beautiful feet

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: Isaiah 53:4

Sometimes it just seems like too much.

In the past two weeks, our small community has lost five teenagers.  Four of those to suicide.  An eighth grader from my daughter's school was buried yesterday.  He was hit by a car.

Today Angie Hunt is singing at her father's funeral.

Denis has stomach cancer and will have surgery on Monday.

Brenda is having a health crisis involving several new, serious diagnoses.

Sandy's husband was murdered a couple of weeks ago.

Linda is recovering from ovarian cancer and Judy from breast cancer.

These are examples just from my small frame of reference.  My little world has this much suffering.  So multiply it exponentially to get the bigger picture.  Not everyone will have a Merry Christmas.

Yet, Jesus is acquainted with our grief.  He knows pain and suffering.  

When one of my kids asked why I had a picture of a foot on my blog, I said, "Because it's Christmas and Jesus got feet."  He traded feet like bronze for feet of flesh.  Pudgy little feet with ten little piggies.  He stubbed his toes.  He stepped on splinters and stickers and rocks.  Nails were pounded into that flesh.

I know that during the thirty-three years that He wore those feet, he experienced grief and loss.  Joseph isn't mentioned in Jesus' adulthood, so obviously he died.  Jesus knows our pain.  We are never alone in our suffering.

If this Christmas is a difficult one for you, cling to the deeper truth of the Holiday.  Jesus put on flesh, suffered and died.  God came down to walk with us.  He walks with us still.  Forget the bells and tinsel, the egg nog and cookies and cling to the one who has walked where you walk.  He hasn't been in your shoes; He's been in your feet.