Advent Day 19

There is room at the manger for everyone. Happy people, sad people, rich and poor, young ones, old ones, you and me.

Our community has had more than its usual share of deaths recently.  My church's "Pray for grieving families" prayer list increased by 6 names last week. Charlotte Smith, Oline Davis, Wayne Owens, Rosella Tahah, Chad Thompson, Bernice Eichling. The families of these people are grieving at Christmas time. There is room for them at the manger where they will find comfort.

We think we have to be happy and cheerful at Christmas. But really we can be whoever we are, feel whatever is appropriate, as long as we seek God and spend time at the manger.

Some of the new people on our prayer list do not attend church.  I don't know how a person survives grief without a connection to God and the support of people with that same connection. One good thing about a small community is that support is available. All of the churches are praying for these people.  Most community members, whether they go to church or not, take action to serve those in need. There will be visits, food, cards and all kinds of help offered.  In a way, they are bringing the manger to the people who need it the most.

Blessings to you throughout Advent and I'll see you at the manger.

Advent Day 10

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
     righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
    and righteousness will look down form the sky.

~ Psalm 85: 10-11

How's that for beautiful imagery?

The theme today is peace on earth.  How does one bring peace on earth?

I experienced peace throughout this day.  It was brought to me by the lady in Walgreen's who laughed and joked with me while she looked for my collage. It was brought to me again by the cashier in Hobby Lobby who smiled and said she'd be glad to check me out too, even though she meant to take her lunch break after the customer in front of me. And more peace checking out in Ross. Sales people are not always friendly and peaceful, especially at this busy time of year.  But my girl was a gem, taking care of my items, talking like friends, being pleasant and smiling the whole time. Lunch at Atlanta Bread was perfect. The food was delicious, the latte even more so. It was 3:00 pm and not so busy. Friends enjoying a meal or a coffee or a snack together, the busboy wishing everyone happy holidays, the workers tending to business while tending to the customers all created an ambiance of peace.

Next stop was work at the public library and the peace wrapped up in joy continued.  I work with great people, fun and funny, thoughtful and quirky, quiet and interesting. I had an envelope in my mailbox from Beth. Oh my gosh, she is so creative. I will add a picture to this post of all the items. Not only creative but clever, the thing I love the most is a book mark made out of a sample paint strip. When I saw it, I laughed and then I smiled and then I hunted down Beth and hugged her.

It was slow at the library due to the ice, snow and cold but there were people there who needed my help.  It's good to be on the other side of giving peace.  I'm constantly amazed at how appreciative people are and how they don't keep it to themselves. It was a calm and easy night, pure peace.

So how does one bring peace on earth? One small act at a time.

Blogging

I've been writing all of my life. I kept a diary in elementary school recording the important daily events for posterity. I continued diary writing through high school when I also wrote dark and dreary poems and bad song lyrics. In college I found out I liked to write papers. Research was fun. During grad school I was also an intern at the church I attended. I learned from the youth pastor to keep a thank diary. I highly recommend this. Being consciously aware of and purposefully looking for the good things in your life is the best mental health medicine there is.

Meeting people and moving around gave me opportunity to become a good letter writer. That's what people did before email. I read about a poet who had correspondence with hundreds of people. I thought that was the most amazing thing. I tried to be like him but never even came close to my first 100 pen pals. When I got married I kept a file of the letters I received and prayed daily for the people to whom I owed letters. I told my friends about the file, letting them know that the sooner they wrote back, the sooner they'd be on my prayer list again. My mom and I wrote to each other every week for decades. I miss those letters.

Then somehow, sometime, technology hit. I learned to send email. My first account was with Juno. What fun! Then again, somehow I learned to make web pages with Dreamweaver. Writing on the Internet. I was hooked on technology and I'm still a bit of a junkie. Somewhere along the line I became a newsletter mogul, first doing a weekly school newsletter during the school year only, then adding a monthly year round newsletter at the public library and finally a weekly newsletter for my church. The writing I do for all of these newsletters is primarily dispensing information. I love it. I get paid to write and everyone appreciates what I do because they're glad they don't have to do it. Works for me.

Then another stroke of technology genius, the blog. My daughter created a blog for her nephew and invited me (his grandma) and her sister (his mom) to contribute to the blog. We've kept it private, an adoring history of his life. He loves to look at his blog and has even helped create part of it. He's five-years-old. It hooked me on blogging. I started a school library blog that lays dormant during the summer. I blog with my students on classblogmeister.com. They don't enjoy writing, unless it's in a text message. I was sure I could impart my passion for writing, but so far they are just humoring me.

Then I created my own personal blog. I didn't know what I was doing or where I was going with it. It's somewhat of an online diary, but not nearly as disclosing as the old diary with a lock and key. I like to share funny episodes and be inspiring when I can. This month I am blogging daily and reposting on NaBloPoMo. It's a wonderful site for bloggers. I have met some fabulous people there. The first person I met on Nablo is a school librarian who lives in Oklahoma. We have a few things in common. On the other side of that coin is my new friend from Ireland who lives with her husband in India. We share a surname, "Perry." Last but not least is Heather who writes the funniest comments. My life is richer because of all of you.

I've been mulling over blogging lately and wondering what more I could do with it. Max Lucado wrote that God gives us talents and He wants us to use those talents to do His work. We usually enjoy the things we are good at, or get good at the things we enjoy. So working for God shouldn't be treacherous work, it should be fun. How could I blog for God? I write a couple of times a week on our church blog, created by my daughter and mostly maintained by me. I wanted to do a blog with a more specific focus and I wanted to see what wordpress is like so I created "A Walk Through the Bible" on wordpress in which we will read the whole Bible in four years. What else are you going to be doing for the next four years? I've only posted three times. Take a look if you want to. I'd like to journey through the Bible together.