encouragement for the journey
When the angel first appears to Mary her first reaction is not joy! In fact, one version of the account in Luke says she was “greatly troubled” and another says she was “thoroughly shaken.”
The angel has to reassure her and tell her “not to be afraid.”
In fact, the reaction from Mary followed this pattern: fear, questions, and then acceptance.
Continue reading “In the Waiting: Find strength in joy”
‘One day to go’, so says the Christmas countdown that my youngest has been turning over religiously each morning. One day before the noise, and the mayhem, and the laughter, and the arguments, and the tears.
Because Christmas does not magically make us exempt from those things. It is a day just like any other, and we are just as human at Christmas as on any other day.
“It is a time of hope and good cheer, to last throughout the year”. Or so it seems as the Christmas tunes on constant replay meld themselves together in my head.
But what if you are feeling anything but cheery? What if this year has been pure hard slog from day one and it never let up? What if you have forgotten how to hope?
I dropped the girls at school, and sighed deeply. It had been a morning of tears, and grumpiness. I felt I had gone ten rounds of emotional battle before 9am, (and lost most of them).
I was weary and teary, but I rushed home and got things ready for the trip to Rockingham. I called my Mum as I drove, and then I called my best friend. Talking the whole trip down.
It wasn’t until I sat down at the table, and the timer was set for the ‘Shut up and write’, that I suddenly realised how worn out I was. Emotionally I have been holding my family together. But not even thinking about me.
I was talking with a good friend the other day, and she mentioned that what she remembers most in friendships is the things that take time. The beautiful handwritten card from one friend, another friend sitting with her at the hospital while her son had tests, another baking homemade banana bread every time they caught up.
I drove away from her place pondering this idea, the idea that things that take time, things that are slower often are the things that are more meaningful.
But we are coming up to Christmas, and I don’t know if it’s just me but has the Christmas madness started earlier this year?
Are people already too frantic to exchange pleasantries at the checkout? Are they already too frazzled to drive carefully in the car park?
This year I am craving a slow Christmas: a Christmas of intention and connection; a Christmas of being, not consuming; a Christmas of reflection and not hustle.
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
This often quoted passage from Isaiah foretells the birth of Jesus, calling him the Prince of Peace.
We only have to glimpse the headlines of the news today to see a world of hunger and need, war and death, terror and tragedy.
