Merry Christmas Ya'll

Merry Christmas my wonderful faith-filled, prayer warrior bloggy friends!!!

As many of you know our family had the most wonderful, awesome, miracles from the Lord recently when our daughter Katie in Florida was gravely ill and miraculously recovered completely and is totally whole.....PRAISE JESUS FOR EVERMORE!!! HE IS FAITHFUL!!!

I just got back to AZ a few days ago and kicking my Christmas shopping into HIGH GEAR before returning to FL next week to celebrate a joyous Christmas with Katie and her husband. As you can imagine, having only gotten a few things done before I suddenly went to be by her side I've got my lists and checking them twice before heading out today!!!

I "power decorated" my house last night (a far cry from ABabyChangesEverything - luv her site)........this year less is more, easier and quicker.....We're having Christmas with our AZ kids and my mom this weekend. Needless to say, my last minute Christmas shopping will go into hyper speed today and I'm gonna love and treasure every minute of it...........When you've almost lost your child and seen God's hand perform such miracles, it puts "things" into a powerfully precious perspective.

Before I dropped everything to rush to Florida to be with Katie several weeks ago, I found an old magazine article that touched my heart and want to share it with you. It is in such sharp contrast to the days we are living in! I dare say that nowhere, in any secular magazine or retail store will you find such clear references to Jesus, His Birth and His affect upon this world. My heart was deeply saddened when I went to my neighborhood Walmart and found that they didn't sell nativity scenes or individual nativity characters like they always have. I inquired about it with the store manager and was told to talk to their headquarters.........their buyers determine what will sell and apparently there is not a market for Nativity scenes. No real surprise, considering the times we're living in. But having just witnessed first hand with my Katie's healing what the wonderworking power in the Name of Jesus and His Promises will do it saddens my heart! He came to set man free and shed His Blood for each and everyone of us. The blindness of their eyes and hardness of heart is astounding to me! But before His Love and Grace pierced by heart and I "saw" Him and accepted Him as my Lord and Savior, I was just like them! I'm earnestly praying that during this season and in 2010 the hearts of men will so hunger and thirst for righteousness and be so overshadowed by the Holy Spirit that they will cry out to KNOW the one and only true and living Savior - JESUS!!

So without further adieu........Please take a moment and enjoy this fifty year old Christmas article - I think it will bless you!

Christmas Thoughts For All The Year

By the Editors of McCall's, December 1959

CHRISTMAS is celebration; and celebration is instinct in the heart. With gift and feast, with scarlet ribbon and fresh green bough, with merriment and the sound of music, we commend the day - oasis in the long, long landscape of the commonplace. Through how many centuries, through how many threatening circumstances, has Christmas been celebrated since that cry came ringing down the ages,

"Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord".

Christmas is celebration, but the traditions that cluster sweetly around the day have significance only if they translate the heart's intention - the yearning of the human spirit to compass and express faith and hope and love. Without this intention, the gift is bare, and the celebration a touch of tinsel, and the time without meaning. As these attributes, exemplifying the divine spark in mankind, informed the first Christmas and have survived the onslaughts of relentless time, so do they shine untarnished in this present Year of our Lord.

Faith and hope and love, which cannot be bought or sold or bartered but only given away, are the wellsprings, firms and deep, of Christmas celebration. These are the gifts without price, the ornaments incapable of imitation, discovered only within oneself and therefore unique. They are not always easy to come by, but they are in unlimited supply, ever in the province of all.

This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion, and replace it with trust.

Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth.

Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Find the time.

Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen.

Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand. Flout envy.

Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else.

Appreciate. Be kind; be gentle. Laugh a little, Laugh a little more.

Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice. Decry complacency.

Express your gratitude. Go to church. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love. Speak it again.

Speak it still once again.

These are but inklings of a vast category; a mere scratching of the surface. They are simple things; you have heard them all before; but their influence has never been measured.

Christmas is celebration, and there is no celebration that compares with the realization of its true meaning - with the sudden stirring of the heart that has extended itself toward

the core of life.

Then, only then, is it possible to grasp the significance of that first Christmas - to savor in the inward ear the wild, sweet music of the angel choir; to envision the star-struck sky, and glimpse, behind the eyelids, the ray of light that fell athwart a darkened path and

changed the world.

Praying that the wonder of His Presence dwells in your heart and home this Christmas season!

Love, Merry Christmas and Sweet Blessings!

Fa La La La La going shopping!

Jackie