Episode 643

TODAY’S READING
1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.
Psalms 136:1

The goodness of God is built day in and day out, no matter the season, no matter how good life is going, and no matter how bad life is going. It’s a little bit harder to see the goodness of God, but when you look back at a tough season, you can see that he was good the entire time. Yesterday, Manny and I spent the afternoon after work going to Hobby Lobby and getting our Christmas decors. This is our first Christmas as husband and wife, our first Christmas in our brand new home that we purchased this year, and it was time to buy our tree. So we went with a non-traditional fake tree route; my entire life, I have gotten a real tree. I’ve never had to open a tree up and prep it to fill it up. And I spent almost an hour opening the tree, and then I spent almost two hours with Fanny decorating the tree. And we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I’ve never seen before. And we also saw the great British baking show Christmas edition. Now I tell you this to walk you through the season that I’m in, not to gloat at all, but to show you the goodness of God for years and years, especially when my family was going through their different struggles with addiction and the different struggles with mental health and when my mom moved to Nashville, my dad went to continue on with his activities at the time, which he is he’s doing much better. So I thank you for your prayers and continue to keep him in your prayers. He is in a rehab facility and will be attending the wedding celebration. So I’m excited about that. But long story short, life was really hard for many Christmases. And I would cry around the season because my heart longs for a time where I used to have as a kid growing up with a Christmas tree growing up with my mom and dad in a secure home. And when I was 18, that home kind of shattered with my dad’s addiction break breaking in or breaking out. And so what followed in the last 10 years were some really great Christmases, but really some sad Christmases just longing for my own home, my own family to do those old traditions with. So as I sit here today and as many as I put together our first Christmas tree, I was immediately brought to those feelings, that initial feeling of having a stable home and then the sad feeling of the in between the testimony that God was continuing to work on my behalf. And I knew in the moment, no matter how sad I was, I knew that he was going to bring me a life partner that I could build new traditions with. So the newest tradition is the fig tree, but it’s important for me because it symbolizes the first Christmas of a new chapter in my life, a new season in my life with a stable home and family that I’m hopefully going to continue to grow over the next couple of years and it’s an honor to share that story with you just because it’s my testimony is what I’m grateful for today. I’m grateful for the ability to start a new tradition with my family that I get to grow myself, so it’s a little bit emotional for me. I thank you for praying with me every morning, and I hope that you are able to tell the same testimony of Jesus in your life, no matter where you are or what you’ve been through. And then you can feel his goodness through the seasons, through the testimonies, through the different moments of your life.

Prayer:
Father God, we thank you, Lord, for a beautiful Wednesday. We thank you for the ability to look back at our lives and see the goodness and see how you’ve taken us from low places and brought us to high places everywhere we go. Your light shines through us. We hope that people can see you through us, or we hope that people can notice that this season is for Jesus and Jesus alone. We are just playing a small part in bringing you to them. We thank you for the ability to tell your story. We thank you for the ability to curl in a deeper relationship with you. We pray this all in your son’s mighty name. Amen.