Your Gift

Thank God for this gift too wonderful for words!

—2 Corinthians 9:15 NLT

If you are someone who feels alone this Christmas, I might not understand what you are going through. I might not understand what it means to be without a husband or children at Christmas. But I do understand loss. Mother is gone. Daddy passed last year. I understand the sadness you feel when those you love have passed from your life.

Companies, like Hallmark, remind you that Christmas is a time for love and for families—a time for sharing presents and home. Warm and cozy feelings are their goals—along with a hot cup of cocoa to soothe and renew your visions of sugar plum sweetness. Over and over again, you are reminded that what the retail world tells you is real. And loneliness is magnified. Loss becomes greater. Despair draws you in, and you feel abandoned—adrift without hope in a world that has left you behind. The truth is you are not alone. You aren't abandoned. Jesus loves you with the purest unconditional love. 

Jesus was not born into a world of sugar plum sweetness. He was born in a lowly manger with little comfort because there was no room for him in the inn. He came alone, without fanfare, to offer himself to be your greatest gift. He was born to give his life with no expectation of return. Never needing to be earned, His love was freely given, costing you nothing. Abandoned because of our sin, He experienced loneliness as you will never know it. And in His brokenness for you, He imparted the ultimate gift of His righteousness so that you might experience God's fullness and joy no matter your circumstance or pain. Jesus is the only answer to loneliness. He is the only answer to the pain of loss.

If you feel alone, you are not abandoned or alone. Your Comforter has come so you can rest in His loving grace. His heart understands, and His grace heals the loneliness you feel. He took your loneliness at Calvary, and for your pain—your loss, He rendered His life as the highest offering. His gift for you is freedom from pain and loss. There is no greater love than His love, which came to heal your heart and set you free from emotional bondage. Jesus blesses you with the joy of His grace.

 When Jesus is your greatest love, a loss does not consume. You know His truth beyond feeling. You live peace that the gift of His life has given you. You walk in His love and assurance. You might have experienced loss, but you have gained Him. And His grace sets you free.

When you understand that the grace of Jesus is sufficient for your need, your heart is healed by truth instead of bombarded by feelings of despair. You walk in His newness of life unscathed by feelings by loss. His grace continually strengthens you.

Believe in Him. You possess the greatest gift of all.

© 2019 Lynn Lacher

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