This Advent season was a time of contemplation for me, though I was outwardly busy with the usual buying of gifts, preparing for family gatherings, decking the halls and such…. From the first part of December forward, I had one line of thought running through my mind and heart. God empathizes with us; God sits with us in our sorrows and our struggles and completely understands all that we are experiencing.

Why and How? Because of Jesus coming and putting on our flesh, walking where we have walked, feeling hungry, having sadnesses and joys in his life, getting tired and having sore feet from walking all over Israel….everything that Jesus experienced as a man enabled God to fully understand us as humans. God has always been love as primarily who God is, but because of Jesus, God’s love for us grew even deeper. I keep thinking that maybe this is why the God of the Old Testament seems a bit different than the God of the New Testament….

My heart has been soothed in ways I never fully realized prior to this Christmas season. I want to encourage you to invite God to come sit with you in your hard human places and to let God love you there, to realize that God fully understands what you are dealing with as a human, God truly empathizes…. as our world has gone crazy with the chaos of Covid and climate change, and all the ways life has challenged us as humans, as a country, as individuals, in these last couple years….God gets it in ways we probably don’t even yet understand ourselves.

As 2022 begins and we end up the 12 days of Christmas with Epiphany on January 6, I hope for you to feel a new Light in your spirit as you let God into your world just a little further…. God’s love brings a Light that will shine for you in all your darknesses when all other lights have gone out. I pray that you feel God’s Presence and Light in all the times and seasons ahead in this year.

A Time for Everything – Ecclesiastes

3 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

⁹ What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet, no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.