For weeks now I’ve been unable to write. I’ve just had nothing to say. With all that’s happened in the last year I, like so many of you, just felt worn out. Then, yesterday, I was given a wonderful gift, a reminder of all that is so good about life, a reason to write once more. Yesterday, our son Andrew and his wife Paige announced they are going to have a baby! I’m going to be a grandpa!
Up until now I’ve been kind of lukewarm on this whole grandparent thing. My wife was eager to become a grandmother, but I was okay either way. If it happened it happened, but if not that was alright too.
Yesterday that all changed. When Andrew and Paige made their announcement I felt such a sudden, overwhelming sense of joy, hope and love, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Now I can’t wait! It’s going to be a long 7 months, but what a wonderful day that will be when we get to hold our grandchild for the first time!
That’s what children do for us. They give us joy and love, but most of all they give us hope – and after the year we just had we all could use a little bit more of that!
Over 2000 years ago, God sent His one and only son to be born in a manager on a cold dark night in a stable. Leaving the glories of heaven and the adoration of untold numbers of angels, Jesus humbled himself, becoming a helpless child, to bring hope to a world without hope, to bring joy when all seemed lost, and to show us how much we are loved.
Now, as we leave the Christmas season behind and start looking forward to a new year, we do so with a sense of hope, hope given us in the gift of a child so long ago. Just as our family will be eagerly awaiting the birth of our first grandchild, so we all can look forward to the return of the Christ Child, now a conquering King, in the clouds of heaven some day very soon.
On that day it will not be just a few shepherds and a couple wise men who see Him. No, when Jesus returns “every eye shall see him…” (Revelation 1:7). On that day “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).
Oh, what a day that will be! What joy! What a reason for hope!
Hope – That’s why God gives us children – to give us hope. And that’s why He gave us His Child, to give us a hope that will never end. As 2020 thankfully comes to close and we look forward to 2021, let us do so with hope, hope in a child, a child born so long ago, who is coming back soon as our Savior and King! Won’t you accept Him as your Savior today?
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!