Advent Four - Christmas and Hallmark???

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent.

We light the candle of love

     If you know me, you know that I love romance.  I'm a huge romantic.  I loved being in love - more than once and every now and then I think maybe I would like to someday be in love again.

     And I love the Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies that are oft-repeated and still really good.

     However, I can't figure out what romance has to do with Christmas.

     Unless the stories focus on family, helping others, traditions, music, children wishing for that special gift or the magic of the Christmas season.

     Well, I really know how it all connects.  I took the PR classes required for my degree in Communications.  I get marketing.

     And as a person who believes strongly in what we celebrate at Christmas, the birth of a baby would grow up and give his life so that we can receive forgiveness for our sins, I get it.  I think the first time I was ever in a Christmas program when I was about 4, I recited John 3:16 -- For God so LOVED the world. . .".

     And I also get it (and appreciate and love) that at Christmas we give gifts.  I still have some of my best gifts.    I've had this snowgirl since Becca was a baby.  That's almost 50 years.  Tray gave me a train in 1997 (something I wanted but never could afford when my children were growing up.  Rich gave me a cross in 1996,

 

     And I still love to give gifts.  By now my grandchidren want gift cards. That's fine except the girls are getting something small so that they feel it's a personal gift.  The boys asked for "THINGS" rather than money.

     When I was doing the research for the last Advent study for our Wonder Women Bible Study I found some examples of sharing God's love. Our first year as a single-family, some dear friends learned that Renee and Tray were praying for a bicycle (unbeknownst to me).  What a joy when they arrived at my door with a bike for each of them.  Becca dreamed of going to the Gator Bowl when her beloved Gators were playing Iowa.  I'll never forget her joy when she opened the tickets for her and her granddaddy. And the year I had totaled my car and needed to buy a new one (not new but still good), my children  handed me back their monetary Christmas gifts to help me with the down payment.

To me, that's the love in Christmas.

     And it's really about loving one another which we do by sharing a gift, something good to eat, a card that says we appreciate and wish someone peace, joy, hope, love.

     That love that was born at Christmas taught us to "Love one another".

     So now that I've given it more thought, I have determined that's what Christmas and Hallmark share.  When we watch those movies, we hopefully see examples of people who love one another.  Predictable??? Yes, but reliable and that's what makes them so good!

.One more special gift - I chose and purchased with a Stein Mart gift card  from the Wonder Women  

May your life be filled with enough Sunshine 

to make you appreciate the Shadow

 

Advent Three - When "life" gives you lemons

GRRRR

I'm in quarantine.

I'm concerned about the person whose positive test has landed her in a hospital.

And I'm a little disgusted that I've had to curtail my activities for the next few days.

I get tested twice a week so that I can visit my mother.  I have tested negative again and again.  However, I'm erring on the side of caution.  I'll get tested tomorrow and that should free me up for visits next week.  This week I'm pretty sure the plan will be Facetime visits.

To be honest, I have been vacillating between "all is well" and grrrr.  However, today is the third Sunday of Advent.  I lit the pink candle this morning. Pink to represent JOY.  

Hum.  JOY???  

I gave it some thought?  Yes, JOY.

Joy in my family - my eldest grandson expressed some concern that I should not crawl around on the floor putting the Christmas Train track together.  "I'll come do it", he said.  And while he was here, he also helped changed the windshield wipers on my car and chided me that I really need to do something about a noise that my front end is making.  I feel so very blessed by my family - he's just one of 13 (three children, three spice, and seven grands).  

Joy in my friends - I have had many sympathy cards (and one of them included 20 first-class stamps) sharing my sorrow at the loss of our brother  When I texted those I had been with this week to say that I had been exposed, I immediately got prayers of peace and healing.

Joy in my faith - As I prepared for the Bible study on Joy I found a couple of great resources.

I learned that the pink candle is also known as the shepherd's candle.  The angels told the shepherds the good news of a Saviour born in Bethlehem and it gave them great joy.  Pink is a JOYFUL color.

This quote was also meaningful to me:  "Joy is an attitude that we should adopt not because of circumstances but because we believe that God is in charge".

And that made me look for ways to find joy in my circumstances.

Over the next few days I have time to complete some projects - write thank you notes for those wonderful expressions of sympathy and address greeting cards from me to my wonderful Mandarin Museum volunteers.  I can watch all the Hallmark and Lifestyle movies that I have DVR'd and create a gift for my mother.

I'd have been looking for time to do that - if I hadn't had to quarantine.

So maybe my first expression should have been "GREAT!" 

May your life be filled with enough Sunshine 

to make you appreciate the Shadow

Advent Two - Peace be with you

I'm my worst critic.

I wrote a blog last Sunday about Hope.  And in the blog, I said that this week's candle is JOY.

I worked on my Bible study for November 30.  Because of scheduling for the month of December, we are focusing on two "candles" per study rather than one. I prepared for JOY.

At the end of the afternoon, I realized -- the second candle is PEACE.

I had no PEACE about that for a few hours.  I was really giving myself a lot of grief.

The women in the Bible study that night were very kind and forgiving.

Tuesday morning I listened to a Monday night voice mail that had come in after I was asleep.

"I'm going to Heaven", the voice said, "and I wanted to tell you I love you and Grace be with you"

One hour later, my brother, Lester telephoned - "Jonathan is with Jesus". 

That voice mail had been from my brother Jonathan at about 9:30 Texas time.  In about three hours, Jonathan passed away.  I'm pretty sure that when he said Grace, he meant to be saying PEACE.

For many reasons, life has not always been peaceful for Jonathan - and there have been times that there was no peace in the relationship that I shared with my Golf and Gator focused and some times very difficult brother.

But somehow, through God's grace the last couple of years we have worked our way into a much better place.

He has visited me a few times; we have talked about that faith that was instilled in us as children.  Since March of this year, I have talked with him each Sunday.  Last Sunday I sent a text to his wife, Tammie, with the words - "Tell Jonathan, I'll always think of our Sunday chats" and in a few minutes he called me to tell me "I've enjoyed our Sunday chats".  

And now it's Sunday.  There will be no Sunday chat with Jonathan.  However, it is the second Sunday of Advent and the candle of Peace will join the candle of Hope.

That's good because I'm having a hard time finding my smile - so I might not be Joyful.  

I smiled as I wrote those last words.  And then I thought of these words from Scripture:

"weeping may endure for the night, but Joy comes in the morning" 

Psalm 30:5

I'm not sure when this photo was taken, but I think his smile says it best -

Jonathan is at peace!

May your life be filled with enough Sunshine 

to make you appreciate the Shadow