The Christmas Miracle Every Hurting Parent Needs

Does your child’s life look like an impossible mess this Christmas season?

Are they so trapped in addictive behaviors and destructive relationships that it looks like there’s no way out?

Are drugs and alcohol, self-injury, an eating disorder, mental illness, jail sentences, a same-sex relationship or pornography holding them in bondage?

If all you see are impossibilities—in their lives and in yours—then you need a miracle.

Maybe the Miracle Is in You?

Jesus, the promised Messiah, comes to us in the middle of our broken, dirty world. He comes, no matter how messed up our lives are. We don’t scare Him away. And with Him, anything is possible—even that miracle you’ve been praying for and have almost given up on.

Our wayward children need forgiveness, too. They know how much they’ve hurt us. They berate themselves for it more than we know. For some, that mountain is too high to climb. God invites them to bathe in his pool of mercy and grace. Where His grace is missed, “bitterness is born. But where the grace of God is embraced, forgiveness flourishes.” —Max Lucado

But have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, the miracle is what God is doing in you, Mom or Dad? (Not that He can’t or won’t do one for your child.) If He can take an ugly caterpillar trapped in a cocoon and bring it out as a breathtakingly beautiful butterfly, He can do the impossible in a person’s life.

My daughter loves butterflies. One year for a special birthday outing, she went to an indoor butterfly garden. While there, this gorgeous morphos butterfly landed on her, opened its wings, and stayed there. Astonished, the staff told her this was very rare. When she sent me the photo I cried tears of joy. The butterfly symbolized how much God had done in her life, bringing her out of a mess, giving her a new life. Morphos means “change,” and she was a living example of that.

Today your child might be stuck in a dark place in serious need of major changes; in a big mess they can’t pry themselves out of—maybe you are, too—but think of the possibilities. For God, they’re limitless!

Prayer: O Father, please do a miracle! Give me strength where there is weakness; hope where there is despair; joy where there is only sadness and a new life where there has been death. Revive my faith that with You, I can rise above the mess. Jesus, You took on my frail, human form and entered into my soul-impoverished cocoon. You know how hopeless I feel in there, yet You can make something new out of my life. You can make miracles happen—they ARE possible—in me and in my child. In Your mighty name. Amen.

We’re waiting, Lord. We desperately need a miracle today. I’m reminded of the words of an old Christmas hymn I always liked, “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel …”

And these Bible verses give me hope:

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people … to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:68, 79). {eoa}

Dena Yohe is the author of You Are Not Alone: Hope for Hurting Parents of Troubled Kids (2017). Co-founder of Hope for Hurting Parents, she is a blogger, former pastor’s wife and CRU affiliate staff. She and her husband, Tom, have been guests on “Family Talk With Dr. James Dobson,” “Family Life” with Dennis Rainey” and “Focus on the Family” with Jim Daly. A proud mom of three adult children, she loves being Mimi to her grandchildren. Find out more at HopeForHurtingParents.com.

This article originally appeared at hopeforhurtingparents.com.