MIRACLES ALL AROUND US
CHRISTMAS is a time to celebrate belief in the birth of a saviour and the hope and love encompassed in that faith.
It is a time when each of us wishes for a better world, for an end to suffering and for a reawakening of understanding.
It is difficult to reconcile these wishes with the horrible reality that has inflicted so much suffering around the globe and very close to home this past year.
This Christmas, there are families in the Gold Coast community who will be struggling to find any miracles as they are left reeling from the recent fatal stabbing of a teen, or the stabbings and bashings of other victims.
There will be many feeling the pain of having a parent, sibling or partner out of control on the drug ice. There will be the financial harm caused to the targets – often elderly – of armed robbery to feed drug addiction.
There will be the brutality of tyrants who stand over frightened partners and their children behind closed doors, causing physical harm and deep psychological trauma.
Much of Australia, meanwhile, has been under siege from massive bushfires that have burnt with an intensity that we in this state have encountered only rarely until now.
We know this wide brown land is – as poet Dorothea Mackellar wrote – one of “droughts and flooding rains”. That has always been a given, but only the blind can argue now that something has not changed, that the cycle of drought and flood has taken on a greater menace.
As families sit down together this Christmas to celebrate all that is good in their lives, they can count blessings.
Too few of us though look beyond the front door to contemplate what it is that keeps our Gold Coast and the rest of Australia from jumping the rails when natural disasters, terrible accidents or horrible crimes cause so much pain.
We are lucky that out there on the front line in any grim situation is an army of men and women working in the police service, in the ambulance and fire services, in our hospitals, on the beaches for the surf lifesaving clubs, and for any number of other agencies or charities that put service for others ahead of personal circumstances.
On Christmas Day, volunteers with big hearts full of love give up their time to make sure life’s battlers are cared for and will be fed a beautiful dinner, or will visit a lonely patient in hospital.
Priests, ministers and pastors of a variety of religions will be called to sit with the sick and dying, or to support individuals or families suffering hardship and despair.
When looking for a Christmas miracle, take note of what all these people on the front line are doing. They give comfort and hope to others – and their example is enough to renew our faith and a reason to count blessings.
Christmas is about hope and love. They are rock-solid foundations and without them, families, cities and an entire nation can be lost.