One moment at a time...

This Christmas is hard. For so many reasons...

I just found out my dad has been diagnosed with cancer again. My world was devastated for a moment. For a moment I imagined the worst and fell apart. But then I remembered...things have been hard for a while. Not just in my life - in this world. And though I live in this world, I do not operate as the world would have me to. I am a child of God. My heart is protected and filled in an unending deluge of love that causes me to overflow to others. Not just love - but hope. And though hope seems to be thin at this time, the reality is that it is not.

The Connecticut shootings and all of those babies being killed is rending hearts everywhere. Whenever I think of those parents and put myself in their place I fall apart...for a moment.

The life I live is on a moment by moment basis. If I have learned anything the last several years, it is that we have grace aplenty for the moment. What draws us to the next moment is the living hope we have in Christ...

I Peter 1:
³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you...

This world is a broken cup. It does not function as it was initially intended. Quite honestly - the United States is still one of the most blessed places to live - in spite of all of the ick. There are these types of horrors going on in other places, everyday, to others babies and yet we are so surprised when it happens to ours. We take so much for granted.

But this is not surprising - or shouldn't be. We live in a world that is groaning...in pain as it waits.

Romans 8:

¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

All of this to say...my endurance is spurred by hope and that hope lies in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it all started with a young girl who gave birth to a child who is the Messiah - what fellow believers are celebrating this season and where this hope springs from.

And though I don't know what to pray for sometimes, I am so overwhelmed and despondent, I can know that God knows my heart. I must take the next step - for the next moment is full of hope and God will complete the work he has started...both in us and this broken world. So until he returns, I must seek the face of God, help where needed, love others well, and rest when I am tired then get up and start over again .

Because...

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6