It's the wee hours of Christmas morning and my eyes can't find sleep. Throughout the day I have had waves of overwhelming emotion when I would consider where we are this year. Earlier today I whispered to Mark, "I hope I don't cry all day!" I didn't cry the WHOLE day and when I did, I tried to keep it private, but sometimes it's hard to keep in a heart overflowing with gratitude. As we drove to Mark's parents earlier today I looked back and saw FIVE faces looking back at me and it took my breath away. I simply said, "Who is glad Tyson is here for Christmas this year and forever and ever?" Everyone's hands flew up. The hand that brought tears was when I looked back and saw his raised high in the air accompanied by a smile from ear to ear.
As we press into this day, I am reminded of those still waiting, some for adoption, some for relational healing, some for a spouse, others for a baby after years of infertility. Then, I think about our friends (family) who are several hours post-op with their mom after brain surgery for an aneurysm or others who know they are likely facing their last Christmas with a loved one. Still others are walking into their very first Christmas without their mom, dad, sibling, spouse, or child. It all feels conflicting and hard to sort through with eyes focused on the flesh. Through the lens of my own circumstances, this is the best Christmas I have had in at least 6 years. Yet, so many we love are hurting and feeling the weight of their own "thing" this Christmas. How on earth can we reconcile it all? I asked Holy Spirit to help me understand how to navigate it, confessing that I felt like I have been on an emotional seesaw the last few weeks with a relentless kid far bigger than me on the other end. Just like a Gentle Father, He led me to His answer as I was doing my quiet time a few days ago. I have been really jumping into First and Second Peter for several weeks and right there in black and white just minutes after praying for clarity as I read and confessing my pendulum of emotions, 1 Peter 1:3 jumped off the pages at me:
Praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us a new birth into living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
A LIVING HOPE. My eyes filled with tears because I knew He was teaching me something. I knew He was answering. In His great mercy, He gave us the opportunity to have a new birth because Jesus was born. He wasn't just born, but born to die. In His dying and resurrection, the gates of heaven were opened to all mankind. Yet, none of it was possible without the birth of the Chosen One, our Messiah. This past Wednesday night Mark said it like this, "Lying in the manger this baby was grasping his greatest title in his tiny hand: Savior." Hope was born.
A living hope...one that redeems, restores, renews. This reality doesn't change any of our circumstances, whether good or bad. What it does, however, is change US. This Babe in the manger gives us the opportunity to view the temporal with a new lens. We are able to stand back and gain a broader picture, one that outlasts us. This tiny baby boy burst onto the scene and with His first cry, all of humanity was impacted for all eternity. His impact was profound because for the shepherds who had no hope, HOPE WAS BORN. For the parents who had endured ridicule, gossip, and inevitable stares, HOPE WAS BORN. For the magi who were likely more curious about the new constellation than its catalyst, HOPE WAS BORN. For each of us, in our waits, in our victories, in our grief, and in our fears, HOPE WAS BORN.
So, as I meditate on the day in the stillness of night, I am weepy with the realization that HOPE has been here all along, through the last 6 Christmas's. As Mark and I drove home tonight and discussed what we had done last year, all I could remember was being on the verge of tears through a Christmas Eve Service and while visiting family afterwards. Grief is my memory. Immediately when the words came off my lips, I sensed Holy Spirit nudging me to truth, a verse I've had memorized for years (Psalm 30: 11-12):
You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!
Here's the thing.... we want the joyful dancing without the mourning. However, we don't know joyful dancing unless we have endured the mourning. To be able to exchange mourning clothes for clothes of joy is a gift! This gift is only possible because of Jesus. Hope was born. Remember my personal study has had me in 1 & 2 Peter? Well, wouldn't you know, right there in those pages, God confirmed (again) His offer of hope in 1 Peter 5. He just lets us know from the outset that we must humble ourselves under the authority of God (surrender is hard!), cast our anxieties on Him, be onto the schemes of our adversary (the devil), resist temptation, stand firm in your faith and do all of this WHILE SUFFERING. Then, HOPE comes in verse 10:
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
So, it comes with great personal responsibility, but an even greater promise: when we endure suffering for His name's sake, and do it with endurance and faith, God will HIMSELF raise you up, establish you. I find the word "confirm" so powerful. He will confirm for you that He is true, trustworthy, and I don't know if it is what He meant here, but I can't help but think it. As I continue to learn about Tyson's life before we knew him, I am more and more in awe of the power of God. He set people and circumstances in Tyson's path that were so strategic in order to prepare him for our family. For me, this has been so confirming. I am mindful of the "mourning" and "suffering" days where nothing made sense. I was full of questions and frustrations most of the time, but desperately longed to trust Him more than what my eyes could see. Here, in the present, He is confirming that way back in those days and years, He was working and preparing so that in these days He could restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish.
As Christmas music quietly plays off to my left and 5 children sleep (all in one room tonight) to my right, I am at peace with this: we are all desperate for HOPE. Whether still in the tunnel of the unknown, waiting for answers, grieving losses, or fearful of what appear to be grim inevitable circumstances, we all need HOPE. And, in all His splendor and all His Humility, HOPE WAS BORN. THIS IS THE GOOD NEWS. In confidence, I can text my friend with a dying grandson or my friend who is childless (still) or my celebrating "sister" who has babies this year she didn't have last year and say: HALLELUJAH! HOPE WAS BORN.
Hope allows us to look to the future with a new expectation, one full of promise, regardless of what today looks like. So, as we wake (or stay awake) and the Christ-child's birthday begins, let us celebrate Him with every ounce of our being, because we no longer have to depend on our circumstances to find our hope. We simply have to find our way to a lowly feeding trough and find Him there in strips of linen, grasping his greatest title in his tiny hand: Savior.
HOPE WAS BORN.
Merry Christmas!
Carrie
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