By Darlene Franklin
Merry Christmas? Not always. For many, it’s the loneliest time of year. Merry Christmas? Not always. For many, it’s the loneliest time of year. How do you read “Godisnowhere?” Many cheer that God is now here. Others wander in the darkness of “God is nowhere.” Some still wonder if Emanuel, God with us, has ever come. God not only makes promises. He transforms, fulfills, and perpetuates them. PROMISES GIVENIn the 21st century, Christians are tempted to question why people didn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah at His birth. We don’t think about how long Jews had waited waiting for Emanuel to be born, ever since the birth of their nation, a promise that extended back to the Garden of Eden.Fifty-three years ago, my ten-year-old self said “I will” when the preacher asked, “who will go?” I fbelieved I was supposed to serve as a music missionary to Mexico.Our southern neighbor was pretty exotic to someone from Maine. I studied Spanish on my own until I got to high school and pursued advanced degrees in Bible and music.Did I ever get to Mexico? Yes, for eight glorious weeks one summer while I was in college. My dream of fulltime service ground down over the years. Financial and family difficulties intervened, and I found myself too old and unfit. I gave up, but God didn’t. When I moved west, Mexicans worked in fast-food restaurants, did my hair, and became my neighbors, friends, and co-workers. They accepted my halting attempts at Spanish with delight. When I didn’t get to Mexico, God brought Mexico to me. PROMISES TRANSFORMEDGod did more than bring Mexico to me. He turned the tables on me. A couple of weeks ago one of my nursing home aides, Maria Ochoa, helped me get ready for the day. Spanish Catholic music played on her phone, and I sang along. She showed me the lyrics on the screen. For ten minutes, we told the gospel through endless verses. It was a powerful time of worship. Maria had switched roles and ministered to me. The Lord took the promise to bring me to Mexico and transformed it into something even more beautiful. Similarly, the Messiah who arrived didn’t match what people expected. Instead of a King to sit on David’s throne, God sent the Lamb who would take away the sins of the world and rule over a heavenly kingdom of people from every tribe and tongue and nation. PROMISES FULFILLEDThose first century Jews had it partly right. The Day of the Lord is coming and His Kingdom will be established on earth as it is in heaven. But they missed the bits about the humble servant who would suffer and die (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. Sometimes a promise happens in stages. The fact we didn’t get everything we expected doesn’t meant those things will never come to pass. Take the book I’m working on now. I’ve been to compose prayers from Genesis to Revelation. I’m jumping for joy because God called me, promised me, that I would be writing a devotional book over twenty-five years ago. After my nonfiction proposals got rejected repeatedly, I decided God wanted me to write fiction. I’ve been blessed with many novels, and have contributed devotions to books now and then. Over the past eighteen months, God has opened one door after another to write nonfiction. And now God gave me this this awesome, almost scary, gift and assignment. Praise Him.PROMISES PERPETUATEDGod gives every generation enough signs to believe the Lord is returning in their generation. In my youth, we looked at the restablishment of Israel as a nation for the first time AD 70 (in 1948). I spent my young adult years watching for the Lord’s return. If it happened within a forty-year generation of Israeli nationhood, He would come in 1988. When it didn’t happen, I knew I had figured wrong. Perhaps the biblical promises to bless the righteous to a thousand generations works like that. That’s a promise that stretches beyond the family I can imagine, to places I’ve never been-until the Lord’s return. God will fulfill every one of His promises. It’s only a question of when.Sponsored by Darlene Franklin. Best-selling hybrid author Darlene Franklin’s greatest claim to fame is that she writes full-time from a nursing home. Mermaid Song is her fiftieth unique title! She’s also contributed to more than twenty nonfiction titles. Her column, “The View Through my Door,” appears in four monthly venues. Other recent titles are Christmas Masquerade and Maple Notch Romances Eight Couples Find Love You can find her online at: Website and blog, Facebook, Amazon author page
