I’m not going home for Christmas this year. Not by choice—I love being home with my family gathered round at Christmas. But my family has been forced to flee our beloved home because of mycotoxins which made our Lyme’s disease even more complex and harder to treat.
It’s strange to be away from home, to talk about whether we could visit my grandparents safely, to discuss how to celebrate the birth of Jesus here in our friend’s cabin. If I look out the window, I can just make out the lake through the twilight and the trees climbing toward the sky. The wind whistles around over the carols playing in my ears.
But it doesn’t feel quite like Christmas.
To be honest, this is not the only Christmas I’ve had to fight to find peace and joy. There was the year I struggled with severe depression, or the year my five year old brother had cancer.
Maybe that’s you this year, struggling to find joy. Are you trying to “make it through the holidays?”
Take a moment with me to ponder Christ’s coming. When Christ came to earth, He didn’t only come to suffer for our debt of sin. He also came to bear our sorrows. Read Isaiah 53:3-5 with me:
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
Dwell on the depth of God’s mercy for a moment. Jesus came to right all the effects of the fall—both sin and sorrow. This world is so broken—sweet babies die, criminals seem to triumph, and evil mocks our attempts to love. Peace and joy are very hard to come by in such a world. And let’s face it: red and green decorations and cheery music will not fix the problems we created back in the Garden of Eden.
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Read the rest at Delighting in Him!
Psalm 37:23-25
“23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.
24 Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.
25 I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”
~ These verses remind me that no matter the trial, or season of suffering I might be going through, God has never forsaken me, and will always be there to supply my truest needs. He upholds me, when I have no strength, and feeds me when I don’t have the strength to even hold my own spoon.
Amen!!!