This lovely picture, the copyright of www.crosscards.com indicates the glitter and gold of Christmas and that is exactly what Christmas is, pure gold. Hope and light in a world of darkness and pain.

We writers know all about rejection. The rejected manuscript, competition entry etc which can so often feel like a personal rejection. Christmas is often portrayed as a sentimental scene all love and sugar sweetness but this is far from the reality of the true story. As I was listening to the radio yesterday I heard a very new interpretation of the nativity story. For a start, Mary was very young. She can’t have been more than about 13 or 14 years old, the usual age of marriage in the middle east in those times. She was engaged to Joseph and engagements in those days were often very long. Then Mary suddenly finds herself pregnant out of wedlock. She believed it to be an immaculate conception but others may have thought differently. Women were stoned for this in these days. And why when Joseph, Mary’s loyal supporter, went to his family home for the census in Bethlehem don’t we hear of family coming out to meet them and offer hospitality, after all this was the family city? And what about Mary’s own mother and father where were they? It all smacks of rejection from those who she might have expected to have helped and stood by her.

So when you feel alone and rejected take heart this Christmas, Mary felt the same. And what about Jesus Christ? He was rejected throughout his life and, as this story suggests  was rejected by some even in the womb. Think about this at Christmas as you tuck into your turkey. He understands when we feel alone and rejected. He was there first.

A very Happy and Blessed Christmas to all my blog readers and followers. Take some rest and recuperation and come back inspired and ready to write even more and even better in 2013.

Thanks for following me in 2012 xxx.