12.24.06
Advent, Part 2
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!
Ok, so I didn’t do as well as I had planned on writing about advent. Partially cause I got so busy, and partially because the site I had been referencing for info was for some reason no longer available.
I have however been reading my advent daily devotional, and enjoying it. I sincerely hope that you all are getting more out of Christmas this year than presents, and that on this night you are greatly anticipating continuing your part in God’s great story.
I pray that EVERYONE has someone to be spending the next 36 hours with, and I hope your Christmas is wonderful!
12.21.06
The Best Christmas Card Ever
So I got a Christmas card in the mail from my brother and sister-in-law, JJ and Erin. In the Christmas card, was a CD of their favorite holiday music. You know those Christmas greats like Run DMC, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar Mellencamp, Eric Clapton, Bon Jovi, Blues Travelers, Dave Matthews, etc.
So do you wish you were on their Christmas card list?
12.19.06
Weakness
Someone must have informed our printing company of my weakness.
Aren’t they pretty - and tasty too! I already ate the snowman! Anyone who’s ever been around me at a Christmas party, where there are iced sugar cookies a plenty, understands what a true weakness of mine these are.
Hope you each have some holiday delights to enjoy! :)
12.04.06
Advent, Part 1
I love Christmas, well really what I love is every moment leading up to Christmas, and this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about Advent. The concept seems to have gone by the wayside in contemporary churches, perhaps even for good reason, but this year, I want to focus on it. So I’m reading a little devotional I found online, and am going to try to share every week on my blog, what my thoughts/learnings have been. Feel free to read along with me on the devotional, although I have to make a disclaimer, I haven’t done it before, and upon skimming it looks good, but you just never know it might not be.
My thoughts on Advent: Advent to me is basically this concept of expectation, eagerly anticipating the arrival of our Savior. What an overwhelming thought. Before Christ’s life on earth, it was a waiting game, where as now, we can experience salvation the moment we believe, those before us were eagerly anticipating his arrival, waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. So I’ve been thinking what our society can associate with this kind of eager anticipation, like a single female eagerly anticipating the man who will make her a bride, or the eager anticipation of a first child to be born. I’m sure there is lots to compare it to. I’ve been trying to ask myself lately, what am I eagerly anticipating from God, what promises in my life am I waiting for him to fulfill. Am I even aware that he’s given me promises, and he’s longing more than I am for me to see them fulfilled? I’ve been learning so much lately about God, and how he works - I’ve grown up going to church, but it’s like I have new eyes recently, and I’m understanding things in different and deeper ways.
One big thing I am eagerly anticipating, is the waiting game of being made perfect in Him. I appreciate the process, and am grateful for the grace that comes along with it, but also can not wait for the day, when His work in me is finished, and I don’t have to deal with the ramifications of my own screw ups.
This week in Advent the focus is on hope, longing, expectation and prophecy. I hope you’ll join me in spending some time thinking about all of the hope we truely do have in Christ, and digging deep into ourselves to find the feeling of anticipation that we have toward God and his plans. I pray that we will all know these concepts in a new way.