Merry Christmas!!

Whether you're grinchy or jolly ,
naughty or nice ,
dreaming of snowflakes ,
or covered in ice,
may God grant you this Christmas
joy and good cheer
and fill you with gladness
throughout the new year!
Merry Christmas and God bless!!

Survey thing

I got tagged for this a while back by Bonnie, so here's my response!


A - Available/Single? Who's asking? :P
B - Best Friend? I've found a lot of trouble before revolving around this question...
C - Cake or Pie? Pie. Cake doesn't produce the same fascinating results when smacked in a person's face.
D - Drink Of Choice? Dr. Pepper! Coke's good too. And Café Mochas from Starbucks are really, really good.
E - Essential Item You Use Everyday? My computer
F - Favorite Color? Green, when it's not blue
G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? Worms, though I'd prefer gummy worms to regular ones.
H - Hair Style? Curly and kinda messy
I - Indulgence? Chocolate!
J - January Or February? January! My birthday's in January. :grin:
K - Kids & Their Names? 12. I haven't named them yet. Though it's getting tiring just referring to them by numbers. Thing one, thing two, and the like get rather old. Okay, okay, I don't have any kids. :P
L - Life Is Incomplete Without? Chocolate!! Oh, well, I suppose some would say that's not exactly a necessity...More seriously, prayer, God's Word, and Christian fellowship.
M - Marriage Date? Tomorrow sounds nice. Of course, a groom would be nice as well, so tomorrow might not work out.
N- Number Of Siblings? 6. What? Don't the dog and cat count?
O - Oranges Or Apples? :sigh: Haven't you learned by now that you can't compare the two?
P - Phobias/Fears? Fingernail files. Touch me with one and I'll hit you.
Q - Favorite Quote? I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
R - Reason to Smile? I'm getting a laptop soon, I've made some absolutely wonderfully fabulous friendships this past year, it's the Christmas season, I have a piece of cake in front of me waiting to be eaten, I have a stuffed otter sitting on top of my monitor, and I got a sweet e-card from a friend today telling me to get well.
S - Season? Christmas
T - Tag Three People? Beka, Mama, and Melissa.
U - Unknown Fact About Me? I can be a bit crazy at times. Oh, you already knew that? Hmm...I can bend my toes back more than 98% of other people can bend back their own toes.
V - Vegetable you don't like? Cabbage...at least, I didn't like it last time I tried it, when I was little. But I just discovered that after years of supposed hatred toward pickles, I actually like them, so who knows what might be possible.
W - Worst Habit? Worrying too much about how others might perceive me.
X - X-rays You've Had? I've had x-rays to my arm/hand/wrist various times. I think I had one done on my foot once, and I must have had one when I broke my collarbone when I was little.
Y - Your Favorite Food? Chocolate!
Z - Zodiac Sign? Capricorn. I'm not even sure how I know that, because I really don't care.

Lite Brite

This brings back memories! I remember having a Lite Brite when I was little and loving to play with it. Now you can play online! :)

Grace to You

There's something else I wanted to share after my reading of Galatians. It's not a new thought of mine, really, but something I've been turning over in my mind for a while.

I find it interesting to compare the opening addresses and closing notes in each of Paul's letters. He will often start by naming himself, and a coauthor if applicable, say who the letter is written to, then follow with blessings, thanks, and encouragement toward those people, all the while praising God. Take for example 1 Corinthians chapter 1:


Verse 1:
"Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,"

Paul states who is writing the letter.


Verse 2:
"To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:"

A very specific mention of the recipients.


Verses 3-9:
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

Blessings, thanks, and encouragement to the people, as well as praise of God.


His letters will often end with blessings, admonitions, greetings to fellow laborers, and an occasional request for prayer.

Then take this the closing of 2 Corinthians:

"Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen."

He's closing out his letter to them with encouraging notes and blessings, and has an obvious love for these people. I've been thinking for a while now about what we can learn from this, and wondering how, as Christians, we could follow this example.

Often today, relationships are so shallow, and people seem to lack a genuine care for one another. Such encouragement is rare. Part of that is because people don't take the time to get to know someone well enough to know how the person needs to be encouraged. If you don't know what someone is going through, how will you know in what way to encourage him? We should be there for one another, bear one another's burdens, and be an encouragement and support to each other. How can we effectively do so if we don't take the time to stop and truly get to know someone? I think it is also good to let people know how much we appreciate them, and let them know you are praying for them and thank God for them.

Those are just some thoughts I had while comparing these passages, and I mull this over from time to time. What can we learn from this, and how can we apply it to our relationships?

In the words of Paul, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Galatians

Being kept up late last night with my cold and asthma, I decided to get a bit of reading done. Sunday night, I was skipping around a bit in the New Testament, trying to decide what book to read next. I read a bit of Galatians and a bit of Philippians, then last night decided to go with Galatians. But this time, instead of continuing where I left off, I thought I'd start over and read all of Galatians straight through. It amazed me how much more I got out of it that way rather than skipping around reading a chapter at a time!

When you mentally break it up into sections, where it's divided up in your Bible, you can lose a lot of the context. When Galatians was written, there weren't chapters and section dividers. It was written as one long letter, and that's how it should be viewed. Too often, I think, verses are taken out of context and the overall picture seems to be lost. It's good to divide the Word and break it apart while studying it, but we need to take care not to look past the context and the big picture; don't get so wrapped up in the trees that you lose sight of the forest as a whole. You'll get lost much easier that way.

Bribes

I've had this cold for a week and a day now, and it just doesn't want to go away! I keep asking it to leave, but it seems quite content to stay. :sigh: It will let me think it's leaving, then announce its presence again, letting me know it hasn't gone anywhere. Today I did wake up not feeling so tired and run down, but the cold seems to have moved to my respiratory system now, which isn't good. I'm rather susceptible to respiratory infections and bronchitis, so I'm hoping and praying I won't get either of those!

This afternoon, I had a brilliant plan for getting rid of my cold: I could bribe it with chocolate! Few can resist the lures of chocolate, so my plan seemed sure to work. I would offer to eat chocolate if only my cold would go away. I proceeded to eat a nice, big piece of chocolate, all for the sake of my cold, you know, telling my cold how mighty obliged I would be if it would leave me in peace once it had its chocolate. But alas, it was to no avail. It would seem that my cold is one of those odd creatures that actually doesn't like chocoate, so my brilliant plan did no good, and the cold is still here. The chocolate made me happy though, so it wasn't completely in vain.

Odd Phone Calls

Several weeks ago, I got a call on my cell phone for someone asking if Toffee was here...I didn't have any toffee lying about, so I told them no. Just now, I got a call asking for ATM! I don't know if she was asking for someone called ATM, if she wanted to know if there was an ATM here, or if she thought I was an ATM, but it was rather odd.

And look, two posts in less than 24 hours! That hasn't happened in a while. We're not going to that Christmas ball after all, because it's just too short notice for getting together costumes and all. We're planning for the spring ball though! My hand is improving a lot too. I'm able to use it a lot more now. It's such a relief to have it healing on its own!

Christmas is Quickly Approaching!