Christmas Day Reflection

What a beautiful celebration of the Light at Concordia yesterday and today. Today it has been a beautiful day of quiet celebration of love surrounded by family and tonight a silent night. Aside from the dramatic message last night of light piercing the darkness that is vivid in my memory I also remember the encouragement to make time, slow down and incorporate some “silent nights” into your life. Time that is so necessary to be able to hear the voice of God, the nudging of God and the encouragement of God.

I am taking that encouragement to heart. I think this is a lesson that has been stirring in my heart over the last year anyway. Last year one word that was a theme of focus for me was “surrender” and I think my word for 2014 will be “silence.” As is always the case, the word usually finds me. I am thinking I can benefit from:

–stillness and silence to listen and not always fill conversations with chatter or opinions. I think this will bring greater wisdom.

–silence to notice the quiet moments of beauty around that go unnoticed in busyness.

–silence to extend my time in quiet reflection and meditation with God.

–silence to reflect and flesh out ideas more. Good and creative ideas need breath and space to become what they are meant to be.

–stillness as a reminder to stop from rushing from one thing to the next.

–silence and stillness to just be the person God created me to be.

For a person that is task oriented and loves to measure in a tangible way the progress of things, this will not be an easy thing to remember to do. But I have seen this year, how it enriches my life and deepens my experience in my everyday life when I incorporate stillness, silence, solitude and quiet.

Christmas…..celebrating the light of the world!

We are excited to prepare for our Christmas celebration. Celebrating the light that came to disperse the darkness…..we are creating an atmosphere that will echo the theme of light. We hung special lighting and a wall of lighted stars and angels and star art created by the children of Concordia. Then there will be the candlelight! Real candlelight for adults and flickering electric tealights for the children.

I am excited we are creating a message and multisensory memory for families.  The message of Jesus, light of the world. The message imprinted on the mind, memory and heart as we each hold the light in our hands and hearts.

Yes, I am praying that the clear message will be so burned into the memory that we will remember it for a very long time. I know that through the working of the Holy Spirit, we will learn and remember that Jesus, the light of the world, comes down to be among us and to save us because of His great love for each one of us….His creation. It will be a beautiful night of light. It is a beautiful life of light.  I am praying for people to be touched like never before, maybe for the first time!

Don’t miss that touch of light……from the Light of the world, Jesus!

http://www.concordiachurch.com

Great day for a great message.

We had 180 guest preachers yesterday for church outside of church. They were ages 2-5! They spoke about Jesus with total conviction and 700 people were hanging on every word and movement.

Yes our annual living nativity program was yesterday. We had a downpour of rain on Saturday but the field we had set up for the program was dry the next morning, thankfully! The air was crisp…just the way you would want for a Christmas program especially since steaming hot chocolate and butter cookies were part of the experience!

Here are some photos that show some of the joy and commitment of the children to the telling of the timeless story of the timeless Christ.

Enjoy. Join me in thanking God for the opportunity to take the message of Christmas to our community in Windingwalk.

This young man changed my life!

Twenty six years wash over me and although cliche, it seems like yesterday i sat by the glow of christmas tree lights in the wee hours of the morning thinking about the future man this little baby would be. The task seemed entirely doable because I knew the measure of love in my heart for him was infinite and that seemed a clear signal to me that God would equip me to love, guide and cherish this little boy’s heart.

We have birthday celebration plans after the Living Nativity but we were able to steal away for this impromptu lunch on his birthday and a kind girl snapped this shot of us.

I look at this photo and there is so much I am grateful for. Mostly I am grateful that God did indeed equip me, assist me and encourage me at every turn over the last 26 years to be able to mother this young man. What joy he has brought me and I know will continue to bring me.

I am just grateful to God for things I cant even find the words to express.

Living Nativity

Being able to tell the story of the birth of Jesus in the “town square” is one of the special privileges we have in this community of Windingwalk. That happens this Sunday, at 10am. Nearly 180 children from the ages of 2 – 5 will sing and dance (well, it might be more properly called “music and movement”). It is an awesome production to experience. We are inviting our whole community to this program and for this SUnday morning, we take church outside of church!
Please join us. Bring your own lawn chair and sit down and listen to the telling of the timeless story of Jesus in a whole new way!