Christmas Past/ Christmas Future
I think that fact that it is Christmas is finally catching up with me. I am remembering all the memories of past Christmases AJ and I shared. These memories are all so joyous. Then I realize that my memories of this coming Christmas and future Christmases will not have AJ in them and it breaks my heart. All the glitz of the holiday is starting to fade now under this realization.
The past two days were two of my hardest days yet. I have gotten all my Christmas shopping done so now that is no longer a distraction. I cried a lot on Thursday. Yesterday there wasn't a lot of tears but just and indescribable overwhelming heaviness inside my spirit. The only other time I have felt anything like this in my life was the day before the accident happened. That day I tried to shrug it off and ignore it. Now I realize why I was feeling as I did. I guess yesterday was just a glimpse at how the spirit of God inside of me is suffering over this too.
It is comforting to me to know that God is grieved by this catastrophic loss in my life. I know that He is suffering because of my suffering. I know that He wants to comfort me and He is in so many amazing ways. God truley is amazing. He is my comforter. He is my stronghold. He is my strength.
I am choosing to fix my eyes on this joy that is set before me in Chirst. With this I am choosing to continue to walk down the Highway of Holiness that is described in Isaiah 35. Carl was talking to me last night about how Jesus told John the Baptist that John was going to suffer but that he would continue to remain on the highway of holiness and that God would bring an end to his suffering. That is when Jesus challenged him to fix his eyes on the joy that is set before him.
Jesus is my joy. Jesus is that joy that is set before me and I am going to walk down this road with my eyes affixed on Him, firmly. If I don't have this hope and this view of the Joy, which is Jesus and life with Him then I have nothing. I might as well dig a hole in the ground and live there the rest of my life. But no, I do have this hope and joy.
I will walk and I will be victorious. Apart from Christ I am nothing, but with Him nothing is impossible. I have Him with me and He will never leave me, that is guarenteed to me. The same is yours if you have chosen it. We can choose to walk on the Highway of Holiness, it is up to us.
AJ truley dwelt there and walked down that road, it was evident in how he lived his life. He had his eyes fixed on the joy set before him. Like Paul, AJ had learned to be quite content whatever his circumstances. He was just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. He found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever he had, wherever he was, He knew he could make it through anything in the One who made him who he was. (Phillipians 4:12-13, the Message) That is how I want to live. That is how I challenge you to live.
posted by Kellie # 10:15 AM
