Christmas Time is Here!

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6

Many have said that Christmas is too commercialized these days. I have to agree and have been fighting to remind myself of "the reason for the season."

One drastic and unexpected reminder came early last week. I was working when I received a phone call from my dad that my mom had been in a serious car accident. My mom was among three passengers in a Yukon being driven by her friend. They t-boned a car that pulled out in front of them. The driver of the other car could not see my mom's car because of the fog and was pronounced dead at the scene. My dad said he did not know if my mom was okay. Some of the ladies in my office were able to peal me off my desk and put me in a back office as I awaited the call. Those few seconds of not knowing if my mom was okay were torturous. I clutched my cell phone with my sweaty palms as I tried to gain control over my sobbing, waiting to hear from my dad. My dad called in what seemed like an eterenity to tell me she was speaking and had injured her foot.

I went home from work that afternoon to sit on my couch and wait for more news on my mom, her friends, and information about the driver who didn't make it. I thought about the finality of death. My mind drifted to a recent story in the news of a famiy that wandered off the path of their driving destination and were lost in the snow. The mom and child were rescued, but the dad was found dead. I thought about how when they found the body of the deceased man, there was absolutely nothing they could do to bring him back. They had the body, but it was useless without the soul and brougth little comfort to the rescued mother and child.

All week I have been praising God for my mother's life. She and her friends escaped death with minor injuries. I love my mom dearly and I cannot imagine my future with out her here. I have also been trying to focus on the real meaning of Christmas in light of this tragedy. The woman hit by the car my mother was in was a mother of five. She is no longer on this earth. Death is such a stinging and painful thing and without Christ is the most hopeless event you can experience. For those without Christ, death means isolation, pain, and darkness for eternity. With Christ, death is still very painful, but there is hope. For those of us who have trusted Christ to be our savior to forgive us our sins and truly want a right relationship with him, when we die we do not have to pay for our sins in an eternity of isolation and pain. Instead, through death we meet our creator and we are not punished for our sins because we accepted Christ's death on the cross as payment for them. I talked to my mom yesterday and she found out that the parents of the lady who was killed became Christians at her funeral. Even in death, with Christ there is hope.

This Christmas, I praise God for my mom's life, and I also praise him for sending his son Jesus who conquered death so that we might live eternally.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." John 3:16-21