Another revamped re-post.
Last December I mentioned several people who were hurting.
Denis had just been diagnosed with stomach cancer. His family will be having Christmas without him this year.
Linda was fighting ovarian cancer. She is still in the fight. She also lost her husband in October when he drowned while fishing.
This year my friend Kate is in the process of being re-staged for her Melanoma. They found a spot on her lung.
My friend Erin is in the hospital. She went in because she was pregnant and didn't feel right. They admitted her and a couple of days later she suffered a brain aneurysm. They had to take the baby three months early. Erin is recovering well. The baby, Riley, has several issues that will need to be surgically addressed. He's already had one surgery that I know of.
I have several friends experiencing broken marriages. Betrayal and rejection of the worst kind.
Not everyone will have a Merry Christmas.
"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Isaiah 53:4
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. 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 just been in your shoes; He's been in your feet.
