{{item.title | uppercase}}

And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
Luke 2:18 (ESV)

Do you ever wonder about the word “wonder”? I hear it a lot during Christmas, the “most wonderful time of the year”. Wonder during this season can mean many things, from wonder over the abundance of gifts to wonder over the miracle of Christ the baby to wonder if God even cares about a widow alone without her husband on this most precious holiday.

Grief takes its toll on us during the holidays.

Year after year as I celebrated Christmas without my husband, I counted on the extended family and friends that four boys tend to attract to keep my heart distracted.

But I still felt an ache of missing my husband.

I don’t know how I would have weathered the ache without knowing this truth that God is really there.

What I didn’t know as a child,

I kind of believed and hoped there was a Heaven.

But messages around me clouded my hope. In my family’s circle, people laughed at Christians and the idea of “being saved”. Teachers taught there is no God.

So I found joy at presents and a bluster of pretty songs and wrapped toys. Christmas was a fun ride, and that word “wonder” had me imagining my eyes opening wide and my mouth forming an “O” shape as I tiptoed into a living room full of so many presents I couldn’t reach the electric cord on the tree to plug it in.

But worldly wonder fades.

I learned there was no Santa. Then my siblings began to move out, and the number of presents under the tree got smaller. I was only a teenager and already, Christmas began to feel empty. A new wonder edged into my heart. A wonder at whether the “reason for the season” really existed at all!

Isn’t that what some of those shepherds might have wondered?

In the story of Christmas, Luke tells us people “wondered” at the testimony the shepherds shared about hearing the Angels proclaiming Jesus. It had been 400 years since anyone had heard or seen a revelation from God. Perhaps that’s why they wondered. They figured God doesn’t reveal Himself anymore!

Do you wonder if God cares?

Do you feel like He is absent or angry with something you’ve done? That’s how many of the Israelites felt just as Jesus came upon the scene.

He changes everything.

There’s nothing quite like that reaction when someone first gets the Truth of why Jesus was born, lived and died—that “wow” when someone is first saved.

That’s how the shepherds felt when they witnessed angels. Everything changed for them. Just moments before they were lowly shepherds—the lower class of Hebrew society. The Old Testament was something only the wealthy religious leaders talked about. Perhaps many of them stopped believing God would ever show up.

And yet here His presence was made known to them with no uncertainty! And the reaction to their story was wonder!

When I finally discovered the truth, I began a new kind of wonder!

I wondered at how I could miss it for all those years! I wondered at how peaceful I felt for the first time. At how certain I felt about my future—finally! I knew that God really loved me enough to give me complete confidence that I’m saved and I have a certain destiny in eternity.

And that new feeling of KNOWING! Wow! It brought wonder. Not the “wow—that’s a lot of stuff” wonder of a kid seeing gobs of gifts, but a wonder of realizing the Creator of the universe

Suddenly presents didn’t matter.

A hectic busy household full of everyone bustling about Christmas didn’t matter. The confidence in my heart did.

Have you gotten that certainty?

Did you feel that rush of newness of knowing you really are going to be okay—even after you die? Do you know you’re saved and wonder over how incredible it is that God sent the baby Jesus, perfect as He is, to die for us?

Grab Truth

Then if you have, grab that Truth and cling to it, even when you feel like God is absent in this season.

Wonder:

• not over why you are widowed and why this happened.
• at how you can know you’ll be in Heaven with loved ones who have died, knowing their sins are paid for.
• and know that our futures are safe with Him!

Seek

And if you haven’t felt that wonder yet, and you don’t have hope for your eternal future, take that wonder of where did God go, and seek the answer. Reach out to one of our writers using the prayer request here. Read about the truth of how Christ came and died for your sins so that you can live eternally. You can find it here on our page, which describes why we have hope!

Father God, would You please give to each sister here the true Hope You offer during this Christmas season. Being alone on Christmas without her husband doesn’t have to mean she is without hope. Fill her with joy of knowing You really are there with her. Amen.