Christmas is less than a week away and I’m already looking beyond the holiday to the year ahead.  Clients of mine have been through very rough sledding this last year, due in part to the perilous economic times we live in.  Jobs are in short supply, and good jobs seem to be almost non-existent.  However, Christmas provides a good environment for perspective.  The man Jesus came to this earth in dire economic times, to a family extremely poor with no hope of any dramatic improvement in their circumstances.  He was born in a stable… with neither position nor influence that would allow them to enjoy anything close to being in an adequate environment for the birth of a child.  And his life after he was born was immediately in danger from a madman who governed the land in which he was born.  Perilous times indeed!

But the Good News of Christ’s birth still speaks to our hearts even two millennia after the actual event.  Out of desperation comes hope; out of discouragement comes wonder; and out of confusion comes wisdom.  Regardless of your circumstances this Christmas season, Jesus still provides us with perspective.  He still calls us to a life of faith, hope, and love, and His birth is the most poignant reminder of God’s overwhelming love for us.  And, all believers still exclaim along with the Apostle Peter, “Where else can we go?  You have the words of eternal life!”  So here’s to a Christmas where our thoughts are turned from ourselves and our own personal problems and predicaments, to the recounting of God’s blessings and a view ahead to the hope He alone can give us.  May you enjoy a Christmas with a view to eternity, and be reminded not only of the wisdom of Jesus, but also of the loving sacrifice He was for us all.  Merry Christmas!

Jim

Hospitals, emergencies, and unknowns…our health can be a great interruption in our lives and can take us away from the things that we desire to accomplish.  There is a reality that our lives are finite and the time that we have needs to be stewarded well.  Last week was a hospital week for me.  I have a history of gastric bleeds and this one required hospitalization and a blood transfusion.  To say I was sobered was an understatement.  But these are the best teachable moments we have and here are some of the things I learned or was once again reminded of:

• Relationships are most important.  Right before I went to the hospital, my wife asked me if I was afraid.  I told her no I wasn’t, but I was sad in thinking that I might not see my grandchildren grow up and I would miss her and my kids.
• God speaks loudly through our pain.  If ever there were a time to realize that I am not in control it’s when I’m ill.  God is in control and I am better for acknowledging it and accommodating myself to where He is taking me.
• I need to take care of my body.  I am an American (with German heritage!) and I push myself too hard and don’t care for my physical body as I should.  Nothing like an IV in your arm to remind me that I need to pay more attention to my physical needs.
• I need to use my time well.  Our lives here on earth are finite and I need to avail myself of the time allotted to me in such a way as to wring every drop of life out of every minute I live.

I could go on, but you get the gist of where I’m going.  If you read this, it’s just a friendly reminder to stay focused on the things that matter: your relationship with God, your loved ones, and the tasks that God has privileged you to perform on earth.  Everything else is fluff.

Jim

I was doing some reading recently and came across this quote by Anne Sexton, a poet:

"The great theme is not Romeo and Juliet....the great theme we all share is that of becoming ourselves, of overcoming our father and mother, of assuming our identities somehow."

I found this quote to be very thought-provoking.  Many, if not most of us, think the theme of our life should be love found in relationships with others.  In many ways it is central to our life being that God is Love and we are in relationship with Him because of His great Love for us.  However, if we don't know ourselves, if our identities are tangled up in our history and we are operating out of our wounds from the past, we cannot really know Love.  We cannot experience Love from God or others.  In our woundedness we seem to either move away from people as to protect ourselves from Love, move toward others demanding that they come through for us, or move against people.  None of these choices present a very viable option for us.  In knowing ourselves we can accept Love in its truest form with God and others.  

Untangling from our mothers and fathers can be hard, exhausting, and painful.  But I think the work is worth the greater reward, which is Love.

Melissa

Here, let me give you a magic pill. Just swallow it and you can go back to any moment of your life. You can either relive the experience, or change it. Where will you go? What will you do?

Unless you're still young, I bet that you, like me, would return to the moment of your deepest regret. This time, though, you would do something different. You would try to avoid the regret.

I frequently meet people who just want things to go back to the way they were before something happened. The "something" may have been a significant loss, a bad choice, or a catastrophic event that altered them in a way they wish could be undone. They long for the way things use to be.

We can't go back. No matter how hard we wish, no matter how hard we try, we can't erase those events that have become part of our life story. So what can we do?

We can spend our lives consumed by regret, focusing on what we lost or what might have been, always looking backward. Or we can try to ignore our regret, pretending it never happened, living a kind of lie. Either of these choices will keep us from living an abundant life. There is a better choice...

Acknowledge your regret and recognize it as an important part of your life story. This perspective does not minimize or excuse past failures, but it does realize the power of grace. The wonder of grace is that our deepest pains can become a catalyst for our most significant growth. We can't go back to the way things were, but we can have a realistic hope for something even better. Sometimes broken things heal in ways that make them even stronger than before.

Tim Tedder