Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 53: 19)
It is New Year’s eve today. For many this has been a very painful year. So many lost their loved ones in 2020. So many lost their jobs this year. The year has been anything but joyful. It has been dismal, filled with grief, chaos, agony. Bleak, dismal, hopeless.
As I pondered the meaning of it all, while also battling my own challenges with health, I was reminded of what I wrote to encourage a few loved ones on Christmas- a message of finding hope in the most dismal of places- a smelly, dirty stable (see message below titled “The Upside Down Christmas Tree”)
Christmas is celebrated exactly a week before we usher in a new year. As I wondered why the Holy Spirit brought that to my mind, I felt Him lay this message in my heart: hope was born just a week ago! His birth ushered in a new year, a new beginning. His birth ushered in a ray of hope in hearts that were waiting in expectation for maaaaany years! The Israelites had to wait for a loooong time before the expected birth of Christ.
So why am I talking about Christ’s birth on New Year’s? Because I believe that it is not coincidence that we celebrate New Year’s a week after Christ’s birth! I believe God wants us to remember that the hope born to us is still alive and is on the throne. I believe God does not want us to forget past mercies, past victories, past laurels, how he has delivered us in the past. I believe God does not want us to think of Christmas and New Year in isolation but to see that His birth has ushered in a new and renewed hope that extends to beyond Christmas.
This year has been very heavy for most of us. Yet I believe that God wants us to remember the coming of His Son and to look to the year ahead with renewed hope in our hearts. To not be dismayed by what has happened in 2020. To not be discouraged by the tough times. To not be alarmed but to raise our voices, our songs and hearts to the One who is on the throne.
So on that short note, I would like to wish you a year that is filled with hope. A hope that does not disappoint.
BE HOPEFUL for the King of Kings is with us!
Behold He will make all things new!!
I don’t know about you, but my heart does a dance the more I think about this. And yes I can raise my voice with praise and thanksgiving in the midst of sorrow and despair for He can be trusted, His Word is true and His promises are everlasting.
AMEN and AMEN!!
Prayer
Heavenly Father as I embark on yet another year with my heart full of anxieties about the future, I ask that You will still my heart with Your message of hope. Help me to take hold of You and to take hold of the truth that whatever happens this year, I do not have to fear for You are my hope. My future is secure because You are with me. My life is secure because You hold me in the palm of Your hearts. I am not alone! In Jesus’ Name, amen.
PS: Here is the Christmas message I shared with a few friends. I pray it ministers to your hearts as well.
THE UPSIDE DOWN CHRISTMAS TREE
Last year around Christmas time I met with a dear friend of mine at this gorgeously decorated café with retro interiors. We found ourselves a cosy spot and perched ourselves on comfortably cushiony chairs. My eyes wandered around the room, taking in the conspicuous embellishments when my eyes caught this strange sight: right behind my friend was a beautifully decorated Christmas tree. It appeared to be suspended mid-air. Quite baffled, my eyes tried to locate the base of the tree and in the process followed it all the way up to the ceiling. It was firmly secured to the roof of the café!! A rather strange sight. My friend and I sat there admiring the creative genius of the café’s interior decorators. It appeared as if the tree was hung in this manner to disengage itself from the remaining decors that graced the café’s interiors. The tree was there but still not quite there.
Over the months that preceded and followed the rendezvous with my friend, I lost three people. Three young lives. Gone suddenly. Quite unexpectedly. Sooner than envisioned. All left without a chance to say goodbye. And I know of others that have lost a spouse, a son or a daughter, a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather…a loved one. As we approach Christmas, I find myself feeling anything but festive, for the season brings sadness and memories from the death of loved ones. It dawns on me that Christmas may no longer be a time of the year that many look forward to, particularly those lonely, broken and grieving. Perhaps you are one of them. Christmas brings back painful memories of cherished ones that have passed away. Or perhaps it reminds you of a broken relationship that did not last forever as you’d hoped. Or of a strained relationship with someone you were once close to. Perhaps this Christmas feels very much like that upside-down tree I saw at the café several months ago. Maybe your world is turned upside down. Maybe everything within you does not want to be festive and merry and cheerful. Maybe you would rather be invisible than be at the centre of the festive celebrations this season. So much like that upside-down Christmas tree…
The story of Christmas warms my heart: God chose for the Saviour of the world to be born in a humble, dirty, smelly place. A manger. To me this has such deep significance. While not all of us can relate to the world of royalty and a princely upbringing, each of us can relate to the dirty stable. We all have seasons in life that resemble the chaotic dishevel, the stench, the mess and disorderliness that a stable represents: the emotional mess of crying hot tears over a loved one’s untimely demise, the mess of being unemployed, of losing a child, of a divorce, of incurable sickness that just won’t go away… I love how Jesus, symbolic of renewed hope, was born into that very mess. It is as though God is saying to us through his birth: hey, I have this. I have your messy places. I understand your loneliness this season. I feel your pain over the loss of your loved one. I hear your sobs. I see your tears. And I am with you in that very mess. Right in the middle of it.
At the heart of Jesus’ birth in a humble stable is the message of hope. Of unending, unconditional love reaching down from Heaven to the depths of human grief and misery.
Whatever your reasons to relate to the upside-down Christmas tree this season, I urge you to take hold of the message of hope that Christmas stands for: Jesus is ‘Immanuel’. He is ‘God WITH us’.