Category Archives: Winter

Daily Living, Faith, Winter, Worship

Good News for the New Year

Leave a comment

Today is the first day in a brand new year. Much will get said about where we go from here, how to move forward, and how to make this year better than the last. Resolutions will be made and people will try harder. They’ll try harder for a better life, a better persona, a better image, better body, better health. So much trying will be going on, or at least so many good intentions. But as we consider how to press on and move forward, I’d like to look back for a moment. Look back a couple years to something I wrote before this blog began. I don’t think this can be said too often. It’s one for this day, the next day, and the day after that. Year after year after year.

GOOD NEWS FOR THE NEW YEAR!

As we begin the new year, there is good news for the broken, hurting, wasted, sick and desolate. And who among us hasn’t been counted in that number? The less-celebrated but more important meaning of the Christmas season, good news in every season, is the birth of one who knows and heals all wounds. A baby born in under-privileged circumstances, living an unremarkable life from his neighbors’ perspective. A baby, once grown, suffering extreme rejection and physical pain, broken. What good is someone like that to me in my pain? This rejected and suffering man was God in the flesh. Not “…unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) “He learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” (Hebrews 5:9) Now we, in our brokenness, can approach God with confidence, “that we may receive mercy and grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16).

Jesus was born, suffered, died to bear our burdens, and lives again in defeat of death, so that we can draw near to God! Psalm 22 says that God has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard when he cried to him. This world will never be free from evil and pain. But there is another world to come, one in which those who see their need for God and trust Him for life will live in perfect unbrokenness. A world and time where tears will not be needed and the only cries of the heart will be praise to the God who has made all things new. Don’t wait for tomorrow, life to become un-messy, or a new year’s resolution to cry to God. Trust Him to forgive your sin and heal your brokenness. He gives new life.

And new life is the only way to start off a new year on the right foot, kneeling before God and moving forward in faith. There’s nothing wrong with setting goals and living intentionally. But all those things are meaningless without the God who directs our steps. You may not get a better body, a better image, or better health, but you will get a brand new heart!

Happy New Year!

 

©Erika Rice

Christmas, Faith, Pure Country, Winter, Worship

A Covering

Leave a comment

I need a covering. After a string of dismal, rainy days in December, very unusual for my part of the world, the view is depressing. The sky hangs dark and gray. My yard is strewn with the debris of three dogs, two of them still puppies. Deer hides and bones dragged in from the fields after hunting season, leftover corncobs from harvest, and bits of plastic and tin cans salvaged from my recycling bins litter the backyard’s open spaces. The holes the dogs dug have become mud pots for rolling in before wanting in the house.

This bitter, ugly landscape mortifies me every time I look out my windows. The scene carries reminders of the past, embarrassment over the current state of things, and shame at my inability to bring lasting improvement to the situation. Oh, how I long for it all to disappear.

I need a covering. A good blanket of pure, white snow would do the trick. It would wipe the ugly from view and make it a distant memory.  The forgiving layers of clean ice crystals would wipe away the stark evidence of the past and dying season.

It’s not just my view of the backyard that needs help, though. It’s my view of my heart. I am constantly mortified by what I see if I dare to look closely. Too often, I barely give it a cursory glance, like the way I avoid looking out the window this week because I know what I’ll find. I’m much less likely to see the extent of my need.

I need a covering, a covering for my sin. One that blots out its memory and offers forgiving relief from the painful reminders and evidences of the destruction I leave in my wake. One that hides the raw and bitter ugliness that makes itself visible too often. I need a covering that remains until newness of life springs eternal.

God has given just that–a covering for my sin. In the birth of his son as a little baby He offered forgiveness and healing. His son, Jesus, would ultimately take my punishment, give me His life, and cover me in the pure white of His perfection. I fail, too often, to remember that I am already purified. “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” (Isaiah 1:18). This covering is not whimsical like weather. It remains and brings the relief I long for.

I have a covering! My heart is clothed in Jesus’ righteousness and my yard is blanketed in pure white, for the snow has begun to fall.

 

“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation [atoning sacrifice, covering] for our sins.” 1 John 4:9-10

“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 John 2:2

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Psalm 32:1

 

©Erika Rice