Merry Christmas

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.

Squalls

At the moment, the sky is blue and the sun is out. From inside my comfortable living room, it looks like a nice day. But five minutes ago, the sky darkened and snowflakes flurried down, driven in waves by the arctic winds sweeping in from the north. 

Life is like this. Squalls. We’re humming along under blue skies, our lives fringed with minor distractions or anxieties. Then, suddenly, the sky darkens and we shiver in the cold north wind while icy snow stings our faces and melts into our clothing. Those minor distractions – or one or two of them – have suddenly exploded into major worries which draw all our waking thoughts into a maze of conjecture. We try to strategise, to make contingency plans in case something or other happens. 

It’s exhausting and pointless. 

Paul advises the Philippians, a city in modern-day Greece, not to worry about anything, but to give God thanks for everything and then tell him what we – or those we love – need. And the promise of God is that when we do that, he gives us peace. Peace that goes way beyond common sense in whatever situation we are in. Peace that makes no sense really, but which drives out fear.

My experience over decades of being a Christian has proven this to be true. Being a weak human being, though, I often need to re-learn truths I already know. 

Squalls will come. The sky will cloud. The arctic wind will drive the snow and the landscape will look bleak. But the Lord is with us. He is near. He guides our paths through these squally times, and then the sun comes out again. 

Praise God that he never leaves us alone, but always walks with us.