Ok, so the journey is long, the steps are difficult and the end just doesn’t seem to be in view. Don’t we just trudge along sometimes with head down and heart heavy and steps weary?
I can only imagine a couple that did the same as they journeyed to Bethlehem for their government duties with taxes to pay and deadlines to meet and bones just as weary as ours! Yet with strength waning and with great apprehension amidst simple trust, nagging deep within their souls ~ they made their way.
Yeah, Joseph the obedient through thick and thin, and Mary ~ heavy with child; the Savior of the World, experiencing events so complex and hard to comprehend they made their way ~ just because it was God’s plan and they were a part of it. Sometimes His plans are not easy, but it was a beautiful plan, a plan for saving the world and it had to be and it had to be just “precise” in its timing and just perfect right down to the final straw.
No room, and all alone ~ but no! Not alone! Not even for a second, because God was guiding every lonely step of the way, even through their weariness. So beautiful, weary you with soul heavy, and heart-aching know that your steps are ordered by this same sovereign God that led the weary couple to Bethlehem! He directs with events so perfectly timed that we could never figure them out. He unravels the mess, the complications, the unanswered questions, the apprehension, and the fear laid right outright in heaps at your feet when you feel like throwing in the towel.
So don’t do it! He’s got it; whatever it is that has you bound in worry, so don’t give up! Mary went through what she went through for the ultimate purpose of delivering Christ to the world and presented us with a Savior and yeah, a beautiful example for us.
So, our purpose in this life is to do the same through our struggles and our situations! Whatever difficulty is heavy on your plate this advent season, let God lead you through it with precision as you deliver Christ to a needy world, through your faith and trust and joy even in the difficult.
Luke 1:35, 37
“The angel replied, ” The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy and He will be called the Son Of God…For nothing is impossible with God.”
So what do we do in the silences now, after the Christmas scurry is hushed? It’s been different this year, so crazy, different and it might not seem like it was Christmas at all. It could have been so ‘over-the-top’ busy with schedules, shopping, programs, plans, preparation, cooking, caring, baking, bringing, wrapping, and decorating that we hardly had time to breathe, let alone take it all in. Ahh, but it probably wasn’t that way at all. It was most likely a more hushed season, spent alone without family or friends, questioning, wondering and waiting in the shadows of what’s to come. No matter what it was it’s come and gone!
So now it’s over and done for another year. Now it’s time to put Christmas back into the boxes of tradition for safekeeping. Yeah, we’ll do that ~ all of us, some sooner than later, but it will all get packed up once more and stuffed into boxes, closets and attics, garages and spare rooms. We’ll clear the clutter and some kind of ‘Normal’ for us will surface once again. Yeah, we will, we’ll put Christmas away but, let’s take care to not pack it away too tightly ~ out of sight, out of mind. Before we pack breakables into boxes and stuff boxes into corners, let’s tuck Christmas away into our ‘daily’ world through warm memories of a Christmas past; the Christmas of all the years we’ve had to spend with those near and dear to us without the threat of COVID’s icy fingers nipping at our heels. Let’s wrap those memories up snugly and tuck them into our hearts for some of the rainy, snowy days that are sure to lie ahead.
Those days when “alone” creeps in and the sun doesn’t shine and the head hurts, the heart hurts, and the soul aches and difficulties are very much there, glaring into our faces. Ahh, the memories of a sweet Christmas past, the reason for our celebration with family and friends and that Saviour of the world whose birth we celebrate all need to be packed fondly into our souls with extra special care because they’re so fragile, so breakable, and we are all so needy for the love they represent. So cherish the treasure of Christmas past! Cherish the warmth and the love that lives on because you choose to hold it in your heart forever and ever and it makes no difference that no one is there! It doesn’t matter then, that not one soul is around, because you’ve made a choice to hold that joy that was, close, and now on a rainy day, it’s still there in the hushed silences of the Christmas scurry when Christmas is over and put away. Yeah, when Christmas is over, and the new year begins, Our Saviour still reigns with a love that still lives on! Still loves, still cares, still protects and still brings Hope even in “Alone.” Nothing can change that. Not anything! Not ever!
It’s a perfect love story, isn’t it? The kind of love that reaches to where we are, and loves us lavishly in spite of ourselves. A love that accompanies an incomprehensible grace, that doesn’t leave us where it finds us. Oh how sweet it is, this Agape love; so kind, so compassionate, so unconditional, so amazing, so extensive, so inclusive, so across the board, so accepting and so embracing and beautiful one, we sit so unworthy and yet so worthy in the name of Jesus, because God loved us while we were yet sinners. It’s a heavenly and divine love story! For the believer, one of those kinds of stories with a happily-ever-after ending because of our hope of glory and life eternal! Its measure is vast and its value is priceless!
So, in all you have to do on this last day of our Advent journey, through all the preparation, through all the hurt, or sadness or disappointment, He whispers, “I’ll love you through it and together we can do this!” 
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 