12/17/2025
Merry Christmas or not?
Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year, except for one year: 1989.
I knew nothing about anorexia. Public awareness of anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders was transformed by Karen Carpenter’s death and the later movie.
It was then that my fiancé told me she had been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa two years before we met. We had been planning our wedding for the Christmas holidays. It never occurred, for she died.
✯ ✯ ✯
I fell apart and lost 30 pounds in 30 days. I blamed God and could not function. Within six months, I filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
I cried out to Christ, “Lord, where are you?”
I could not understand how a Christian girl and someone so young and kind could die. I turned to the Scriptures to find answers.
The first verse, The Good Lord led me to change my life forever, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39)
That seemed simple enough; whoever finds his life will lose it. "Okay, Randy, life is not about finding, acquiring, and accumulating things like s*x, drugs, and rock and roll, not to mention cars and homes."
But that’s not what it says.
“What have I been seeking?” I wrote down a list on a yellow tablet: success, education, health, wealth, social status, entertainment, pleasure, friends, family, children, and even religion.
These are the things I’ve focused on. “Surely they are not all bad?”
But the scripture did not end there; what about the part that reads, “He who loses his life for My sake will find it.”
I’m a little slow sometimes, “So Lord, life is not in the getting but in the giving?” I surmised.
He then led me to, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)
Now, that began to make sense, “I’ve spent all these years seeking and acquiring and still do not have the joy, peace, and sense of purpose You spoke of, Lord.”
Even your universe is that way; the sun gives to the grass, the grass gives to the cow, and the cow gives me milk. Although, I don’t pretend to know how a brown cow can give me white milk, after eating green grass, but I reckon that part is called faith.
✯ ✯ ✯
That made me want to know Him even more. I read Jeremiah 29:13, which offers a powerful promise from God: When we earnestly seek Him wholeheartedly, we will find Him.
“Lord, how do I do that?” The most fervent of your apostles, Peter, denied you.
Another betrayed you after seeing your miracles, and the others, save one, fled like a cat on a hot tin roof when you hung bleeding on a tree.
Nicodemus, the most pious of religious leaders, couldn’t understand.
The supreme religious body, the Sanhedrin, with Pharisees and Sadducees, didn't have a clue. Although it was within their grasp in the books, they held as truth.
The most radical of the spiritual, the Zealots, zeal misguided them.
The most influential political leaders on earth could not see past themselves.
What hope is there for me to know You? You, Lord Jesus, are the Lord of Creation who spoke the Universe into existence.
Who can dare get your attention?
I found the answer in Scripture. Jesus, leaving Jericho with His disciples, was joined by a great multitude.
A blind man sat begging along the roadside. His name was Bartimaeus. When he discovered the clamor was about Jesus, he cried, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”
When the crowd warned him to be quiet, he cried louder.
When Jesus heard him, the Bible says, “Jesus stood still.”
What does it take to get Jesus' attention? What does it take to stop God in the flesh, the Lord of Creation, in His tracks? The cry of a blind beggar.
Christ soon promised paradise on the cross to a lowly thief. The criminal would be the first to reach Heaven with Christ.
Jesus hears the cry of a baby. He takes our tears and puts them in a bottle. He attends the funeral of every sparrow.
Our hairs are not counted, but each has a number. Where am I getting that from, the Bible.
Reach out to the last, the least, and the lost in His name and know His kindness, gentleness, goodness, love, purpose, peace, mercy, and grace.
Open His love letter to you, the Bible. And get to know Him.
If you are alone this Christmas, seek Jesus. If you have suffered loss reach out to Jesus. If you're hurting and confused, reach out to the One who gave His lifeblood—God's blood for you and me.
And I pray you have the merriest Christmas ever!
✯ ✯ ✯
Randy Willis Books
