A weary world rejoices

I've never met her but I like Shannan Martin's blog.

After Thanksgiving she wrote this and it keeps rolling around in my head:

When I was a kid growing up in the country, I remember my dad teaching us that the best way to carry something heavy is to carry something equally heavy in the other hand. From personal experience, this applies to buckets of water, oversized suitcases, grocery bags filled with cans of Spaghettios, concrete blocks, and dense emotions.

Decades later, I remain a distracted and forgetful student of balance. Gratitude and sorrow aren't, as I once believed, mutually exclusive. They actually pair quite well together, one in each hand. 

The older I get, the more aware I am of sorrow; my own, people's I love, people's I don't know.  There is sorrow in the world.  I have friends who are newly widowed or newly divorced.  I know people whose children are far away (and not just on missions) both figuratively and literally.  I know people who are lonely or estranged or afraid.

The world feels like a weary place sometimes.  When I was growing up, Christmas just held so much magic.  It was a time of celebrating with abandon.  It would always be happy.  It would always be joyful.  It would always be.

Now I know better.  Christmas hasn't been picture perfect from the start when a baby was born into a world where some people were out to get Him.

I love listening to Christmas music, especially Bing Crosby singing sentimental favorites.  Those songs remind me that they were sung during World War II when the world was uncertain.  When people were sad and grieving and separated.

I couldn't agree more, "gratitude and sorrow...pair quite well together, one in each hand."

Because of Christmas, because a Savior was born to redeem a fallen world, we have a reason for hope.  We have repentance and forgiveness.  Death is not the dismal end.  We have a reason to believe in joy and light.  Our brokenness can be mended.

Without the sorrow, the birth of Jesus Christ wouldn't mean nearly as much.

O Holy night, the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior's birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Merry Christmas!