merry christmasMerry Christmas!! But if it is not very merry for you I pray you experience comfort and strength from the Very One who came that first Christmas.  He came into a world of need and He comes to us in our time of need too.

In our book, Welcome to the Big Leagues,  Darrel opened his life to Jesus when his mom was diagnosed with cancer.  Then on her last Christmas Eve her suffering was out of control.  It is a sad and hard memory for Darrel.

It is normal to want God to fix things and provide answers, but sometimes it does not turn out the way we want it to.  He welcomes our doubt and anguish.  Our pursuit of Him can be a spiritual fight.

C.S Lewis writes in his classic book, The Problem of Pain, “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

In your fight with Him I hope you hear God shouting to you, “I love you.  Your life matters.  I’m here.”  That is the beginning of a genuinely merry heart and a merry Christmas that means something.

Read Luke 1 and 2.  The Bible is full of people with doubts and questions.  The first Christmas was no exception.  Your doubts do not disqualify you from experiencing God.  They can be the place of your deepest experience with Him.