Faithbase

Hey, y'all. So really quickly, I am in addition to being a seminary student and TA, I also love doing woodworking and home DIY projects and furniture refurbishing. So I'm going to bring you along on that journey with me as I share another little journey with you that kind of came to mind as I was just sitting here painting. So I have recently shared with my community group that while I know logically know the story of Christmas, the importance of Christmas, the the epiphany and how it all translated to Jesus as the fulfillment of so much in the Old Testament. I know all of that, but when it comes to feeling it when I when I think of feeling the spirit of Christmas time, I get way more feels and cozy warm thoughts at a Hallmark Christmas movie than I do reading the Bible of this story and I told my community group that I want to feel it. I want to have that like, wow, I'm just so thankful for Christmas because that means Jesus came. I want to feel that not just know it and make Christmas. I feel like that is going to help me make Christmas a lot more meaningful this year. So in that struggle just said it kind of went on about, you know, all of our business and then our community group was also the women have like a separate text message that we just kind of, you know, text stuff everything from prayer request and needs to recipes and hey, here's a funny name that we should just do back and forth. And so one of the things that one of us was praying about was somebody that she knew really well was going through a very particular form of cancer and had a lot of screenings and tests and stuff like that coming up. And so she said, you know, just prayers for that and peace and not understanding a lot of it and all that. Well, then come to find out well, we had already known this but the particular form of cancer that this person was praying over was the particular form of cancer that another woman in the Bible study had just walked through with someone extremely close to her. She had first-hand knowledge and experience of the exact issue that her friend was having. So she reaches out. She talked they talk about it and the first friend who was struggling was like, I can't tell you how much that means to have somebody who just gets this exact thing. And I think back to times in my life when I've had struggles and you know, if I was struggling with anxiety and somebody came to me and said, hey, you know, well, I had a cousin's friend who they had anxiety and they went to this and they did this and they took this. So yeah, that meant a lot but not as much as somebody who came to me and said, yeah, I walked that road too. That is a very different connection than I'm here and I love you and I'm so sorry, but I don't really know what it feels like. And so then this morning I'm sitting there on my quiet time and I end up in Hebrews and we read just I mean, it wasn't even the point of the Bible study, but it was basically it's a verse in there that says that Jesus came in and suffered what we suffer and it clicked for me. We celebrate Christmas. We celebrate Easter. I get that like he rose again from the dead. He died for our sins. I feel that selfishly because I get something out of it, right? But Christmas it's like it's like the beginning of a story like okay cool. This is about to happen. I didn't have the feels for what that meant his coming is just as important as him leaving and ascending his coming means that he can look us in the eye and say that I became man so that whatever hardship struggle trial trauma you go through I can look at you in the eye and hold you and say I get it. I have been there and I'm going to take all of that bad away for eternity with the sacrifice. But if you'll let me you're going to have trouble in this world. It is not going to be great. It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be wonderful. But if you come to me in the present in the right now, I can't take it away, but I can give you a comfort that no one else nothing else in the entire world can give you. Now that is we're celebrating at Christmas.