December 2009

Dear Friends,

            I want to thank you for your generosity recently expressed with the Thanksgiving baskets, Christmas Child boxes, Gideon's LOVE offering, and your church commitments for 2010.  Our simple gifts are making a difference in our church, communities, and world.  Thank you! As we enter the church season of Advent, let us continue to anticipate the joy God has for us as we live lives of simplicity and generosity.

            An unknown author penned the following:

                        I had a dream Joseph.  I don't understand it, not really, but I think it was about a birthday celebration for our Son.  I think that was what it was all about.  The people had been preparing for it for about four weeks.  They had decorated the house and had bought new clothes.  They'd gone shopping many times and bought elaborate gifts.  It was peculiar, though, because the presents weren't for our Son.  They wrapped them in beautiful paper and tied them with lovely bows and stacked them under a tree.  Yes, a tree, Joseph, right in their house!  They decorated the tree also.  The branches were full of glowing balls and sparkling ornaments.  There was a figure on top of the tree.  It looked like an angel might look.  Oh, it was beautiful.  Everyone was laughing and happy.  They were all excited about the gifts.  They gave the gifts to each other, Joseph, not to our Son.  I don't think they even knew Him.  They never mentioned His name.  Doesn't it seem odd for people to go to all that trouble to celebrate someone's birthday if they don't know him?  I had the strangest feeling that if our Son had gone to this celebration, he would have been intruding.  Everything was so beautiful, Joseph, and everyone so gay, but it made me want to cry.  How sad for Jesus--not to be wanted at his own birthday party!  I'm glad it was only a dream.   How terrible, Joseph, if it had been real!!

            Are you anticipating Jesus this Christmas?  Are you preparing for His coming again even as you put up the same Christmas decorations of years past?  Are you expecting Jesus to be made real in your life this Advent (John3:16)?  Are you passing that gift on to others as Jesus commanded (Matthew 22:37-39)?

            I can ask the questions.  Your response holds the answers.  There is an old gospel song that begins, "Into my heart, come into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus."  It is my prayer for you that the Lord who came on the first Christmas and who will come again at God's appointed time, will also come to each one of you this Christmas.  Invite Jesus into your heart, or if He already resides there, invite him to renew His Spirit within you.  The wonder of grace is that God continues to come among us again and again with the assurance that in Christ we will find meaning, in Christ we will find hope, in Christ we will find forgiveness, and in Christ we will find the love of God alive and real!  Welcome Him into your heart by faith and to His birthday party with joy!  All the promises of God are summed up in Jesus who came, in Jesus who comes to us still, and in Jesus who will come again in glory.

                                                In Christmas Joy and Peace

                                                Pastor Cindy