This Christmas season, writing this blog has been more challenging. So, I have (mostly) re-posted my cheerier Christmas words from years past.
I didn’t want to put a damper on the season of hope, joy, love and faith.
With the joy of a new job and co-workers I love, came the loss of a large community that I adored. With our kids growing and starting new adventures, comes the end of their need of me. With hubby being on a medical leave that stretches into the new year, comes more question marks about the future, than certainty.
Then I read an article called Celebrating Christmas with a Broken Heart. Towards the end of the article, the author, Brittany Salmon, wrote:
“Believer, God came to earth to make broken things whole. It’s okay for you to be broken this holiday season because of the baby in the manger.”
The Christmas season does not simply celebrate picture-perfect nativities, with clean animals, angels, a contented baby and peaceful new parents. It is the bloody mess of a baby born to an unwed mother, a homeless family in a strange town. It is the story that begins in blood and must end that way … to redeem the mess of humanity.
The words that Jesus spoke to his disciples the night before his death, echo in our hearts in the Christmas season. You see Christmas is not Christmas without Easter.
We are not made holy by Jesus’ conception,
but in his crucifixion.
And his crucifixion was the once for all blood sacrifice, to make the broken things of our lives whole. To make us whole … even when we are cracked, bruised and broken. Even when we are lonely, weak and wandering. Even when our past is past and our future uncertain.
And so, in brokenness, I will look to that babe in the manger, who came to overcome the world … and make my broken heart whole.
itsawonderfilledlife 