~day by day~

Do you feel a little letdown after Christmas? Not disappointed, exactly, just a little... Lacking something needed, wanted or expected. I think maybe we ask too much of "Christmas." For one day a year, please let everything be perfect. Let our relatives be at peace; let our homes be filled with joy and free from discord; let our hearts be pure; let our lives be whatever they are not the rest of the year.

Sadly, it doesn't work that way. The relatives are just as they are the other days of the year. Our homes are filled with the anxiety of expectations. Our hearts are filled with the realization that a day on the calendar cannot make us pure. Our lives are left unchanged.

This season has been the saddest for me of any I can remember-- a little on a personal level but as well on a community level. I find myself surrounded by broken hearts, broken homes and broken lives. Abuse, suicide, drugs, infertility, broken vows, broken people. A world full of hurting people. I sat in church on Christmas eve, listening to the scriptures read, the songs sung and was smacked in the face by this thought..."what if that baby had never been born?" What would the picture of "that" life be? I have spent days meditating on this thought...what would it look like? I still am not sure I want to experience that picture...and yet I am intrigued.

For while one day on the calendar cannot magically transform our lives, the Baby in the manger can. Because of Him and His life, death and resurrection, we have the power to change. We have the same power available to us that raised Him from the dead. The same power that enabled Him to live a sinless life. The same power that healed the sick and and the lame and the blind and the deaf. The same power that conquered sin and death and the grave. He has given us everything we need for life and Godliness. We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord. He has the power to transform us, to make us something new and different and better. To make us like Him.


I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”