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This Gift of Christmas: You Have A Family!
Published 8 days ago • 3 min read
Write Your Life Forward" Christmas Edition!
Edition 49
Today's Reading: Isaiah 11:1-10, John 3
Where Are You From?
Reach the beginning of time --- and you reach the very heart of God.
Touch what's at the core, peel away every layer, culling all that clutter --- and you find yourself close to the thrumming heartbeat of God.
His heart beats for you.
His love longs for you.
Here at Advent? --- He's reaching out to you, reminding you:
What’s messing you up right now isn’t what matters.
What matters is that nothing can mess you out of the depth of His love.
Nothing can take you out of the hold of His hands, or the firm assurance of His hope.
Neither death nor diagnoses, disappointments nor grief, neither the past, nor the present, not even your future failures can keep you away from the ocean of His love.
Watch for His waves of mercy breaking towards you, His gifts of grace coming just for you.
This Christmas, God gives God.
He gives Himself for you.
Unravelling Your Root
The Christmas narrative starts with the promise of a prophecy fulfilled:
"Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot—
yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.
And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord."
(Isaiah 11: 1-2 NLT)
In the wasteland of shattered dreams, Jesse's family appeared like a broken tree stump— filled with feuds, failures, and fatalities; a seemingly dead family line.
In the darkness of times, even with a seemingly shattered future, God breathes life into what seems like a deadened tree. He keeps the root robust and makes His own promise bloom.
From Jesse's stump springs the Messiah; the hope of all. He is destined to be a different kind of king, filled with wisdom and strength.
What appeared as losses and darkness led to the fulfilment of a divine promise.
This root leads to a new family line, embracing and welcoming all of us who believe.
We can become adopted into God's family, and born again not by human will but by the Holy Spirit (John 3:7-8).
Through this adoption, we become grafted into the family of God, sharing the same root of Jesse.
So here's a love story that reaches far, rescues deep, and restores you right back to Him.
Jesus gives us what we are all desperate for, but not realize we needed --- Christmas.
So you can know you have forever a family in Him. That you have a root, and You belong to Him.
From Creation to the Creche, He who incarnates Himself longs to ink salvation into our fallenness.
And in finding yourself through finding His love —- you find the gift of love that never ends, never stops, and never ever will fail you.
Rewrite Your Family Story
In your life's journey, where have you felt the deepest cuts? How has your family history etched an enduring ache in you? Family of origin issues often surface in the therapy room.
Our present is heavily impacted by the weight of our past.
And we all know it. No matter how we want to deny it, our past shapes us; childhood wounds sometimes linger long, and we find ourselves running to defy the odds, pushing to prove ourselves otherwise, and striving to stake our claims.
Yet, until processed and resolved, until they find a remedy for a greater purpose, these narratives often breed fear and insecurity, and they colour everything we do.
Christmas offers us a different narrative: the gift liberating us from the burdens of our roots through the adjoining unto a different Root.
His humble humanity and meagre arrival make Him one of us so that He can save all of us.
Are you here for the first time? Come in, Friend! We are a community seeking change, breaking free from what's holding us back, and rewriting our lives forward. We do this by studying our life story in the light of God's love story. A change in narrative and a shift in perspective can go a long and beautiful way. If you're new or haven't followed our community updates, you can catch up on our previous editions and join us by clickinghere.
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Welcome! So glad you're here! I'm here to serve and help your heart and home flourish. Let's get unstuck by finding your story in God's story one single step at a time!
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