Traveling through Trials

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33, New Living Translation

We’ve had a rough year. But guess what? Mary and Joseph had a rough time seeing that Jesus was born and had a safe childhood. Read about those events with me this season.

I wrote the above words at the end of October, when I must have been half asleep, because I don’t remember that at all. No idea what I was planning to write about, and here we are, three weeks to Christmas and I have nothing for this year’s series of Christmas blog posts.

It’s come back to me that I got the idea above from a novel I read in the first part of February, a total fictionalized version of the struggles Joseph had in just getting pregnant Mary to Bethlehem. The book, I thought, was a bunch of bunk, so I won’t even tell you its title or any more about it. But it had, at the time, got me thinking about Joseph and Mary and how difficult it had to be – physically, mentally and emotionally – to bring Jesus into the world.

But you know the story.

And then COVID-19 hit and nothing for any of us seemed to be easy anymore. No, we haven’t had to trek, on foot, ninety miles through the wilderness in rainy winter, up and down mountainous terrain, while nine months pregnant. And no, we can hardly compare it to our recent simple travels to the grocery store, wearing our masks and never knowing if the store will be out of the supplies we need.

But we have had our trials and tribulations. And we’ll get through them, with the grace of God.

Lord, God, be with us through these challenging times and help us to remember that You sent Your Son Jesus to save us from sin and suffering. Amen

The drive from Ayacucho, Peru to the little mountain village of Quinua is only 21 miles, but I can’t imagine trekking that far on foot, much less 90. Though I’ve been to Kenya multiple times and it is geographically closer to Israel, I picture the terrain that Mary and Joseph traveled being closer to this.