Father, this has surely been a week of variety! Each day has held new experiences for me, at home and on my bus route. Thank You for Your stability in my life, and though nothing was totally crazy, I so appreciate Your guiding presence.
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I can’t help but look at where I find myself and think how different everything seems to be.
It is not like last year when we were in the middle of all the initial COVID shutdowns and mandates. School looked different. Church was limited, for our churches at least, to an online-only option. Holidays were local and limited. We had no interaction with family outside of our immediate area.
This year COVID is still impacting but in different ways. School interactions are not nearly as restrictive – just cautious. We are meeting in person and online for church. But this will be the second year in a row that we have not held an open house. (It has been our annual tradition to host people from both of our congregations with an evening of tasty food and wonderful fellowship in our home. We had done it for 17 straight years…until last year.) Other holiday traditions at our churches did not take place. There was no holiday dinner after Thanksgiving at the Beulah church, which meant, beyond our Advent wreath, we have no Christmas decorations up. One couple was kind enough to decorate the Liberty Chapel church, but we missed our usual Hanging of the Greens get together there with food and fellowship.
At this point where we live, we’ve had at least one or two decent snow events. This year so far, we’ve had one small one. It’s odd that really it has been pretty mild temperature-wise with a fair amount of rain. It’s not felt very festive for sure.
Our home is decorated for Christmas inside and out but just the other night I drove around our area a bit and saw a fair number of lit trees in people’s windows but very few have done much outside. Even the places I knew had set up outside décor were dark.
I’ve been listening to Christmas music at home since October (what can I say? I love it!) but have only caught bits and pieces of it when we’ve been out.
It’s just not been very “Christmassy” at least to our normal standards.
This past Sunday’s sermon was entitled, CELEBRATING THE SEASON WHATEVER YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES. I opened with a poem, No Christmas This Year. The last stanza read,
But if you lose Christmas when troubles befall,
You never have really had Christmas at all.
For once you have had it, it cannot depart
When you learn that true Christmas is Christ in your heart.
As I ponder what everything is like this year compared to years of the past, I realize that I need to adjust my perspective. Traditions and year-to-year occurrences are all well and good and I enjoy them so but not a single one of them changes what Christ did. He came and lived and accomplished His goal of offering Himself as a sacrifice for us all, for only blood would do. And He relinquished His all so that we might find salvation that we could not get any other way.
Lord Jesus, enable me to let this year be a year where You are enough. May I be grateful each day for Your gift to me. Amen.
Dec 16th, 2021, Thurs, 8:39 pm
