Christmastime is warm and fuzzy at my house. Spicy candles, twinkly lights, warm fires, and yummy smells are all part of what Christmastime is. Certain traditions must take place... watching White Christmas, reading Christmas with Anne by L.M. Montgomery, and singing O, Holy Night in the dark. I go to church on Christmas Eve and sing Silent Night and hold candles, eat homemade ice cream and go sleep under layers of blankets.
But elsewhere in the world,a man is weeping in a cold, hard cell. A woman huddles in the corner and tries to ignore the hunger gnawing at her insides. Children stare with glassy eyes at the ceiling and try to forget the image of their mother being beaten to death.
Thousands of our brothers and sisters around the world are beaten, tortured, abused, and killed because they are not ashamed to confess the name of Jesus Christ. They do give up everything to follow the One they love, the One Who died for them. They grasp in the depth of their soul what it means to take up their cross and follow. Their very lives they pour out before the Father as an offering, the highest one they can give.
The enemy of our souls laughs when that man finally succumbs to a beating; when that woman finally starves. But their blood cries out to El Elyon and He will not always leave them unavenged. The day is coming, when the last martyr goes Home, when He will rend the heavens and come to earth with a sword.
But until that day, remember your brothers and sisters all around the world who will this year celebrate Christmas in chains.
Reading this made me want to cry...I used to be able to handle thinking about persecution alot better; but now that I have children something is different. Everything is just happy here in my little home...raising two little darlings, cleaning, cooking, keeping house. It's so easy to say to myself, "That stuff is on the other side of the world...I don't have to worry about it becasue it will never come here." And it may not, but the writer of Hebrews says "Remember those bound as though bound with them". It's so easy to wear 'blinders' over my eyes and ignore the ugliness and pain. But if it was me in the jail or my children left without a mother, I would sure want to know that ever other Christan on the face of the earth was praying for me or for my family left behind. Prayer is an incredible tool. Thanks for the reminder to use it on behalf of our bothers and sisters around the world.
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