What’s on my mind?
……Delighting in a lovely, unique Christmas card, the design of which is made using banana bark! On first glance one might see Madonna and Child with Dove….. but somehow it suggests to me, as well, Hagar with Ishmael as refugees in the desert, having been sent out from the home of Abraham and Sarah, pleading for rescue and discovering The God Who Hears and who answers prayers of the desperate. Distributed by “Food for the Poor, Inc” from Deerfield Beach, Florida, to help the destitute of the Caribbean by creating jobs there in their home land.
“As often as you did it to one of the least of My brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” Matt 25:40.
God ultimately gave Hagar and Ishmael their own home and promise of a hope and a future and did not diminish or impose on either family’s worth and dignity nor force either into slavery to the other……
Maybe we could think beyond just the Holy Family this Christmas to all the families of the world and seek God’s goodwill and peace and trust his goodness for all people, wherever they are.
I heard someone say one time that the birth of a baby is God’s opinion that the world should continue…… I think that is the case with every pregnancy and every birth….. it is ordained by God for a purpose. Even if it was not what he had intended for Abraham and Sarah, the birth of Ishmael was no less important to God and in his wonderfully redemptive will, he made a way for Hagar and Ishmael…… as he will for every child waiting to be born.
Pray until every mother-in-waiting is viewed as a madonna and every child cherished as a gift.