An unused nappy lies on the couch. A pair of sheepskin
slippers for a baby tumble together with various cars and toy animals on the
floor. Family beginning to come ‘home’ to the ‘hillock for the holidays.
The Mighty One has done great things for me, Mary sang. I
sing the same song.
For ten days we have struggled to get our central heating
fixed. Unfortunately, we had ‘O’Reilly’ (Fawlty Towers fans will understand)
out to fix it. Only because he was available, and we didn’t know. Now we know.
Yesterday we had a new man come who has got it going, though it isn’t
completely fixed yet.
Preparations for the family’s arrival in full swing, last
night the element in the main oven broke. At other times of the year, this
doesn’t matter. Don and I can get by. But with family, with a rare moment of
gathering together, with babies and toddlers, not to mention an outsized turkey
thawing for tomorrow, timing is not right.
The temptation is to ask, why us? Why now? We’ve had a
challenging year, so why not end 2019 with a challenge?
So, as Don heads to Aberdeen to try to find a new element
for an old oven, and we start talking through contingency plans, it is good to
read these words and hang with them, and let them hang with me. The Mighty One
has done great things for me. And as the angel assured Mary, ‘nothing is
impossible with God’.
In a day when folk are flooded and burnt out of their homes,
refugees are in peril on the roads and seas fleeing from violence, homeless
folk huddle in doorways and others struggle with pain and illness, a broken
oven is ‘small potatoes’. Whatever happens, we will manage.
It will be a memorable Christmas. What more does anyone want?
Whatever your Christmas is looking like, it is good to
reflect on the great things the Mighty One has done for you this year. It
restores perspective.
Grace and peace today and always, and may Immanuel reveal
himself in us more fully every day. Merry Christmas.
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