I haven’t posted in a while. And there’s a reason, actually. Someone very close to me is in the hospital and things don’t look too hopeful. It affected our Christmas, so only my immediate family was able to celebrate together. Very different from the kind of holiday I’ve known my whole life.
So I decided that I needed to get something out before the New Year that was slightly Christmas-y, and maybe New Year-ish, but also that this blog is about light and hope and I needed to talk about light and hope in relationship to Christmas. (Enjoy the picture of my church’s Christmas tree from the frigidly cold parking lot.) So I woke up early this morning to write something about Christmas hope or light or both for y’all.
But here’s the thing: I don’t always feel like talking about light or hope. Sometimes, they’re hard things to have.
Like this morning when the alarm clock went off and my room was dark, not light (and also 61 degrees according to my very* reliable alarm clock). And you know what I was hoping? I was hoping that if I went back to sleep I’d be able to get back into that interesting dream about Christmas trees and snow and Fancy Nancy and shaving cream. Or maybe learn lucid dreaming because someone told me it works pretty well if you wake up early and then go back to sleep. (Which is COOL but so helping my drive to get up in the morning. 😂)
I let the song on my electronic alarm play once and then groaningly moved to turn it off, still undecided whether I was about to drag myself to the chilly room with a risk of going into hypothermia or roll over in the very warm bed and go back to sleep. Because I knew I’d be mad at myself for going back to sleep but also LUCID DREAMING and WARM BED. I need to write a blog post about hope, I was also telling myself. What hope? I can’t think of any hope to write about right now. (Maybe how much I hope I can go back to sleep right now.) So when I touched the screen of my old iPod to shut off Steven Curtis Chapman (because who wants to listen to “Glorious Unfolding” repeatedly at 6 AM after doing so for 4 years?) I shocked myself. The li’l message on my alarm which normally contains such encouraging pieces of linguistic genius such as “TIME TO START YOUR DAY,” or “IF FRODO CAN GET THE RING TO MORDOR, YOU CAN GET UP,” or simply “GET UP,” said something different.
Here was my hope. The screen said, “JESUS LOVES YOU!!”
I shut off Steven Curtis Chapman mid-word and rocketed into the Antarctic wasteland for a sweatshirt, my heart pulsing with joy.
Because THAT, my friends, is what Christmas is all about. Christ’s love. A love SO strong that He left the complete perfection of life in the presence of the Father and ventured into the hostile, howling wasteland of a sinful world. And He lived in this sinful world for three decades without ever once taking on any of its sin and then died the worst death imaginable, a death literally designed to torture the person it was inflicted upon. And while He was on that cross there was so much love pouring from Him, despite the sin and shame dumped on His head and cleaving His heart in two. MY sin and MY shame. Even so, while He was on that cross, taking the punishment for my sin, suffering, dying, He was loving me. He would have done it all just for me.
Wow.
BUT THE STORY DOESN’T STOP THERE!!!! (If you need to pause reading and take a breath, you have my full permission to do so. My heart just filled with so much joy it might burst.) THE PERFECT SON OF GOD DIED. FOR ME. YES. BUT THEN HE CONQUERED DEATH! Just stop to think about it. One moment He’s lying there, lifeless and dead. The next moment He’s the living, breathing, still. perfect. Son of Man.
Every year, my church holds a Lessons and Carols Christmas Eve service. While it’s HARD to pick a favorite lesson, the one that always makes me sigh and close my eyes and just treasure the words going down is the Fourth Lesson from Isaiah 11:1-10. Go read it and just glory in the words. I love the whole passage. But the part that I’m thinking of now is verses 9-10.
“They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.”
They shall not hurt. They shall not destroy. ANYWHERE. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. Everyone will know Jesus.
And Jesus, the root of Jesse. He will stand. His resting place will be glorious. That’s heaven. Heaven will be glorious.
Jesus, the light of the world, came to this earth. He lived, he died, he rose. AND HE’S GOING TO COME GET US! HE’S GOING TO BRING US TO HEAVEN, TO A GLORIOUS PLACE! A place where the lion will lay down with the lamb.
What other hope is there than that? ‘Cause you know what? The world may be a howling wasteland. Things might be tough. You might, like me, be lowkey dreading what the New Year holds. But all of that melts into insignificance before one fact: Jesus loves you. And He’s going to come get you. It’s not the end of the story. What better hope is there than that?
*Actually, reliability is questioned. What does the thermostat say? What does a real thermometer say? Because my very reliable clock has said before that it was colder in my bedroom than it was at that moment in modern-day Avonlea.
This is beautiful Ella Rose! It was so fun and inspiring to read and you write so well! Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you so much! 🤗 I’m glad you think so.
Thank you for this beautiful post! I love how your love of God pours through your writing.
~Ella D
That is the sweetest! Thank you so very much. 💕🤗
Ella! Oh wow! This is so beautiful and moving! Thank you for reminding me! I will be praying for you! <3 <3 <3 <3
Thank you. ❣️
Thanks for this reminder, Ella Em!❤️
Also, I need an alarm clock like that! One that not only serenades you out of sleep but gives you encouraging messages!? What more could you want? 😂
LOL!! It’s my really old iPod touch, actually. The battery life is nonexistent so it only works for alarm clockage. 😂