POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

My Jesus and Mary Chain

This is my Pundit League post for the week, which is just a reposting of my Christmas post from last year, which was a copy and paste job from something I wrote for an advent booklet for my mom's church.  (My mom will publish me!)

I’m phoning this Christmas week post in just like I’ve phoned in Christmas in my personal life.  Our plates are full preparing for some major, positive life-changing transitions that will happen this year.  I wrote the following during Christmas week last year, but it includes points I needed to remind myself of this week.  Funny how that happens.

My relationship with Christ has wavered a lot in my life, but one thing I have always understood is that every life, no matter how it looks from the outside is plagued with challenges, tribulations and circumstances that just aren’t fair.  Everyone has a cross to bear, EVERYONE.  Our hearts break to see a cancer patient, disabled person or anyone with an obvious physical challenge in the grocery store, for example.  They receive instant compassion, and rightly so.  But we should remember the “normal looking” person right next to them may be bearing an equally devastating burden we can’t see.  Addiction, mental illness, abuse or a million other things.  Sometimes the invisible crosses are just as heavy as the ones we can see.

While doing press for ”Passion of the Christ”,  Jim Caviezel was asked if he was concerned the controversial role would ruin his career in secular Hollywood (paraphrasing).  His response was simple and has stuck with me.  He said, “In life everyone has a cross to bear, and you can either pick it up and carry it or be crushed by the weight of it.”  I’ve shared this with non-believers on several occasions as well, and even they could see the truth in it.  Lucky for believers, we take comfort in the knowledge we never bear our cross alone.  The greatest Christmas gift was the first one.

Clearly, the core message of Christmas is that out of God’s unconditional love for us he sent compassion, forgiveness, mercy, hope and most importantly, salvation in the form of a truly perfect little baby.  God invented symbolism, and he is really, really good at it.  I love that He used the international symbol of innocence, a child, to conquer sin.

There can be no greater gift than salvation, but Christ also comes with another gift.  A gift I can’t imagine walking through this world without.  Strength.  With Christ we have the strength to bear ANY burden that is placed on us.  We also have the assurance that no burden will ever compare with the one He bore for us.  I don’t know about you, but that knowledge gives me truckloads of peace.  That peace everyone is looking for is right underneath our noses.  It’s in our hearts.

How can we begin to thank God for the greatest gift of all?  I think by picking up our crosses and carrying them, and maybe opening our eyes to the burdens our brothers and sisters are bearing as well.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  John 1:12-14

Kill Truck

KillTruck is a wife, mother, blogger and native midwesterner now living in Eastern Washington state. She writes about politics, pop culture, parenting, wifing and a few other subjects she has no authority to write about. She has macabre fascinations with prostitution and/or cannibalism. In her free time she enjoys eating and/or drinking her feelings, liveblogging Lifetime movies, thinking about Scott Brown and mocking things she doesn’t understand.

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