reveal His love and purposes.  

Monday: finding Christ in the Old Testament