It was a warm evening, a nice respite during this endless winter, and my fam had the wonderful idea to gather together at the world-renowned landmark known as Bill’s Donuts!  If you haven’t yet had the life-changing experience of eating one of Bill’s donuts then please do us all a favor, stop reading right now and drive over and have one.  You will truly see the world in a new and beautiful light.  Anyhow, shocking as it may seem, this little jaunt to Bill’s is only the scene upon which a monumental event played out in the life of my family.  There we were enjoying our sugar dusted cake donuts from heaven when Heather whispers to me out of the blue, “Jon, Marlee mentioned to me the other day that she doesn’t think Santa is real.”  Now for those of you who still buy into the Santa thing be for warned, SPOILER ALERT AHEAD….

“Really” I said, “How did she figure that out”  We went on to scratch our heads and after a few minutes of consultation I made the decision and asked Marlee to join us at our table for a little discrete conversation.   I proceeded to ask her what she thought about Santa and she proceeded to tell me that she had doubts about his existence.  Then the moment came, the truth had to come out and I dropped the bomb!  Santa is not real, He is us!  The look that followed from my little 8-year-old daughters face was…well let me say, we couldn’t stop laughing for about 4 minutes.  Busting a gut in Bills donut’s.  Shock and Awe is the only words that even come close to describing Marlee’s face.  It blew her mind!  You mean… Santa… isn’t… REAL!  She didn’t cry, she wasn’t sad, she was just flabbergasted.

Ever feel that way?  Ever just walk along through life, enjoying the peace that comes from knowing that we have things figured out.  Yeah life may be hard, crisis may come our way but that’s the world we live in, that’s the way it will always be and we get ok with that.  But what happens when Jesus enters that normal and drops a bomb?

John 1512-13   “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one that this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

We thought we had love figured out, we thought we had this disciple thing figured out and then Jesus enters the scene and with a few words changes everything.  Love as I have loved!  And there we stand gaping, jaw flapping responding in much the same way Marlee did.  You mean…Love like you love…  WOW!  Sometimes shock and awe is exactly what we need isn’t it.  How about you, what if we loved like Jesus today, right now.  What if we laid our lives down for someone else without expecting anything in return… What would our world look like then?

Praying for more of His shock and awe revelation for my own life and for Living Hope!

Jon