I pray for you that you will have whatever is best for you this season. I do not know what that is; it is between you, and God. He is watching over you, eager to give you good gifts.
May your blessings include peace and patience. I've been through my share of stressful Christmases. This promises to be a quiet one for me, so I shall spend it praying for you, that you will feel His whispered encouragement when you need it most.
For you I pray for the gift of gratitude, that it may well up in your heart as you count your blessings and enjoy the gifts of beauty and inspiration which are the cherished inward gifts of this season.
I hope that your Christmas will include the chance to look into the eyes of ones you love, even if only in memory. Should those memories bring tears, may you be comforted in whatever way makes sense to your soul.
For me, when sorrow closes in, I run to Mary. She was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. She bore God's child. How much she must have loved that baby! Yet, in her woman's heart, she must have sensed that trouble lay ahead. After all, God, who created his son's body by inexplicable holy mystery, arranged for him to be brought forth in a dark stable.
All too soon, she was to hear, "This child is destined to be a sign that will be rejected; and you too will be pierced to the heart." She knows what it means to love, and lose. She knows what it means to have a shadow over your heart even in the midst of joy. She knows what it's like to sit helplessly beside the dearest person on earth and watch him die. She knows. Go to her.
She is not God, but she is the one he chose to mother his very own son. Far from the saccharine-sweet saint portrayed as gazing fondly, even somewhat vacuously, on the child in the manger, she was a young woman of deep faith and steely resolve who voluntarily gave her body and life to God, mothered the Word made flesh, lived with the certain knowledge that his earthly life was doomed, and watched his crucifixion.
You do not have to ask her to pray for you, if that thought is foreign to your religious understanding. But I pray that, if you are grieving, the recollection of her, as you contemplate Jesus' birth, will bring you the grace to rejoice even in the face of certain sorrow.
May angels, like those the shepherds saw, guide you this Christmas, protecting your travels, watching over your celebration, and guiding your thoughts to God in the midst of whatever you experience during this holy time.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkess; and the darkness comprehended it not.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on this name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. - John 1:1-14
May God bless us, every one.
2 comments:
What warm and wonderful Christmas wishes and prayer. Bless you!
First, this was a beautiful post. Thanks for sharing! second, I came to say thanks for joining us in prayer for Sara this weekend. She is doing much better. God bless you!
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