Saturday, December 25, 2010

I never thought about how intense these five weeks are until now. Thanksgiving is self explanatory•Christmas is filled with emotion for me•New Years is a reflection of a year gone by and a vision of hope for the future•

Thank Christ for New.

My mind and heart are filled with Thanksgiving for what Christ has done for me and the Newness He gives me everyday not just once a year.

I realize the tradition of Thanksgiving is a celebration of the wonderful country, America that I live in. I am very thankful for the freedoms I have by just living in this country, but my Thanksgiving is geared more to my appreciation for what Christ has done for me and everyone else who believes in His unconditional love.Christmas, when I allow myself the time to sit and think about what we are actually celebrating it it quite sobering.
A baby sent to die...for me.

What? A precious newborn born to die for the sins of man. If we actually saw and held that new baby in our arms, looked into His eyes, kissed His rosy cheeks and nestled our face against His...how would our life be different? Knowing that He would die a painful, bloody death for me? For us? For the world? A mother, a father, a Heavenly Father giving up their precious Son for me? Sometimes it is just overwhelming to even think about.

Reflecting on the past year I can hardly believe the amount of answered prayers I have experienced. To spite my sinfulness, God has chosen to bless me beyond measure. As I have mentioned before I can't really share the extend of my answered prayers because of the involvement of other people, but what I can say is, very specific prayers have been answered for me. Relationships have been healed, relationships have been nurtured, relationships have grown to a new level and new relationships in Christ have been created. Every need has been met and many wants have been fulfilled and life long prayers involving my children have come to fruition. God has opened my eyes to His abilities, His creativity and His plan. It's amazing how different I view life, when I remember that God is in charge and He will be with me through life no matter what. It makes it easier to live life when I know that in the end no matter what happens I get to spend eternity with the Creator of the universe, and that He loves me and gives me a New beginning when ever I need it.

One of the amazing things about God is that He has the ability to love, take care of and answer the prayers of every single person in the world. Calling on the Name of the Lord involves our heart, God judges us on the motives of our heart, if our motives are to please Him and love others God is faithful to answer our prayers. We have to be looking and ready to accept the answers God has given us and work with in the guidelines He has laid out for us in the Bible. When we do that He is ready and willing to give us the desires of our heart. The desires of my heart in the past year was to love others with the help of God, and in doing so I have experienced an unfathomable amount of love myself. A love that I know comes directly from God Himself.

Just a glimpse of some of the people I have had the privilege of spending time with this year.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.