Merry Christmas

Christmas keeps my perspective. I enjoy hanging out with my boys as we celebrate the birth of our Savior and just goofing off around the house after opening presents. But this year, the season has brought a different challenge for me. I’m working through the continued struggles of my suffering.

My biggest surprise related to my grief, by far, is how intense the pain can still be after 3 years. It’s a different kind of pain with a different kind of weight. So as I cry and pray through it, I immerse myself in the Word and look for a deeper understanding. I’m simply not content with the expression “it is what it is.”

God has entrusted me with this pain, therefore, He has something He wants me to learn from it. And I have learned a lot thus far. But I long to go deeper and crave a greater wisdom from my Lord. The other night as I crawled into bed, after a particularly difficult day, God spoke to me through Colossians 1:24. Paul felt privileged to “fill up my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions…” I meditated on this passage and read from Matthew Henry’s commentary where he said that “we do but slightly taste the cup of afflictions of which Christ first drank deeply.”

So I know that must take up my cross after the pattern of Jesus and carry it obediently and joyfully. Period. I have to work on this…I try, but quite often fail in this regard. But what better example can I be to others if I do not let the weight of my burden crush me? Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9...“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

So I must continue to live by what I know and not by how I feel. The pain can be debilitating at times and can make me respond totally outside my character. But then I breathe deeply and remember Who lives inside me and from where I get all my strength. And quite often I’m running on strength that is not my own.

I am so very thankful that God sent His Son to die on my behalf. He paved the way for me to stay eternally-focused and remember that my suffering is nothing compared to Christ’s and besides, this world is not my home…I’m just a passin’ through.

May God give you His peace on this wonderful and blessed day as we celebrate our Lord coming down out of His glory to become one of us. “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.”(2 Corinthians 9:15)