You ever wonder how you are going to make it through the crap that happens in our lives? Some days it seems to just keep piling on. You ever think to yourself: “I don’t remember stepping in something, but I can’t get away from that smell?”
When I see nativity scenes around this time of year I often feel amused. Look at that scene, perfect smiles and animals all controlled. Mary does not look she just had a baby. I think the image we have is a little different that how it probably was for the two new parents that first Christmas night. They have traveled to Bethlehem and have no place to even lay down. They end up in a stable full of animals and people.
I do know this for sure: when you have animals and people you always have a bunch of crap. Mary and Joseph squeeze into their part of the stable and soon their son is born. A baby born right there in the midst of animals and their crap. Mary has to be exhausted and yet she can’t escape the animals, people and smell of that crap. And yet in the midst of all that she remains calm and has a peace. At least that is what we see in the nativity scenes. If you read the gospels and look for her in the stories you realize that she has the future of the world on her heart. She will raise God’s son and people will say things, He will perform miracles and then give his life as a ransom for us. He will turn her life upside down and you think about the crap hitting the fan. She will watch Him grow up knowing he must die.
How does she stay calm and find peace in the midst of all this craziness? She remembers. That what she does. A couple of times the Bible says that “Mary treasured these things in her heart and thought about them.” Maybe what she treasures is the promise God made to her. That her son would save the world. That he was made for something so much bigger than anyone could have ever dreamed. The shepherds tell of the song the angels sang, two older people tell her that when they see her 8 day old baby boy that he is the fulfillment of all that God has been doing. She treasures these things as he grows, I imagine that those thoughts ran through her mind as she helped bury him the day He died. The promise God gave her helped her find peace no matter what she was facing.
What about us though? When the crap gets deep around us, what is the promise we will hold on to? Let me tell you a story of a time that I saw this come true in my own life. In July of 1987 I got married and we returned to California for my junior year of college. I had a best friend, Tim Elliott, who worked where I did. Every day we rode to work together. In September of that same year as we rode home on his motorcycle one night a drunk driver stopped in front of us on the 210 freeway. Tim died that night and I ended up in the hospital with stitches and a broken pelvis. We were in college learning to be ministers for God. We were making our lives count and were looking forward to being done with school and on our way to change the world. Then the crap hit. I was confined to a bed as I healed.
A week after the accident they came into my room to get me walking. The first time they told me to sit on the edge of the bed I moved pretty quick and had to get a shot to ease the pain. They taught me how to sit up and eventually walk with a walker then crutches. Each day when they would come in, I would prepare myself to work my way to side of that bed. I was in the Saint Mary’s hospital in Glendora, California. About the 14th floor or so and when I looked out the window I could see the San Gabriel mountains. I memorized Psalm 121:1 & 2 when I was a kid. It reads: 1 A song for going up to worship. I look up to the hills, but where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. When they came in, I looked out at the mountains and said the verse. It gave me the encouragement I needed to get up each time.
One of the days they came in and just thought it would be like any other day. Just get up. I didn’t pause, I didn’t look I just tried to get up. Tried is the word. I couldn’t put my hands right, I didn’t have any strength to get up that time. They told me to take a moment and a breath and try again. Then it happened. I looked out the windows and the smog was so bad that day that you couldn’t even see the mountains. It hit me right in the heart. I had forgotten who was helping me through this time. I prayed and asked God to help me. I remembered to lean into God to find my peace in midst of the crap that was piling up. I got up that day, and every day since that one I have aid that verse and prayed for God’s help. It is my promise. That no matter where I find myself God is there to help me.
That promise has seen me through some really bad times, made some good times even more special. So the question simply becomes “What is your promise?” What do you lean into when the crap comes pouring into your life? What will see you through the clean up and into the next days of your life?
I encourage you to find that promise in the Bible and memorize it. When things are tough or things or good recite it and pray it. Let me know what your promise is and let’s encourage each other to keep going no matter what we step in.