Our family Christmas letter
Season’s Greetings! We hope this finds you and your family well and looking forward to the new year. It’s hard to believe 2016 will soon be history…it sure was one for the books, huh? Here’s what it looked like for us.
We wish we could report that in 2016 we achieved many life goals and enjoyed much peace and happiness. But unfortunately, there was precious little of that for our family. The recent political upheaval has us sorely divided, resulting in much consternation and many hurt feelings. Some of us have stopped talking to the others, and a few are so upset we may never see them again. Perhaps time will heal the wounds.
Not sure what’s going to heal all the illnesses and injuries we’ve been dealing with though. Our health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are so high now that we’ve been choosing to tough it out and hope for the best instead of seeing a doctor. Which means we’ve missed a lot of work, and the income that goes with it. Times are tough.
But even a doctor is nearly helpless when it comes to heroin, and many of our younger ones are trapped in that addiction, and some have died. We are struggling to carry on and searching for a way to keep the others from succumbing to its deception.
We are also grieving the loss of many who were killed by some misguided brothers and sisters. These unfortunately became blinded by an ideology of hatred and conquest, and in seeking to be martyrs became murderers. It’s truly tragic…not only because many have died but also because now we’re fearful, and that fear is hindering the unity our family so desperately needs.
Sadly, not only fear but anger, mistrust, and discontent threaten to destroy whatever harmony we have managed to maintain. We say we love and respect each other but the way we act when we disagree sure doesn’t look like love.
Sorry this is such a bummer of a letter…there’s just not a lot of good news to tell. But it’s Christmastime so we’ve been thinking about those angels, and whether their “good news of great joy” is something we could get in on. They sang of a Savior, and God knows we need one. But we’re a stubborn, skeptical, self-sufficient lot and many of us are unwilling to even acknowledge the evidence for God’s existence, much less that he cares to get us out of the mess we’re in.
But could we have created the universe? Is there really no intelligence in intricacy? Can we objectively judge right from wrong without God? If this life is all there is, there is no hope for us. But if Jesus is truly Emmanuel…God with us…we have hope for this life and beyond.
So we’ve heard anyway. We think we’re ready to check it out for ourselves. What have we got to lose?
Perhaps our 2017 letter will reflect a little bit of that hope. Until then we say Happy Holidays to you and yours with best wishes for a very much improved New Year.
The Hu Man Family
