Stumbling Blocks or Stepping Stones?

by Dianne Sackrider

My Pastor preached a great sermon on Sunday about taking time to look back over the past year and to ask ourselves what could we have done better…

Now my first thought was to pat myself on the back for a year of good choices.  After I got past my puffed up self, I really began to look at the year with a heart of truthfulness.  I remembered there were some places that I stumbled and got tripped up.  There were some situations that caught me off guard as well. 

But also in that time of reflecting, I was able to see that God walked with me through some very difficult times.  Like my mother being diagnosed with inoperable stage 4 lung cancer.  I had to choose to look beyond the facts of that diagnosis and put my faith in action to trust God for her healing.  And you know what?  She is cancer free!   She is alive and living a victorious life.  Another difficult situation I faced was having my youngest daughter and her husband move out of state.  That was tough.  It became even tougher when I found out she was going to have a baby and I was not going to be able to walk with her through this joyful season.  It stung.  Yet, she and her husband are doing wonderful, the baby is growing strong and healthy and we will get to go meet our newest granddaughter in April.   

I also discovered as I looked back, that God had completely healed my broken heart and brought restoration to many of the broken relationships that had resulted from that broken heart.  Just that reminder alone brought a great big smile to my face!  The job I had lost 2 years ago was replaced this year with one that is better than I could have ever dreamed of.  The location is less than 3 miles from my house.  The people are all precious and love God wholeheartedly and the increase in my salary is incredible!

So, those stumbling blocks that the enemy meant for harm, just proved to be stepping stones that God used for my good!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

by Ev Horne

Is it me, or is Christmas just the most wonderful time of the year?

I love Christmas time. Beginning at Thanksgiving and going right through Christmas and New Years.  It just seems people seem a little “lighter” at this time of year.  They seem more friendly and courteous.  Oh, I know, you can’t go a day without the news making sure you are aware of every tragedy and every unjust thing in the world.  But really, in your own little corner of this earth, doesn’t it seem just a little brighter?  It does on my corner anyway.

I was talking with a friend last night. We were talking about how much I love this time of year.  I love eating turkey from Thanksgiving to New Years.  I told her I think people are just a little nicer; they seem to smile more and be friendlier.  She said, “Why do you think that is?” Well, I think it’s because at this time of year, everyone tends to worship God, even without thinking about it.  We sing Christmas songs all the season long.  Radio stations play Christmas songs.  It reminds me of the story of when Jesus rode the colt of a donkey into Jerusalem in Luke 19:38-40.  All the people were saying, ”Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”  But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” (NKJV)

All across the world, people are singing Silent Night, Holy Night, We 3 Kings, Go Tell It on the Mountain, O Come All Ye Faithful.  I’ll bet there might even be an Atheist accidently singing one of those songs! It was a special time when our Savior was born.  The spiritual world must have been abuzz with what was going to happen.  Angel choirs getting ready to sing at the proclamation of the living God come to earth.  WOW! Stands to reason, why celebrating the birth of our Savior is a special time and we can’t help but sing songs that worship Him.  So, sing your heart out and remember, He inhabits the praise of His people.

Merry Christmas!

Hope

by Jessica Grimbleby

Christmas always brings out the feeling of hope in me. When I think about what was going on in the world when Jesus was born, I imagine the hope that people felt just knowing the savior had come. Sure he had yet to die for them (and us), but it is like a light at the end of a tunnel. THE SAVIOR HAS COME! 

This hope is still such a beautiful and amazing thing. Even though I wasn't around when the original Christmas happened, I still feel a renewed sense of hope (and joy) each Christmas season. It's a beautiful thing to think about, the gift that is Christ Jesus. So often I think we get caught up in everything else and forget to remember what Christmas truly is about. That baby laying in a manger, born through miraculous circumstances, means so much more than hope. He truly is our everything. He is my hope, my joy, my peace, my comforter, my savior. 

I never tire of the renewed sense of hope I feel every year when I get to celebrate my savior's birth. 

