Holy is His Name!

...Holy is his name. Luke 1: 49b

Well, the Christmas season is over.  A new year has come.  We give thanks for the year that has just ended...its blessings, its heartaches, the joy that it brought us and the hurt that lingers.  We close the curtain on its days...regretting the time we wasted, pondering the torturous ideas of whether we could have done anything differently...contemplating the misery that brings to our soul the nagging thoughts that perhaps, there was something we could have done that would have changed the disastrous course of an event...wondering the futile "what ifs." We wake up on another January 1st, excited, but mostly scared about the new and completely unknown challenges that await us...unable to stop our mind from going to its darkest corners...maybe you don't...but I certainly do...

After we clinked our sparkling wine glasses, if we had the blessing to have someone to celebrate the ushering of the new year with, we went to bed still tasting the bitter sweetness caused by standing in between a beginning and an ending. We closed our eyes and drifted into a restless sleep, cluttered by images of what should have been, what was and what should have never happened...not sure if the light will ever shine again...

At that moment, when we know despair can so very easily grab a hold of us simply because hope seems to vanish as a vapor through our helpless fingers...that moment when we know we could so very quickly get lost in the dense fog...that's the moment when the Way is revealed to us by the Light of the Truth.

That's the moment when we hang on with all we've got to the Word and His promises, guided by the Truth until we see His Light that will show us the Way to the Life He has prepared for us and that remains even when we seem to have lost it all. That's the moment when we remember that "Holy is His Name!"  Like Mary did, as she knew she was entering a most difficult time in her life.  That's when she recalled the truth that never changes: no matter what, "Holy is His Name!"  Holy: exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness...set apart. (Merriam-Webster)

Those are the moments when we hold on to the Truth and claim His promises and believe He is, indeed Holy, completely worthy of our entire devotion because He is perfect in goodness and love...and that regardless of our current circumstances, He will come through and deliver us in His perfect will and perfect plan.

Those are the moments when we surrender, because we trust Him and because we know of His great love...no matter what.

As the new year crawls in, let's not be nervous.  Maybe you're not...but I sure am...so I need the reminder that even when all seems wrong, tragic, sad, confusing, unfair, complicated or unbearable, He is still lovingly in control...and He is always Holy!  In Christ's Precious Name.  Amen!