Not being in the situation it is hard to say how I might feel if it were a more personal issue to me or my family, but in spite of that it doesn't seem the right thing to me. I came across  a phrase over Christmas which was used to described Mary's attitude to the news that she would bear a child,  the writer suggested that to really know God we had to become  'humbly dependent'. 

That doesn't come easily to me as I always want to be proactive and make things happen, yet if I believe that nothing is impossible with God, how will I leave room for him to do wondrous things if I am always trying to control things.

My father lived with a crippling stroke for six years and my mum is currently in the dementia unit, neither of them having a dignified end to their lives, yet in the last part of their journey with all its hardships there are times and events, that looking back, I would not have chosen to miss; things which deepened our relationships, which brought us a sense of peace, miracles which did not change the situation ,but changed how I dealt with it and brought  me peace. Maybe at one of the hardest times of our lives, we have to learn to be humbly dependent, and let God in.

December 25

O Come All Ye Faithful

Joyful and triumphant,

O come ye, O come ye

to Bethlehem.

Come and behold Him,

Born the King of Angels;

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord.

O Sing, choirs of angels,

Sing in exultation,

Sing all that hear in heaven

God’s holy word.

Give to our Father glory in the

Highest;

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord.

All Hail! Lord, we greet Thee,

Born this happy morning,

O Jesus! For evermore be Thy name adored.

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

O come, let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord.

John Wade

December 24

The big questions which everyone would like an answer

to, which can change Christmas from something

commercial and a little bit empty to something beyond

our understanding and truly magical, are these.

Is it true? Was Jesus the son of God and did God send

him to earth? Does God exist? I was talking recently

with someone who had been exploring this question

and suggested that the idea of a leap of faith was

right, because it takes a huge jump from what we

know to be true to believe in something we have no proof of, something

that turns on its head all our knowledge and wisdom of what is possible.

I couldn’t agree more, that it is a leap, but crazy and inexplicable as it

may sound, I believe it – and it changes things, it changes this world and

my life and it makes it better. Maybe this year is the year to put aside

what we know and consider what we don’t know and can’t prove, to

take that leap and imagine the possibility of more. To let God disrupt

our universe, nothing can compare with it; it will take Christmas and

transform it.

Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea

Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and

still others, one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked.

“Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”

Mark 8 27-29

December 23

For some reason or other I have always been drawn

to the innkeeper’s part in the story of the nativity,

maybe because he had no idea the role he was playing,

how important he was going to be, just by going about his

own business.

There is a great Horrid Henry story I used to read the girls where Horrid

Henry tries to up his part by inviting Mary and Joseph into the Inn and

organising a great room for them with Internet and TV and anything

they could possible want. It can still make me laugh, but the innkeeper

does not have a starring role however much Henry might have wanted

it. He is ordinary, he has no name, I don’t even know if he is a he, but

just by being ordinary, by doing his job he brings events to a climax,

where scripture written centuries before comes true and Jesus is born

in the lowliest of places.

I like to think that I have a part to play, I am ordinary, I don’t have a

starring role, but maybe just by doing the ordinary things, that I do

best, God has a part for me, a purpose in his plan that I can’t begin to

know but which might just make a difference. As we go about the day

to day tasks we are doing right now, however tired we might be by this

stage, it’s a help to know God uses the ordinary things for his great

purpose.

“She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in strips of cloth and

laid him in a manger - there was no room for them to stay in the

inn.” Luke 2:7

The Day approaches. . .

December 22

I wonder around this day how Mary was feeling? I remember well the

last few days before the birth of my first baby, and the mixture of

excitement and fear, of wanting the baby to come but being a bit afraid

of how it was going to get here.

I definitely had a much easier time than Mary, I knew where the child

would be born, I knew I would be surrounded by the best expertise and

technology and I had so much preparation and information, yet this

poor girl, a child herself, travelled miles on the back of a donkey to

who knows where and for who knew what?

Yet Mary doesn’t seem at all concerned, in her simple faith she trusts

completely that all will be well no matter what circumstances are

happening around her. I sometimes long for such simple faith and am

saddened that with all our knowledge, with all our information we seem

to have lost the peace that comes from just believing.

We may not be visited by an angel this Christmas but we can read again

how down through the centuries God has carried out his plan sometimes

against impossible odds and maybe that will help us trust as Mary did.

“but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing

will be well.” Julian of Norwich

Perhaps because it is the darkest time of the year, much of the coming

of Jesus is associated with light. From the 21st December onwards our

days become imperceptibly longer, a turning point has been reached

and we are beginning, however slowly, to move back again towards the

light.

It is a hopeful feeling, a sense of having come through the darkness and

waiting for the months to come, and it is exactly this hope which

advent has been about, that hope which John describes as light coming

into the dark.

In a few months’ time the whole of nature will respond to this light,

buds will form, bulbs will send up shoots, trees will go into leaf. There

is much to look forward to.

December 20

One year someone gave me as a gift an Amaryllis bulb

which came with a pot and just needed planting up,

but sadly I put it in the garage meaning to do it later

and forgot all about it until the spring. When I found

it, it had started to grow and after eventually potting

it, in spite of its difficult start, it became a giant with

the most beautiful flowers.

In the same spirit, last Christmas I had a lovely pot of

cyclamen which after some months died off and

rather than throw it away, I stuck it in the garden and forgot about it

until this Autumn when I noticed under the hedge the deepest pink

flowers from this plant which had quietly grown without any help at all.

Both these plants were forgotten and yet produced the most magical

flowers, and while that isn’t much of an advert for my horticultural

skills I think it lets me know that God never forgets us, that even when

we think nothing is happening there is so much going on that we cannot

see. Instead of being discouraged that is when we just have to trust.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those

living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

Isaiah 9:2

On nature. . .

December 19

Quite rightly we don’t spend much time outside

at the moment, it is cold and dark and when we

leave the house in the dark and come home in

the dark our only desire to get in warmed up

and rest.

In our house the dog always needs to be walked

and how we all clamour to be the first to take

her - that last part is of course a lie, my

teenager regularly reminds us that she didn’t want a dog in the first

place, my youngest that she has been really busy and needs to rest, so

it falls to me most often to see she is walked.

In all honesty I never tire of it, there is always something to see, some

change in the hedgerow, something in the night sky, but what I love

most is the sense of perspective it gives. However bogged down I might

be getting, just by stepping out the door and looking up I am reminded

of how small I am and that no matter how frantically I run around,

God’s creation will still be here long after me - just as it was all here

before I came along.

I also love to think that under the ground, while we are far too busy to

notice, the bulbs and the roots are growing and strengthening, building

each day to burst forth again at the start of the year. Nothing has

stopped, God is still working out his purpose; sometimes in spite of us,

sometimes using us - and if we did absolutely nothing in terms of

Christmas preparation, the world would not end, the bulbs would still

bloom and the real message of Christmas would be every bit as

powerful.

For the evening when the meal goes wrong, the Christmas decorations

look like a disaster and you realise that you have forgotten to MOT the

car and the tax disc is up on New Year’s Eve (true story), my advice is

to take the dog out, whether you have one or not.