Christmas Letter 2025

If starting a letter with “While sitting in our camper” doesn’t scream, “We are empty nesters in our 50’s” I am not sure what else does.  Well, I take that back.  I can think of a couple.  1. I know where my charging cords are.   AT ALL TIMES.  2. I have never been so confused by the quantity of protein intake needed to survive the rest of my life – oh, and one more…. 

I miss the kids in our home.   

So…..while sitting in our camper, I was thinking about that line from “O Little Town of Bethlehem” {lyrics “hit different” in every season of my life!}—“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.” I mean… yes!  Right?  The contrast of “hopes and fears” – the spectrum of emotion from end to end—could probably describe any year I’ve lived but 2025 embodied them both pretty well so when I read this line the other day, it tucked in close to my heart.  

The one comfort in the lyric is “Thee”.  Him. Messiah. Jesus. Savior. King.  In this simplest and personal coming “tonight”—to be WITH us, to walk WITH us--His Presence satisfies our deepest hopes and His Presence stays with us and cares for us in our deepest fears.  His Person, His Presence is everything.  Just ONE of the endless gifts of the gospel is that of the Spirit who-if you are His- indwells each one of us… for a myriad of reasons but this Presence- HIS Presence- to care, to comfort and to BE with us- settles in my heart like nothing else does.  Praise!

How the time “of all the years” passes has become one of the most mysterious things to me.  2025 seems like a decade and then also like a vapor.  And when it feels like that to me, I can’t help but wonder, is it everybody or is it just some—or just me?  Jeff’s mom entered the presence of the Lord at the beginning of the year and it all seems so long ago.  We celebrated her Presence with the Father now and also mourned the great loss of her presence here.  If you could call anyone sweet and gracious on this planet, it was her.  So welcoming, warm and kind.  She adored and doted on her family.  We all miss her—but the beauty of our Hope is that we will all be with her again.  

In a very different realm of loss, our sweet 15-year-old Golden Retriever, Gabriel, finally gave it up in January.  We “heard” him for months after he left us and still can’t move his food and water bowl.  We are fine.  We are not fine.  He was the best of pups. He gets a paragraph all his own.  Sweet Gabe.  The best of pups…

Clearfork Community Church turned 2 in September.  We love this group of people – the ones who said yes before it even had a name and the ones who just said yes a week ago.  God’s idea of the local church—a church family—is a beautiful and glorious thing.  It’s a privilege to know these people, to serve alongside them, learn from them, be challenged by them and to be invited into the sacred places of their lives. To Him be the glory.  

Julia and Brighton continue to live and work in Fort Worth.  How do I say this any differently than last time and the time before that??--- we couldn’t be happier about it.  I look forward to having them for dinner once a week and am grateful to be a short 10 minutes away from both of them.  Their “work families” LOVE them which makes full time work much more enjoyable.  Julia is still lovely and witty. She’s a gift giver extraordinaire, has a very tender and passionate heart and is coming into her own in making her home unique and personal.  Brighton is still pulling for the underdog {ex. The Cleveland Browns and the one left out} and is still never at a loss for words. {I could not be a happier about that either.}  He communicates gratitude in ways that make your throat close up and is perceptive in ways that can make you squirm.  

Thank you for reading.  The  “young people” who receive these letters think I made this up—sending one with the Christmas card.  I don’t know exactly what to make of that—but “empty nester in her 50’s” probably explains a lot. It does my heart good to write— May the hopes and fears of even just this next year be met in Him this day and every day, for His desire is to BE your deepest {and surest} hope and to be WITH you in any fear.  

MERRY MERRY Christmas to you and yours.  Much love from The Sanders!