A gift to me

tonight,  there was a small group of us who went out and sang some christmas carols with/to a couple of our fellow north pointers.   susan is in the midst of her most recent hospital confinement…this one is going on three months and when she can go home is still a mystery.   joan is enduring a long recuperation at home after open-heart surgery.

both are improving.   both are women of deep faith and confidence in the god of bigger pictures.

we all left them inspired and encouraged.   it was short,  but it was real koinonia…the sharing of common life.

here’s what i came away with,  tho.   both susan and joan sang the songs.   i mean they sang the songs.

neither of them have shared life with our church family on sunday mornings in months.   they have missed the joy of seeing familiar faces and joining their voices with family friends to sing of the greatness of god.   they have missed the mutual encouragement that can only found when the body of christ is together.

as they sang,  i could see that their hearts were full.   and when they sang the words,  they believed them.

christmas carols in our culture have been sucked of their meaning.   joy to the world as background music to beer commercials.   o holy night as part of the movie sound tracks for brainless,  sophomoric films.   o come,  o come emmanuel playing over the loudspeakers in malls,  the great temples of holiday opulence.

don’t shoot me,  but i even saw a victoria’s secret commercial,  with models seductively mugging the camera to silent night. unbelievable.

to say that these grand hymns of faith have become nothing more than cliché,  would be an understatement the size of the story of santa claus…

what a confirmation of faith and joy of fellowship i found in simply watching two ladies sing christmas carols from deep within their souls…not because the songs were part of an annual holiday tradition…but because the words of those songs spoke truth to their spirits and confirmed the anchor they are each holding on to:   that the god of power still breathes redeeming grace into impossible situations.

Silent night, holy night Song of God, love’s pure light Radiant beams from Thy holy face With the dawn of redeeming grace Jesus, Lord at Thy birth Jesus, Lord at Thy birth

#christmas #fellowship #grace