“But they had no children because Elizabeth could not conceive, and both of them were well along in years.” (Luke 1:7, CSB)
When Chris and I started a family, Christmas became very important to us. We love tradition and seeing our kids learn to love those same traditions. Now we’re empty nesters and sometimes the holidays are weird. We’ve had several Thanksgiving dinners at restaurants, if you can believe it!
We’ve celebrated Christmas missing family members. We’ve celebrated Christmas after Christmas or even before Christmas. Sometimes you do what ya gotta do, I guess.
A couple years ago we had a pandemic…that messed up Christmas for a lot of us! This year, we’ve been a little slow on getting our Christmas decorations up. Anyway, try as we might, when things just aren’t “so” in our Christmas celebrations, we feel like something is missing, don’t we?
But maybe it’s deeper for you. Maybe, year after year, you find something missing from Christmas…like somehow the hope of Christmas is for everyone else.
Sure, we’ll tell ourselves, it is advent, it’s the time of God drawing near. But it seems like maybe God has forgotten about you. Your prayers. Your circumstances. Your needs.
Zechariah and Elizabeth almost missed Christmas. Zechariah felt that God had forgotten him. But one day, while worshiping, the angel Gabriel met him and told him he would have a son! Zechariah believed! We know his son today as John the Baptist.
By the way, Zechariah in Hebrew means “God remembers.”
Dear one, God remembers you, too. He hears your prayers and will answer them. Just believe!
