The hustle and bustle of Christmas is over. We’ve attended office
and neighborhood parties, bought and distributed presents, made the obligatory visits to friends and relatives, cooked and served food, stored the left-overs, and disposed
of the trash. If we are traditional, we will keep the tree and lights up until 12th
night on January 5th, but in most of our minds we are finished with Christmas and ready to shift our focus to the year ahead.
However, others are taking some painful and depressing memories into the New Year and are not quite ready or able to make that shift.
Some
of us started the year full of hope. We had plans and dreams but got blindsided along the way by betrayal, disillusionment and hurts. Others brought
our hardships into 2016 thinking that all would be resolved by now but that hasn't happened.
Among my own circle of friends and relatives there have been
job lay-offs, cancer diagnoses, and spousal abandonment, serious legal trouble
involving a child, sudden deaths, and a 10 year old boy living out the last
days of a terminal illness.
As a Nation, the US experienced the most acrimonious Presidential
election campaign in recent history which left winners and losers alike emotionally and
psychologically bloodied, battered, and scared. We came face to face with the very
worst of ourselves – we behaved badly, said things we didn’t know we were
capable of and thought worse.
In other parts of the world we watched helplessly the disastrous
impact of mass migration on hundreds of innocent men, women, and children displaced
by warfare, and unspeakable acts of violence and terrorism.
Add to this a number of natural disasters and yes, we can
say that for masses of people, 2016 was not a very good year....BUT we children of
God must not lose hope today, or for the future.
Let us not forget Jesus, the Christ Child, the real reason we celebrated
yesterday; gave gifts, feasted, and sacrificed to perform acts of kindness for
others in the midst of our own pain and suffering.
Let us not forget that that same Christ Child became
King of kings and LORD of lords; that we call Him *Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of
Peace; that the Father has given Him all power to govern in the earth with peace
and righteousness.*
Let us not forget that the Father Himself sent the Son to us to *bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, to release prisoners from darkness, and to comfort all who mourn.*
Let us not forget that although we *have strayed like sheep and turned away from God to our own way,* Jesus
Christ offered Himself to us as the Good Shepherd and gave His life to save us.
(John 10:11.)
**Isaiah 9, 53, 61
Continued...
Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, we worship and adore you the Good
Shepherd and Faithful Friend. Abba, some of us have suffered much and long but
help us to have no doubts that you are with us and for us. You are our comfort, the Rock on
which we stand. Thank you for being our Prince of Peace and our joy and our anchor
in the midst of the storms of life. Strengthen us to endure and to run the race
you have set before us to the end. We love you Lord. All dominion and power
belong to you for ever and ever; we pray and ask all things in the name of
Jesus. Amen.
Always by God’s Word and
prayer,
Cecile
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