Hello friends!  I’m looking over some old writing and it’s fitting that this one pops up right after Christmas.

I had just started writing a blog in January of 2017. I had no idea that I would go to work the next Monday morning and be fired!

So, I needed to find some hope.

It just so happens that hope is all around! I found it in the many messages from friends back then who proclaimed that my treatment was most unfair and astonishing. I found it in my husband, who can infuriate me like no one else at times, but who was very loving when I told him the news. But those are all hopeful things outside of me.  Where can I find hope inside?

As it happened, I took my Christmas decorations down that day and wouldn’t you know it? I found all the hope I needed right there. It was in a tiny ornament that depicted only Mary and Joseph looking over their newborn son, Jesus. And then it hit me. If I can believe that a tiny baby can be sent from heaven for the sole purpose of my salvation, then I could easily believe that I would be alright!

I mean, think about it. This young woman – a girl, really – gets pregnant in a time when unmarried mothers were more than frowned upon. Her husband-to-be is visited by an angel and told to believe that this child is from God, not some other man. Then they trek to a faraway land – some 90 miles – only to find that there was no place to stay. Bet they wished they had Trivago!  And the day is soon upon them when Mary is going to give birth. What could they do?

And so the Christ child story is told. This baby would grow into a man who would face challenges and horrors that far outweigh losing a job! In the end, he would die. Yet he would live! And in that life he would secure our lives for eternity!

So friends, hope abounds!