God With Us - Lawrence

(This was first published on my website as a meditation in December 2007.)
Once more the Christian year rolls round to the last few days of Advent. We repeat the oft-told tale of God-with-us in a child’s body. The tale is oft-told but each year different as we change and grow in spirit. Our interpretation of God-with-us matures; we have a new understanding of the meaning of God’s life and light in us from the one we had a Christmas ago. God is the same—it is we who are different—changed by life’s events, our willingness to go the extra mile, love the extra measure, laugh the extra joy, and cry the extra sorrow.
These gifts, unwrapped, are the gifts of the Universe, the Divine gifts, the gifts born from struggle, freely accepted and freely given again. Though darkness may come in one way or another, yet light shines ever more brightly upon us and in us because spiritual maturity and light cannot die but must grow more strongly in the shadows where someone lights the Divine candle.
Pain that one endures knowing that its outcome will result in a cure is easy to bear. When the outcome of one’s pain or burden is not known or is uncertain, it is more difficult to bear. When one is willing to endure pain in faith that God has a good purpose in mind for the growth of one’s soul, it is worth the uncertainty of physical cure. To think that one has been chosen to witness to God’s love in endurance is a great honour.
Mary bore Christ two thousand years and more ago, not knowing what the outcome would be. She endured humility at the Virgin Birth, willingly accepting God’s request to bring the God-child into the world for human good. Let us bear our burdens with this same simple faith in God’s love.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-10