I polished and hung my silver bells the other night. I get a new one each year at Christmas with the date on it. I now have 10; this year will make 11. This year I hung them from my pot rack; I had to find a place to stash my pots. The Silver Bells look so beautiful hanging brightly shining on different lengths of red ribbon.
As I hung them and looked at each year I made a mental note of what we were doing that year at Christmas where we were and what had happened during that year. The year before we were married, our first Christmas married, each of the kids first Christmas’s, Emma’s first Christmas was the day she started to walk, our first Christmas here at the Ranch, the year my granddaddy died and Christmas seemed a blur of a funeral mixed with my brothers graduation and lots of family in my tiny house. So many good, sad and sometimes awkward Christmases we have had and so many more to look forward too.
I thought of how truly blessed we are. And of God’s faithfulness, even when we sometimes are not as faithful as we should. God has given us so, so much more than we have ever deserved. Why? Simply because he LOVES us so much more than we could ever even begin to imagine.
Tonight as I read to the kids from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, (we are working our way through The Chronicles of Narnia – I’m not sure who is enjoying it more, me or them) I was struck by something as the Witch and Aslan spoke of what to do with Edmund.
“You have a traitor there, Aslan,” said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.
Like Aslan, who took the punishment for Edmund, Jesus has done the same for us. And like Edmund, we too need to get past thinking of our selves and look to Jesus no matter what Satan says about us. Our debt has been paid, we can become clean and shiny, like the silver bells. Once we belong to Him we have no need of looking back at who we once were, we are a new creation and should live as such and must look forward to who we are becoming – more like Christ.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wrote this 2 years ago, the years and memeories keep coming and so do the bells. I hung my bells again this year from the pot rack and remembered I had written this. I found it, read it and it is almost funny, Wednesday night in my ladies Bible Study, we talked about this very verse! How God is that?
