As I sat in the conference room at Hope College this Saturday morning, I couldn't help but look around and wonder what everyone in the room was like. What did they do back home? What are they like? I was almost making up stories for each person in my head. While many of these tended to be fairly judgemental, mainly based on their appearance or where they were from, that is besides the point of this blog entry. It got me a little excited for college, an experience that I continually find myself not looking forward to, excited for learning new stories and meeting different people. Excited to hear beautiful stories, whether they be good or bad, stories that have touched lives and stories that have broken hearts. As I looked around that afternoon and made up stories for different people, I forgot that each person there had a real story.
As I forgot the fact that many of those people had beautiful stories, stories where God had played some role in their life (whether they knew it or not), I couldn't help but think of how many peoples' stories get forgotten. Stories that get ignored, heard and then swept under the carpet, or tuned out. Some of these stories may be ugly, yet at the same time, more beautiful than any novel or poem we may read in English class.
The oppressed, the hungry, the abandoned, the lost, the hurt, the sick, the thirsty. All of their stories seem to be forgotten, more noticeably so around Christmas time, a time of giving and caring that can turn into a time dominated by stress and presents. A time when Jesus came to this Earth, became human on this Earth to be with the exact same people that get forgotten. A time where we can lose sight of what's important and forget why we are actually celebrating Christmas. At least it is easy for me to.
You see, at Christmas time, we are celebrating the most beautiful story of them all: The birth of Jesus Christ as a living, breathing, relational human being. A story that witnessed Jesus show his immense love and everlasting grace and redemption to the lepers, the blind, the rejected, and the forgotten.
So this Christmas season, let us not forget the beautiful stories that are out there, stories of people that need help and need love. For we have the ability to make an impact of significance, an impact that could save a life, and more importantly, change the world.
