I Heard the Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet

The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

This sweet girl had no idea why I clung to her more than usual this weekend, but she ate it up. That is how it should be, I suppose. She doesn't really fathom it (and how could she?) the depth of my love for her or the lengths to which I would go to protect her.

 

And there are the parents of those twenty precious ones,

 

twenty!

 

just like her, who felt that same way about their beloved children. Not only are their children gone, murdered at the hands of madness, but that sacred protective shield all parents pray around their children has been, for them, forever violated.

 

It is a horror and a sorrow and a grief I hope to never know.

 

 

Abby's reading has been taking off and she reads everything in sight. I love it! But reading means knowledge, and knowledge sometimes means loss of innocence. It means growing up and confronting new things, many good things, but also hard things and things that make you weep.

 

Life will make her weep.

 

I hate that, but it is inevitable. I want to keep her from it, but I don't have that power.

 

As long as we live here, on this broken and groaning earth, we will weep.

 

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has an opinion on what happened at that elementary school that morning when evil came into it and slaughtered helplessness. What else can you call it but evil?

 

And answers are being flung all over the place everywhere from gun control, to more guns, to media, to our violent society, to mental health issues,

 

but it is hard for an un-believing world to make heads or tails of anything in this mess, because when you don't have God and don't understand His prevailing goodness,

 

then all you have is the wringing of hands and a dim hope in government legislation. And it is my lowly estimation that that is not much in which to hope.

 

It isn't that I don't have an opinion on what changes should be made, because I do, I just don't think they matter in the over-all conversation at this point. I grieve, we all grieve, and parents like me just imagine what if that had been our school and our child? It easily could have been.

 

The starkness of this evil juxtaposed against an upcoming birthday celebration---one for the Savior of all mankind--isn't lost on anyone. How do we celebrate a Savior God who didn't seem to be there that black day in Connecticut with those little children, where was the savior then? I can only scratch the surface of understanding why a good and loving God would allow each parents' nightmare to become a real living person with a real and horrible intention.

Peace On Earth
Does Anybody Hear Them!?
Peace On Earth, Goodwill To Men

 

The Bible says that God is the very good from which good comes, He is the very light where light was born. I can imagine a world that didn't have Him would be a Sandy Hook world, or a World Trade Center world, or a Nazi Germany world, every day.

 

There is a reason why the Bible repeats over and over that man is wicked and that God is good.

 

All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way;  Isaiah 53:6

The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one...Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.  There is no fear of God before their eyes. Romans 3:10,15

 

It is because I am not capable of good on my own. Even the very best of good deeds that I can perform look ragged, rough and filthy compared to His bright glory. I need a savior.

 

I need a savior.

 

We NEED a Savior.

 

And God, in His Kindness, sent one. On that Christmas morning, long ago, He looked at the wretchedness of sin and loved anyway, LOVED without abandon, and sent His perfect, blameless, sinless child to suffer, die and rise up again in defeat of the death that we were meant to die.

 

CAN ANYBODY HEAR THEM!?
Repent. Have faith. Believe.

 

On our own, left to our own devices, we are all just killers of peace, each in our own way. We are haters and mockers and we despair.

 

He redeems, restores and lifts up. He is Truth to our mockery and Hope to our despair. Love to our hate.

His sovereign hand guides all and knows all. He knows the number of hairs on our head and when the sparrow falls. He is there with us in our comings and goings, and He was there that brutal day in Connecticut and He is here with me now, in the kitchen as my children play silly, loud games, and laugh and run freely with no cares in the world.

 

God doesn't cause evil, though He allows it at times in His will, and always means it for the good of those who love Him. Only He can make good from the evil. Beauty from the ashes. He holds the world together by the power of His word. He wants that no man should perish, to die without knowing Him.

 

 Only He can make sense of mourning and despair. Only He has the power to defeat evil,

 

and He already has.

 

We all will get there one day, a place where we come to die. And God has come, this all the more poignant at Christmas time, to save us from paying the eternal penalty of our wickedness. If we repent and trust in Him He takes our sin upon Himself. When we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our hearts, then we belong to Him, as a son or daughter! He doesn't promise that it will be easy for us, or even happy, because He wants for us what we could never want for ourselves:

Holiness.

 

We don't deserve His salvation, but we need it. He offered it and He is SO very good.

 

......................................................

 

I heard the bells on Christmas day. I heard them ringing about goodness and hope and peace and joy, but I looked around me and saw weeping and suffering and war and death.

 I heard the bells and they sang to me about something that didn't seem possible. Hope? Joy?

 

PEACE?

 

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on Earth," I said.

"For hate is strong and mocks the song,

Of peace on Earth good will to men!"

 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead nor does He sleep:

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

 

There are some days that I can't wait, just can't wait, to live on that earth. When the bells ring true and clear and speak of our current hope.

 

Our peace.

Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.
Luke 2:14