Shepherd's Heart 12/13/24
It had been a trying half a year. Covid had hit and rocked the world. Personally, I struggled with not being able to travel and see family and friends, and then just when I thought it could not get worse I came down with something known as “Valley Fever”. Valley Fever is a form of pneumonia that comes from spores in the dust of the desert. However you describe it, it wracks your body! So, during Covid quarantine, my bedridden journey with Valley Fever, and the insistent 100+ degree days of the desert that seem to wear you down, as I was recovering, I decided to put up our Christmas tree on Labor Day weekend.
It was such good medicine for my soul! Now before you judge me, know I have always been a “not until after Thanksgiving” type of person. But the cry of hope and promise of “I am with you” needed to be heard in my soul. The lights of the tree did that for me. I knew it was not supposed to be there firing up the beauty of its lights in our family room… but there it was. Although we decided to not decorate it until at least the end of October, the tree with its lights was all that was needed!
This season is more than a season. This season is the gift of life and the hope in the birth of Jesus that is realized in the gift of redemption through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We live because He lives!
Celebrate as you will, but for me the “Hope…Love…Joy…Peace” of what we have been preaching during Advent is a gift for every day we are alive. I no longer think of this moment we celebrate as “Christmas”, as a seasonal experience, but rather a life-giving gift from God that travels with us every day of our lives.
In John 8:12 Jesus says “I am the Light of the World” and Jesus calls us to be that Light in Matthew 5:14-16…every day!
Oh, that beautiful Christmas tree…Let your light shine!
~Pastor Greg Wenhold
It was such good medicine for my soul! Now before you judge me, know I have always been a “not until after Thanksgiving” type of person. But the cry of hope and promise of “I am with you” needed to be heard in my soul. The lights of the tree did that for me. I knew it was not supposed to be there firing up the beauty of its lights in our family room… but there it was. Although we decided to not decorate it until at least the end of October, the tree with its lights was all that was needed!
This season is more than a season. This season is the gift of life and the hope in the birth of Jesus that is realized in the gift of redemption through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We live because He lives!
Celebrate as you will, but for me the “Hope…Love…Joy…Peace” of what we have been preaching during Advent is a gift for every day we are alive. I no longer think of this moment we celebrate as “Christmas”, as a seasonal experience, but rather a life-giving gift from God that travels with us every day of our lives.
In John 8:12 Jesus says “I am the Light of the World” and Jesus calls us to be that Light in Matthew 5:14-16…every day!
Oh, that beautiful Christmas tree…Let your light shine!
~Pastor Greg Wenhold
Posted in Shepherds Heart