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

What Christmas is About

by Gayle Thornberry

Upstairs in my Cape Cod home, we utilized the space behind the knee-walls to create long, well lit storage bays, the largest of which is in my den behind my sofa.  Christmas lives up there -- inside the many tubs and boxes.  It’s always a special time to crawl in and pull out each tub, box and angel.  Because they are all marked indicating which ones will decorate the upstairs, the downstairs, the porch and the lawn, I sort and stack them at the top of the stairs before making the necessary trips down, one load after another.  There is something magical as I open and unwrap each fragile glass ball, porcelain King, or china angel.  I look lovingly at each item as I unpack them one-by-one as if I had never seen them before.  Nothing but joy do I feel as I as I work away placing each item in its designated spot.  I take great pride in decorating my tree as if it were a show piece with its extreme use of lights and decorations. I spend two days decorating the tree and house, and another two days decorating the porch and lawn . . . and then I sit.  I sit with a cup of hot cider, or coffee and just look at beauty that an ordinary house it transformed into when the extra-ordinariness of Christmas arrives. 

I can image the same joy filled the heart of the creator as God placed each tree, planted each flower with the words “tulips, you go here and day-lilies, you go there.”  I imagine all of heaven was a-buzz as the world we know was transformed from an ordinary void of chaos into something as spectacular as mountains, lakes, valleys and deserts.  I imagine God sitting back on day number eight and admiring all that was created … you and me!

Christmas – made up of two simple yet profoundly spectacular words, Christ and mas.  Christ, the miracle and gift of Christmas, and “mas(s),” that service observed in worship of the king of Kings.  God’s very self, embracing the brokenness of creation as the babe in the manger later stretched forth arms on wooden beams in undeserved sacrifice.  Magical, mystical, and the mysterious work of love.  Is there anything ordinary about Christmas?  Anything ordinary about that kind of love?  Anything ordinary about the extra-ordinariness of the beauty of this season?

This year, not one tub came down the stairs.  No outdoor lights, no greenery on the white porch railing, no manger scene on the lawn.  No Christmas tree, no silver kings or brightly colored angels … nothing but a wreath on the door, a painted antique sled on the porch, a vase of poinsettias on the granite island in the kitchen and a 12 inch wooden tree on the piano.   This year an over-extended schedule necessitated the simplicity of Christmas for me.  At first, I stressed about what it meant to have Christmas without all the trappings.  I wondered if I would be considered, by my neighbors, a scrooge or simply a slacker!  I thought that perhaps it wouldn’t feel like Christmas at all.   I found myself judging Christmas by my ability to manage the vast chaos that swirled around me and my inability to call all of that into some kind of order, trappings and all.  And then, as I lamented the reality that I could no longer don the “super-woman” cape and make it all happen, God spoke.

The still small voice of my redeemer God, the soon coming King, broke through the haze of condemnation and question that warped my Christmas spirit -- with words of “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace among those whom He favors!” (Luke 2:14) 

I was reminded that there is something ordinary about Christmas after all.  It’s pretty ordinary that we women tend to place extreme expectations upon ourselves, especially during this extra-ordinary season.  We expect to be able to decorate the house, bake for church, school and office, wrap individually every pack of gum we plan to put into stockings, prepare a Paula Dean type Christmas feast, and make memories other than negative ones.  We expect to figure out how to stretch every penny, write everyone we’ve ever known a Christmas card, and get them all out on time.  We expect that we should be able to order our world with efficiency and it goes without saying, that is must be done with excellence!  Bah-humbug!  Christmas is about realizing that we are not da-vine, we are just da-branch!  When we find ourselves so over-functioning that Christmas is measured by our doing . . . we come into the reality that we are not abiding in the vine . . . when that happens, we are not glorifying God in the highest heaven, and there is no peace for us, on the earth.  Perhaps this year, we need to simplify in order to glorify!  Perhaps this year, we need to realize the trap in all the trappings, and be set free from all the doing, in order that we might be found among the favored so that peace on earth would abound in our homes.  Christmas is about the goodness of God come down to man.  It’s about the babe born of a virgin, placed in a manger, hung on a cross, and rose from the dead!  Ladies, beware of the trap in the trappings, and have a very Merry Christmas!