I used to scorn printed Christmas letters — until I had six children. Then I realized that writing one letter and making copies of it was the only way I would ever get a letter written to everyone we wanted to send our love to each year. The first letters were filled with stories of the bizarre and endearing things our kids did and said. Then, as my children became better photographers and better writers than me, they created much more interesting and entertaining letters than anything I could concoct. We have a notebook full of letters that chronicle twenty-five years of God’s grace in the midst of Forster family life.
But this year was the year that Bethany officially retired from writing our Christmas letter. It was totally reasonable. She doesn’t live with us anymore. We’re bona fide empty-nesters now. In fact, we don’t really even have a nest. We’re camped in our son’s driveway (and part of their house) while we doggedly try to get our house-building project started. So we really ought to write our own letter.
The trouble is: I couldn’t do it. I tried and tried.
It’s been a unique year in our lives. Lots of endings. But lots of new beginnings. Lots of questions. But lots of learning to trust. I couldn’t capture with words the crazy year or the crazy faithfulness of God that saturated it.
So, after Christmas Day came and went, I gave up for the year and figured I would try again next year.
And then Bethany did it. She posted on Facebook and said what I wanted to say but so much better than I ever could have said it.
HERE IT IS. Read her (and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s) beautiful words, and thank God for another year of His relentless love and grace.
God is good — all the time.
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Amazing Grace.
I look forward to another year of delighting in God and His Word together with you all! <3
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