Happy New Year 2025
(where life and the new year meet in tender ways)
It was the beginning of another year, it was January of 2024 and we were traveling to meet our newest grandson. His entrance into this world came much differently than any of us could have ever imagined… his parents and him were spending their days and even Christmas in the NICU instead of preparing for his coming arrival. Each of them battling a tender joy as they held his tiny body in their arms. They were the heroes of courage and he was their prize.
Joy is only attainable if you can find hope to hold onto in any and all circumstances.
Over the phone, their voices crack and tell the story of sleepless nights and the wonder of surprise and gratitude. My heart longs to fix things, but I can’t fix all the things. This was the message I kept hearing whispered into my ear but what I could fix was — my focus. And as I did, rather than rushing around trying to say the right things (which I fall short of so often) instead I hear of friends doing drive by drops of food and others sending texts and loving on our kids. The things that you can’t wrap and put under a tree but the beautiful gifts of God’s people showing up.
Over two thousand years ago, a baby came in the most unassuming way. His entrance wasn’t expected by most and was missed by many. He was the thrill of hope they longed for and yet he wasn't lying in a mansion but within the humility of a manger.
God doesn’t always show up in the way we’re expecting him, but he’s always there.
He came himself through a busted up family tree, not a lineage of perfection. From the prostitute, the liars and betrayers, the affair makers and takers and the ancestral brokenness — this was the family God chose to bring our Savior through.
You see, your family isn’t the only one that needs Jesus, even his own family needed him. God didn’t bring Jesus through a perfect lineage because he came for the imperfect and needy. He came for every one of us: the lonely, the mental health strugglers, those betrayed and the betrayers, for the abused and the abusers, for the cheaters and the ones who were cheated on, for all those grieving and for all the shame that tries to cover this kind of stuff up.
He chose to come for us all.
He came for all the messiness of this world. He doesn’t separate himself from the families that are too much. Those that others ignore, avoid or push aside — it’s the least of these he had in mind when he moved in to dwell with us. He moved in closer to restore and recover each one of us.
As we see our grandson for the first time, he’s home and healthy. His young parents sacrificed everything to bring him home. From his tiny feet to his beautiful blue eyes he’s everything we prayed for and so much more.
As we looked into his face and felt his beating heart we experienced what it means to let God work what we are tempted to fix. God moves into each one of our tender stories and messy family trees and he brings himself.
What is more tender than a baby to remind us who God is and that joy is always possible even in the most tender of places?
It’s Christmas Eve of 2024, a year has passed since this story happened and I’m standing in the foyer of our Church as an older gentleman grabs my shoulder and tells me it’s because of me that he’s there. He’s a sweet friend who had just lost his beautiful wife, and our dear friend. He tells me it was my pleading that got him out of the security of his home to church that night. He then pulled out his phone and shows me a photo of his darling grandchild that was born at the same time his wife died — the exchange of death for life. This is what God does. My friend excitingly told me that he would meet his grandchild on Christmas. His hurt even if it was for a moment was held in hope.
Jesus is always the hope to hold onto.
Even in these days of lament, pain or uncertainty may we find ourselves held by God, the giver of hope and eternal life.
Wherever you may be with your unspeakable brokenness — God is always there holding you with his hope-filled arms where your soul is safely held in his love.