Happy New Tears

I texted someone last week meaning to say "Happy New Years".  Instead I typed "Happy New Tears".  Quickly fixing  my error, I thought about that statement.  We always wish the best of things for each other, but down deep inside we know the reality.  2020 will bring good and bad.  
Proverbs 27:1 says, "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth."  This  may be uncomfortable wisdom, but it is true.  In the next 12 months, any one of a host of things could come to our door:
~ a doctor's prognosis or test result
~ a death in the family (maybe your death!)
~financial struggles
~ strained relationships and unforgiven hurts
~car accident
~addiction
My list could go on a thousand events more.  We are sinful people, dealing with other sinful people in a sinful world.  Even being in Christ is no defense for bumping up against heartaches.  Our Lord Himself, living here for 33 years, was "despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem." Isaiah 53:3.  

Familiar with pain.  Jesus didn't just have pain here and there.  He touched some side of it every day.  Jesus, God-man, the Word of the Father, was not just knowledgeable but familiar with pain. He lived it just as we do.  This Hebrew word וִיד֣וּעַ (familiar) refers to "know in a great variety of senses".  Jesus' life was not wonderful for 32 years and then he had a painful last year.  Jesus knew how each year brought new forms of rejection, pain, grief, all the things a new calendar brings us. He felt these pains in childhood, puberty and adulthood.  This should bring us great comfort as we face tomorrow.

The Psalms give us hope in our 2020 tears which may come: Psalm 94:19 "When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. " 
So Happy New Years and Happy New Tears to you....all in Christ alone.

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