Family

These are rough times for a lot of people. Companies are down-sizing. Those that are left behind are picking up more of the slack. I left the house this morning with thoughts of paying the rent, bills, tuition, and trying to do the math in my head. Although we've thought of cutting the kids back to one meal a day, we haven't done so (yet). Even though I'm a pastor, I still need to remind myself that God is in control and doesn't need a government bailout. And he has also created us with freewill -- the ability to make choices. Even when life seems bleak, we still have a choice. I stopped doing the math long enough to remind myself of that. I can choose to let God be in control. As ironic as it may sound, that is a most liberating of thoughts!

Hannah sat down this afternoon and said she would write my sermon for tomorrow. Here is what she came up with:Today’s sermon is about Christmas. Christmas is a time of joy, happiness, love, compassion, and many other virtues that lots of people forget. For those people in our towns, cities, states, and even our own personal lives, it’s not even about those virtues. The typical, non-Christian person’s idea of Christmas is a long morning full of unwrapping gifts and drinking hot cocoa next to a fire set ablaze.The Christian’s idea of a Christmas scene is a Nativity manger under a shack-looking thing with shepherds and wise men huddled around the newborn baby Jesus and his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph. How different is that from the other’s view who don’t see it like that? It might be identical. The wise men brought gifts, so do we need to automatically assume…