i can't get mary out of my mind.
belly filled with Life.
skin stretched tight and still one more day to go.
i remember that feeling, the wonder of what life within was doing to me. the wondering when there would finally be release.
i look at my body now, evidence of having life within.
it's my skin, but not.
it no longer looks the same.
life within fully filled me.
the release of life fully emptied me...
changed me forever.
i have spent the last 358 days dreading this one and the 7 to follow.
how many more tables that like mine, will have an empty chair shouting the obvious to a room full of hearts hurting?
we have experienced hearts full of life.
full. of. life.
and we have experienced the devastating emptying of life.
we are the same, yet different.
i can't help but wonder at Him, the Creator of you, of me...
what was that like to be contained within the tiny body of a baby contained within the body of woman? the One Who Sustains being sustained...
the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
john 10:10
i remember, that last christmas, looking across the room at elias held securely on the lap of his papa. i remember dad catching my eye and smiling...
such life that so quickly was destroyed and stolen away.
but He, the Creator and the Sustaining-One-Who-became-like-us, His created, came to fill up those places devastated and emptied with Life.
that chair will still sit empty. these days must still be walked through. grief may ebb and flow when least expected, but there is the reminder that He came.
He came.
and because He came, He brings Life that can swell and fill the caverns hollowed out by loss.
there is hope.
abundant.
and He gives Life...His Life.
abundantly.
may this, more than anything that this season holds for you, be what you receive from His Hand.
i wish you and yours a blessed and hope-filled Christmas...
