12/24/2025
Christmas is here. It may bring joy for you as you celebrate and enjoy friends and family gatherings with newfound sobriety. It may also bring challenges as a host of feelings rise with memories from the past. And, for some, the holidays are not full of joy. Relationships may not have been restored yet, regret or sadness can be unwanted guests at the table.
The world's news events continue to remind us that humanity struggles under the pressures of hostility, power struggles, cruelty and poverty. Where can we find hope?
Jesus was born into a world full of political oppression, poverty and racism. The angel announcing his birth didn't come to the elite, the ones in power. He came to the shepherds; the simple folk, the marginalized and the powerless. And when they heard the message that the messiah had been born, they ran to see him and rejoiced. And then they spread the word to everyone.
The message to us today is the same one:
Find joy! Not in your circumstances, not in your achievements, not in the externals of life. But in the fact that your Creator knows you, loves you and sent his son to earth to prove that love. Find hope! You are not alone, and your life matters. You are a one-of-a-kind masterpiece with gifts and talents placed in you for a divine purpose.
Find peace! May the Prince of Peace quiet the storms both around you and inside of you this Christmas.
May you know the true message this Christmas: Immanuel! God is with us and within us!