My earliest memories of Christmas were a mixture of joy and sadness. I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, where celebrating Christmas meant wearing bathing suits, eating barbeque shrimp and steak, spending the day around the backyard pool, and of course, the excitement of opening presents!
The first few years, it was simply a sudden and unexpected heaviness of heart and mind. The feeling of being stuck in thick darkness and finding no safety. But it was overwhelming.
Losing control of my mind, seeing fear take over. Despair settling in. Hopelessness filling my heart.
Jesus is easily the most influential person to have ever lived. He is also, possibly, the most enigmatic figure in human history. Talk to anyone and you will find that the vast majority actually do have something to say about Jesus, with a sizeable number choosing to believe the sensational (or the stereotypical) and not necessarily the truth.
The movie The Martian—starring Matt Damon—tells the story of fictional astronaut Mike Watney. Watney finds himself stranded on Mars after an emergency evacuation of his space station. The story follows his incredible ingenuity, innovation, and resilience, in fighting for survival.