Friday, December 30, 2011

New Life



It’s almost the New Year and I it is a time when a lot of people reflect on their lives, the good and the bad, especially of the last year, and think about their hopes and dreams for the new one.  One of my favorite Bible verses is 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
God is in the business of creating new life.
As I was reflecting on this I couldn’t help but think of two families in my life. One is a family with a vivacious 9 year old girl who is in the hospital and she awaits a new liver. She has dealt with more illness in her short life than most people I know. Her family is torn between the hospital and their home about 2 hours away…just waiting. Shelby is too sick to be at home now, so they are keeping her as healthy as possible and praying that the new liver will come soon. She awaits this new life of feeling like a healthy person without all of the limitations she has had. She awaits being able to run around with her friends and attend her school again. She waits to be home with her family and live in the “norm” (which by the way many of us complain about, you know chores to do, jobs and school, fighting children, etc.). Her family wishes the same. They wait for what this new life will be like with a healthier child. They wait to be reunited again under one roof. They wait for the “normalcy” of life with sibling spats and homework projects. They wait to live without the fear and stress that it has brought them to wait for this liver. It will be a new life.
Then I think of another family, they too wait, but for something different. They wait for their little boy Brody who they hope to bring home from Ukraine. He is a precious little boy who has lived a life with a lot of loss and because of his HIV + status has waited for a family that would say “yes” to him. I’ve wrote about him several times in this blog. He awaits this new life with a family (one he doesn’t even know is coming). He awaits having a mommy and daddy to tuck him in at night. Little does he know but his new life will also include two little brothers to explore the world with and skyping with his best buddy from the orphanage who has found his forever family (the thought of the two of them reunited by skype brings tears to my eyes!). His family awaits for this new family member to make complete what has been missing. This family awaits to shower this little boy with the love that they overflowing from their beings. It will be a new life.
Christ has promised all of us a new life in him. A new life that lets us shed the pain of the past and walk into the glorious light of a new life.
Advent is a season of waiting and I know that we are in Christmas tide where we acknowledge the fulfillment of God’s promises. Well this new life is a little of both. We are awaiting the new life that will come but it IS coming. We may not know what that looks like. Most likely it is far beyond what we can dream.  I know last year at this time there were several painful things happening in my life. There were many losses on so many levels.  This year God has brought myself and our family to new life in more than one way. The joy we have experienced this year, even that which was intermingled with heartache, was breathtaking.
It is my prayer that you step into the new life that Christ offers you this New Year, allowing God to not only do new things but also to transform the pain and hurt of the past into something beautiful.
In the meantime I ask that you keep the Martin and Sadler families in your prayers as they await the fulfillment of their hopes for new life.


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