Advent

I love Christmas.  I love December and our family has a few birthdays, like 3.  I love the feeling of pulling out the lights and decorations and settling in for evenings of sledding and drinking hot chocolate.  And I love Advent, the preparing in our hearts for the coming King, our Savior.  It happened already, 2000 years ago, and we get the joy and knowledge of knowing that Jesus already came, we can re-celebrate every year!  Not like the B.C. believers, who were waiting for their Messiah, wondering how much longer.... waiting in a different way. We don't have to wait anymore for His coming to bring life;  we do get to wait for His coming again, the final fulfillment of promise... to bring judgment, make all wrongs right... to bring the era of true Kingship, peace on earth forever. 

And I can see in my imagination how the little baby came and made the world start spinning, new thoughts, new discoveries for so many, Gentiles added to the faith, just a wee baby.  I pray for new discoveries for this Christmas, for someone, for a friend who needs to find Him, for a neighbor lost in the wrong cycle, for the empty needing to feel full and not alone.

We're doing Advent Days of service this year.  Instead of just a waxy chocolate treat and another day closer, we're giving something of ourselves each day.  So for 15 days, we are focusing on someone else...

Yesterday was our HOPE day... we packed a bag of "hope" to take to the Food Bank.

Today is our day called BELIEVE...  we're up to our elbows in cookie dough for Living Nativity, our church's gift to the community, which sees many come to "believe" every year, we hope lemon sugar cookies help.