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Grace, that attitude of God which allows him to forgive, support, and love us no matter what we do. It’s hard for us humans to wrap our brain around that kind of love, but we know it’s true. This month in our Drop-In class we are studying the faces of grace. Some of them are surprising.
It was a beautiful day to start the New Year and new decade. Well, it was a beautiful day in northern Virginia. The temperature that day was warmer than usual, the sun brighter, and the sky was perfectly clear blue. Just the day before my mom, my cousin and I had gone to the movies to see “A Beautiful Day.”
I spend a lot of time during the year encouraging you to share love. Love is the last of the themes for the advent season. While I know technically advent is over, we need to visit this theme. Why? Because telling you to share love sounds simple and clear, but it isn’t simple. I mean do you know exactly how to do that? I talk about it a lot and yet how often do I do it? How often do you?
What does joy mean to you? It can mean pleasure or happiness, but what does it mean to you? Can you picture yourself filling a Christmas stocking for a child? You put in lots of small seemingly trivial things that often please them more than some of the “big” gifts you have wrapped. You can’t always predict what will bring joy to a person. Perhaps that is the magic of Christmas. Finding what brings you joy, or what gives someone else joy. Despite what you may see on the surface joy is everywhere.
Yes, I looked it up and peaces can be used to refer to different types of peace. Peace is a noun. And since the second advent candle is the peace candle, I thought we needed to take a closer look. The angels came to the shepherds in the fields and sang out glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill toward men. Now that particular peace is a blessing. The angels were there to deliver great and glorious news.
I have always felt there are two types of Christians during the holidays. One group stays inside their snow globes protected, they think, from the materialism and chaos. The other group is out in the chaos bringing the real reason for Christmas to as many as they can. One group is guarded, protective, and the other embraces the opportunities to share.
