One evening this week I was in a store and I overheard two couples who were friends and had bumped into one another in the aisle chatting.

“How are you doing?” one woman asked.

“I’m worn out, just like everyone else at this time of year!” came the answer in a disgusted tone of voice.

This woman looked and sounded like Scrooge.  “Ba-humbug!”  She had let everything crowd in on her instead of focusing on what was most important.

Today is Christmas Eve’s eve. How are you feeling, friend? Tired? Stressed out? Overwhelmed?  Has there been so much busyness going on that you’re just ready for Christmas to be over with?  If so, can I encourage you to take time today to just stop and be still?  Refresh your heart for Christmas by getting your Bible and finding a spot to be alone with the Lord, perhaps in front of the Christmas tree.  Open to Luke 2 and slowly read the Christmas story.  Ponder what sights and sounds you would hear as you join the shepherds on the starry hillside.  Would a cold wind be blowing through the stable where Mary and Joseph were caring for baby Jesus?  What baby-like sounds would come from his mouth?  Can you hear Him?  Think about the awe of stooping over the manger to peek inside, and rejoice as Simeon and Anna did at His coming.

The devil would love for us to be so sidetracked with our preparations for Christmas that we never stop to behold the Babe.  Be refreshed in your heart and  your Christmas spirit by spending time adore Him. You’ll leave that place ready to finish things up with a right heart and a sweet attitude.  A crabby woman at Christmas isn’t such a pretty package!

Merry Christmas!

With love,

This past Tuesday morning I was in a mad search through my house looking for some money that I had lost.  It’s not like me to lose things, but the truth is, I could not think of where it would be!  I had opened a stack of mail and piled the envelopes on the coffee table.  Then I remembered taking the empty envelopes to…THE TRASH!  It seemed very logical that I had also dumped the cash that was in my hand into the trash with the envelopes.  And so my sweet husband went out (on his own kind initiative) and got the trash bag from the day before, and proceeded to sift through the coffee grounds and banana peels until he found the stack of envelopes.  However, the search came up empty.  No cash.  ~sigh~

I tore the house apart, straightening drawers in the process of looking for the currency.  As I searched, the Lord brought to my mind the parable I had recently read in my reading through the Gospels; it is the parable of The Lost Coin in Luke 15:8, 9  What woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?   While I was looking high and low, the Lord was speaking to my heart about my lack of diligence to look that fervently for sinners that need the Savior.  It was very convicting.  I fail at this over and over again.

Meanwhile, the search continued and I decided that I would go to the trash and have another look – just in case my husband had missed it.  Ooooo, nastiness and filth!  The trashcan?  You’ve got to be kidding me?  I am not a dumpster diver and have no desire to begin now, but this was a valuable loss and I needed to find it, so I, too, fingered through the bag of trash we had recently disposed of…piece by piece.  Nothing but trash was found.

I heard the Lord’s voice in my heart as I came inside…Would you be willing to get dirty to give the Gospel to someone?  Would you do what you normally would not do so that someone else might hear the Truth?  Wow.

I continued to pray that the Lord would reveal the place where the lost money was.  In a last ditch effort, I had retraced my steps from the day before, then decided to head across the hall to Allison’s bedroom, which is of course vacated in her absence.  As I neared her dressing table, I looked with disbelief.  There it was, tucked underneath some Christmas cards that had come for her.  I began calling to my husband, “I found it!”   You can’t imagine the relief and the happiness at the discovery!

Then, once again, a verse from the  parable came to mind –  And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. What joy there is in seeing a soul saved!  There is rejoicing in heaven as well as on earth! 

It really doesn’t matter how that money got to that dressing table; I know the Lord allowed it to teach me a very real lesson.  I need to give a more desperate search for sinners that need my Savior. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever lost something of value and scoured through the house looking for it, but it is exhausting (and dirty) work!  May you and I go after lost souls with at least as much earnestness, and then come rejoicing when the lost has been found!  Christmas lends itself to many opportunities to share the Gospel with others.  Ask the Lord to make you aware of those opportunities and to see the “lost coins” that are all around you.

With love,