My barren sisters:

Tonight is the night you watch other people’s children participate in Christmas pageants. It’s time for you to build relationships with those children. You said “amen” at their baptisms, so they are yours to support and guard and protect in the Faith. Start talking to them. Teach their Sunday school class. Lead them in music. Have them over to your house for dinner. Show them videos of your pet bunny. Go to their ballgames and concerts. Share whatever specific gifts you have been given, for, in sharing yourself with them, you will begin to love them and they most likely will begin to love you. That’s how you can get through tonight’s Christmas pageant. Love the children that are there even as your heart pines for the ones that aren’t.

Tonight is the night you sing of another woman’s pregnancy and another woman’s infant. Sing out loud and strong with confidence, for these songs are your own. The Child born of Mary is your child, the very One for whom you yearn. You may never have been pregnant – or the children of your pregnancies may be no more in your womb and no more in your arms – but Jesus is born for you. He is your Child, come to save you from your sin that you and your children might live forever in Him. His is the birth by which you will be “saved through childbearing” (1 Timothy 2:15).

Tonight is the night you go home to a childless house, and here, my sisters – in the silent, holy night – is your cross. Here is where the birth of Jesus matters most, in the horrible war against principalities and powers. Here is where you weep and gnash your teeth for the death that curses this blasted world. Here is where you repent and turn to Him who died for sinners.

So, cry out to the Child Jesus who died but lives again and remember in faith: in Him, you will live again, too.

17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death (Revelation 1).

Christmas is merry in Jesus.

Love,

Katie