Greetings in the Powerful Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!I am so glad to be writing to you during this wonderful, joy-filled season. I love Christmas because of what it means to me.
As a child, I was so excited to see what presents I would receive. Sometimes, the gift was so large it wouldn't fit under the tree! One year, the doorbell rang on Christmas morning and a huge (to my young eyes) box was sitting on the doorstep with my name on it. Of course, it was supposedly Santa who delivered it. I opened the box to find a beautiful, shiny black rocking chair, just my size! I didn't really believe Santa Claus was real at that time, but I went along with the narrative. Jingle bells were even ringing in the background as Santa "rode off in his sleigh".
It was all fun and exciting and a nice break from the private stressors in my mind and heart. I was a very unhappy little girl. I say private because I lived in my own little world. I did not really share my pain and fears with anyone. Nightmares visited me regularly and I always lived with a sense of shame that I was unable to identify.
Throughout my early years, the many abuses I experienced took a toll on me until that shame and self-despising caused a state of lifelessness to engulf me. Again, I was in my own little world.
So, what does the title of this blog post have to do with the aforementioned you say? Well, "a Wretch like me" was my reality.
"Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound that Saved a Wretch Like Me." This "Wretch" one day came to the realization that she had been given the most incredible "Gift" imaginable! Christmas took on an entirely new meaning. Yes, it was still about receiving a Gift. That Gift came in the package of "God became man" in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ, who was born, grew up, died an unthinkable, horrible, totally underserved death on a cruel cross, was buried in a tomb and rose from that tomb three days later and after disarming all opposing principalities and powers sat down at the right hand of His Father God Almighty in Heaven and tore apart any barrier that kept me separated from Eternal Life!
The "Wretch Like Me" had a difficult time taking hold of that astounding "Gift". The one Gift of all gifts I should have grabbed hold of with all my might, I looked at with fear and trepidation. Guilt and Shame tried to tell me I was unacceptable to receive this Gift. However, "Something got ahold of me" and persuaded me to reach out and "take ahold" of that Gift.
When I reached out, by the enablement of the Holy Spirit, and accepted, Amazing Grace took over the Guilt and Shame of Sin and saved a Wretch Like Me.
Now, Christmas, for me, is all year and a lifelong experience of opening gift after gift that he gives to me through the continuing generosity of His Holy Spirit through relationship with the Christ of Christmas, the Word and my Heavenly Father. Those gifts include love, peace and joy within.
I pray that you have a Merry "Christ"mas and that you embrace the reality that without the confession that we all, due to sin, have the definition of, "A Wretch", are not completely able to receive the fullness of the "Amazing Grace" by which we were and are saved. Ephesians 2:8&9, "For by Grace you have been saved through Faith and that not of yourselves (you can't earn it) lest any man should boast."
God Bless you as you receive Gift after Gift until the Gift of His Returning transfers from Faith to Sight!
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