Hi everyone!
As the month dedicated to giving thanks culminates this
week, people are also in the process of preparing for Christmas. I have spent the past year sorting through a
lot of things in my life, both material and internal, dusting off treasures
from the past and looking forward to the future.
In the process I found my faith, sitting
alone in the midst of the fragrance of potpourri. I am reminded of how our faith is often with
us, but if we are not careful it can get lost.
Love & Hope, which at first I thought may have been lost,
needed to be brought back into my life.
They had been broken long ago, but I knew it was time for them to once
again be a part of my Faith.
When things
like Love & Hope rejoin our lives there is a warmth and a newness to it
all, but what I noticed when I placed them next to my Faith, was that my Faith
had grown dim, worn, and weary from all that life had put it through. Don’t we all have times such as this, where we don't necessarily lose our faith, but where it grows dim from
weariness?
I needed to revive my Faith, polish it if you will, so that
it could embrace and welcome back in Love & Hope. In the process I was reminded of the mustard
seed. God tells us that all we need is
the faith of ONE mustard seed. When you look at all of the tiny
mustard seeds in the little bowl, what an incredible thing it is to realize that all He asks is that our Faith be the size of just ONE.
Sometimes, before we can start to decorate the outside of
our lives, whether that be by putting up Christmas lights, building a writing
cottage, or having an extreme physical makeover, we first have to dust off and
clear out the things in our lives that have led to our Faith becoming dim. Maybe that entails letting go of hurtful words
that have held us back, or betrayal, or maybe it is just a matter of learning
to be comfortable in our own skin.
Learning that our Faith was with us all along and sometimes in the
battles of life it will get dim, not because we lost our Faith, but because in
every battle that we must fight dust and dirt will fly so that we can win the
fight.
A soldier’s uniform gets dirty as
he or she fights to save the freedom that we hold dear. Our Faith can also get covered in dirt, not
because it has grown weary after all, but because we have been in the trenches
fighting the good fight.
So as we give thanks this week and start to write out our
Christmas lists, I think the most precious gift I can give to myself and those
around me, is to finish what the Lord has started in my life, polish up my
Faith, surround it with Hope & Love and see what beauty results on the
outside in this coming new year.
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