i'm going to take a few weeks break over Christmas holidays, to soak up the season and the extra people who are home.
before i break, i had to share these words from my favourite author, Ann Voskamp, so timely.
"Someone told me that this Advent has felt more like a Lent—a grieving.
You don’t have to close your eyes to see how the news has been screaming for months & we are all exhausted & bruised.
How in the world does a weary world rejoice?
We may not know why God doesn’t stop all the different kinds of suffering—but we definitely know it’s not because He’s indifferent.
God is so moved by our being entangled in suffering—that He moved Himself into our world & entangled Himself in the suffering with us. God with us.
God knows suffering.
He chose to be born in the middle of a genocide.
God knows suffering.
He chose to be born as a minority, a refugee.
God knows suffering.
He chose to come from a place where people said no good thing could come from.
God knows suffering.
He chose to be poor. He chose to absorb pain. He chose to be powerless.
God penetrates the ache of our world through the willing yes of a poor, unwed teen. In both the Incarnation & the Resurrection, God reveals Himself first to the dismissed & disregarded & dissed.
God chose the first witnesses to both His nativity, & to His nailed hands, to be the very people who suffered because they were regarded as suspect, small, sketchy.
Because the point is:
Christmas is the beginning of the end of all suffering.
“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.
The road’s been weary, but we can rest beside the road, beside the boarding gate, beside each other, & listen to how the angels sing.
Christmas says that everyone needed Christ to come down from heaven & carry every single one of us, every single step of the way back to heaven. Christmas says that we all need rescuing, we all need a Savior.
This is what His glory does—like a river, His glory in the highest runs down to meet us who are at our lowest, those left out in the field, those who’ve lost our flock, lost our way, lost our hope, His glory in the highest always runs down to meet us who are at our lowest.
This is what lets us sing like the angels do... even now."
so good, right?! (you know when people ask the question, "if you could have lunch with anyone in the world, who would it be?" my answer- always- "Ann Voskamp")
and who doesn't love an amazing version of O Holy Night?! this one by Carrie Underwood.
Merry Christmas!
