Christmas 2025

 Coming back to CoY (288 posts over about 15 years!), I just realised that this platform has taken me through my pimply adolescence through to arrive at adulthood. Where there is a growing realisation and acceptance that life is probably always gonna be tough and God has meant for that on this side of heaven. 

I feel now though, an immense gratitude at how life turned out for me. Though the Author's pen is continuing to write the narrative, the chapters that have unfolded so far and how the story is (seems to be) going has me looking forward to the future. 

My cup has the verse: "She looks forward to the future with joy." (Proverbs 31:25) The verse comes from the well-known passage on the "virtuous wife", but is more about the beauty of Wisdom. 

I'm reflecting on a nudge to welcome another one to live in our home. That as I have called it Meno, to abide, as a vision for our home, that those who need nurturing and to be fed by God can come. It challenges my narrow desire to be comfortable. What does it look like - I don' really know. Is it a baby, a child for us to be respite carers for, or perhaps just starting with welcoming a friend of a friend. To be honest, when I was reading the book Encampment, I was so inspired but there was this fear to be challenged too. I was thinking to myself, if homes were opened to the homeless, there will be much fewer homeless on the streets. Yet the thought of having them - these people who almost invariably come with their baggage, both physical and emotional - makes me want to shirk back. 

In modern professional/therapeutic settings, we talk about having boundaries. In that light, I can hear myself or a friend saying: Perhaps we also should have boundaries to continue being able to care and love on others. Lord, we really need your Wisdom to guide our fractured souls - help us who are seeking to care for the marginalised and pursuing social justice to know how to live it out in a sustainable way. 

I'm thankful that again, I can return to You as a gentle Father. Father, You do not harshly chasten though we constantly seek to be the opposite of gentle and lowly. This Christmas, remind me again of the different ways the whole Jesus arc in the grand narrative challenges what we have come to see as normal in this world.