As we wind down another year, I can’t help but feel our present age is always hoping for a new beginning, but never willing to begin again. That leap of faith is so hard to take. Sometimes the radical shift is only in our hearts and other times it is in our life circumstances.  

This year was full of wonder. I saw the financial poverty and spiritual wealth of Christian India. I walked the beaches of Islamic Dubai, where it is illegal to hold Christian prayer meetings.  I witnessed the majesty of Scotland’s mountains where I could hear the echo of my ancestors playing the pipes and drums. I stood in English castles and imagined all that empire’s grandeur that has faded into desperation.

Above all, I could hear my heartbeat, the quiet dance of God’s gift to us all, the gift of life, a gift to one another. It is the echo of a tiny heartbeat in the womb of Mary 2000 years ago, which is still beating in you and me.

May your new year be filled with opportunities to live Christmas every day, where the love of our Saviour is born in your heart.

David MacDonald