Hello my friends! I hope you are having a wonderful Holiday season! I have been having a wonderful but eye opening season. I really thought that I was level headed in my approach to Christmas. Put Christ first. That is exactly as it should be. This year I am learning that intellectual knowledge is vastly different from living out that simple truth.
Don’t get me wrong my family is very happy to honor Jesus first in this season as in the rest of the year. I think the problem crept up on me silently and with the coming of my children’s childhood. As they were encouraged into the hype of the season by…. well everyone and everything. I began adding more and more decor, and non Christ related items into our house during this time of year. I didn’t do it to push Jesus out but that is just what I did.
This year has been different for me. I believe that God knew I needed a shake up. This year we have been on the go almost all season. We have gone up to Ohio for a weekend. Then this past week and a half we were in Florida for my daughter’s Make a Wish trip. For those of you who do not know the Make a Wish foundation is a designed to help give a “wish” to a child with a terminal, life shortening or a chronic condition that interfers with their childhood.
With all this going on we have only a few items of decor up and the kids were the tree decorators this year. The house isn’t how I had planned it. I had planned out a snowman theme and bought some snowmen to spruce up the house. Now I plan to leave it this way.
While in Florida, as a northern, I struggled with the thought that it didn’t seem very Christmasy. The weather was warm and everything is so intense and entertainment motivated that Christmas just blended in. I was realizing that the glitz that so often accompanies Christmas was just show.
The Lord used this trip to show me His decorations and His joy of the season. As a Make a Wish family you get to stay at a special place called Give Kids the World. It is a specialized gated community designed for children with serious medical issues, helping them have the best time possible on their wishes. I talked with many families. I was blessed by meeting one lovely princess and her mother. This princess will be in Heaven soon unless God moves to heal her cancer. How beautiful her smile was. She was so tired she needed a wheelchair. She was happy to tell me God bless and Merry Christmas.
I met so many others with a sword of uncertainty hanging over their heads. Would their lovely child be taken by the illness they were fighting? Or was it just a matter of time, the battle was lost? Yet I found in many of these families a peace that spoke Loudly of the Lord.
When you are faced with a serious health problem. There is the decision that eventually happens. Will I blame God and pull away from Him or can I lean on God for strength to make it through this ordeal. Those that chose to lean on God are rewarded with peace, strength and the Lord making a good thing come from the bad.
Does that mean healing? Yes the soul is healed the body my not be. I struggled with this at first. Why can’t my child that is so sweet and nice and believing not be healed?!? The Lord walked this earth healing people. He did not heal them all, though he was perfectly capable of doing so. So why did some get healed and others not? Why are we left with so much sickness today that it seems like everyone has some problem?
I am not sure. I do know that the Lord is not whimsically choosing who to heal and not heal. Who to watch sicken and who to stay healthy. I am willing now to bow my head and accept that sin has corrupted us, soul as well as body. Illness is the natural outcome of that. God will not leave me or my children to the evil one. He will guide us, perhaps choose to heal us, watch over us, and at the right time call us to Him in heaven.
I may ache at times in my human heart. But my soul has peace. I cry, and I know that each tear is counted and the Lord is with me. My children laugh, and know that God hears them. We pray, and we speak directly to God about all things big or little. He cares.
Thank you God for your divine peace and strength! Thank you Lord for showing me the shining faces that decorate your life. Thank you Lord for sharing with me a glimpse of what you find precious, your people leaning and shining forth your light!
Would you like to learn to lean on God? It will bring more peace to you than any fancy decoration or gift you could buy for under your tree. The peace that you are trying to so desperately to hold together cannot be made by human hands. Face it friend we are just too weak and the unknown cannot be planned for.
If you want to talk more about the peace the Lord has shared with me comment or send me a message. You can also find us on Facebook just look to the left side for a box with a Facebook link and click on it.
Blessings to you all!